Queens of Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  “I want to help you.” Brenna let Jess ease her head back down on her shoulder, and she sagged bonelessly against her. “Please, tell me how.”

  Jess’s hold tightened around her, keeping her safe. “Be right here, querida.” Her lips moved in Brenna’s hair. “Be here every time I wake up.”

  “Ah, Jess.” Tears rose behind Brenna’s closed lids. “Of course I will.”

  She was cherished by this remarkable, amazing woman. And Brenna didn’t know which Goddess to thank for that miracle, so she thanked all of them for the dark warrior in her arms as they both drifted back to sleep.

  *

  “Brenna?”

  Brenna rubbed her eyes, surprised to find herself upright and awake. Or apparently awake. She blinked and realized she was standing in one of Tristaine’s most beautiful gardens, a lavish feast of flowers with origins from a dozen different lands. The air was sunny and quiet, and she sensed no hint of danger.

  Then she turned and saw Elise walking toward her and felt a thrill of surprise. This was not the child Elise, but it wasn’t her idealized essence, either. This young woman was fully human. There was no spectral white robe, no marble basin. She wore the simple longshirt and leggings of any Amazon. But here, again, in this peaceful garden, Elise wept.

  Brenna stepped carefully toward her through the flowers. Elise stumbled slightly, and Brenna took her cold hands in her own. Her niece’s green eyes were still achingly beautiful, but they held none of the serene remoteness of her spirit form. They were bloodshot and desolate.

  “Brenna,” Elise said again, and then lowered her head, unable to go on.

  “Take your time, honey. I’m here, I’m listening.” Sweet Gaia, Brenna thought, she does look like a little girl. Like a child who knows she’ll never see her mother again.

  And Brenna knew Samantha was dead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elise’s small, fragile body roused a powerful tenderness in Jess, a maternity that was all but foreign to her. She had never felt drawn toward mothering a child, and doubted she ever would, but the forlorn misery of the little girl riding in front of her on Bracken’s back tore Jess’s heart.

  Elise had awakened in tears that morning. She didn’t sob; she made no sound at all. Her lower lip pushed out, and her large eyes welled and overflowed. She didn’t answer Brenna’s gentle questions and didn’t respond when she finally heard the terrible words. Brenna hadn’t had to say them. It was obvious to everyone watching that Elise already knew her mother was gone.

  Jess wanted to have Brenna riding astride Bracken with them. One look at her adonai’s stunned features told her how badly she needed physical comfort. Brenna rode stiffly and alone on her bay, her first horse, whose name she had chosen to please her little sister.

  But necessity must rule, with Tristaine still in danger. Brenna couldn’t carry a child safely on an unseasoned horse, not at the pace they traveled. Eva, a nurse, rode with Vicar, who was still dazed and aching from the bullet wound and the flu. Jenny’s arms were clasped around Kyla’s waist, her eyes squeezed shut as they cantered through a broad field. Dana’s horse carried more of their supplies to free the others to ride double.

  Crossing the pass had been nerve shredding and cruelly slow, but they had made it over the narrow passage without disaster. Jess spotted a bright cloth tied to a low branch as they emerged from the cliffs, and she went weak with relief. Hakan had left them assurance that she, too, had crossed safely.

  Twilight was falling as they reached the meadow’s end, and Jess signaled a halt. Their lathered horses snorted to a stop.

  “Our big friends have done well, they’ve earned their feed.” Jess clapped Bracken’s damp neck. “I call for a brief rest before we put more leagues behind us.”

  Soft groans of relief convinced Jess that her adanin needed this respite as much as their horses. They couldn’t spare a full night here, but Selene would rise in an hour and light their path toward Tristaine.

  “Uh, Jess, someone?” Eva, seated behind Vicar on her roan, was struggling to hold the sagging warrior erect. “We need some help here.”

  “Jeeze, Vic!” Dana jumped off her horse and ran to help Eva lower Vicar to the ground.

  Jess lifted Elise off Bracken’s back, wincing at the pain in her side as she handed her down to Kyla. She joined Brenna next to her cousin, her heart thumping queasily in her chest.

  Vicar was conscious, pushing weakly against Dana’s supporting arms. “Stop, this is bloody embarrassin’.”

  “Hush, Vic.” Brenna checked the wound on the back of her shoulder. It looked to Jess to be healing well.

  “She was fine until we pulled up,” Eva said quietly. “I think she’s just beat.”

  Dana, who had had more than one nasty brawl with Vicar when she first joined Tristaine, held her now with solicitous care. “When did you give her and Jess our magic juice, Brenna, two days ago? How long does it take to kick in?”

  “It’s already kicking.” Brenna sat back on her heels and appraised Vicar. “It’ll be a few days before the kestadine takes full effect, Vic, but your fever’s broken. With food and some decent sleep, you’ll live to ride again.”

  Vicar grumbled a petulant war cry that loosened the band of worry around Jess’s chest. She felt Brenna’s cool hand on her face.

  “What about you?” Brenna’s expression was oddly wooden, but the love in her touch was unmistakable. “Your fever’s gone too, but you still have to be feeling pretty rotten, Jesstin.”

  “Aye,” Jess admitted easily. “But I’ll eat and rest, too.”

  “Aye, you will.” Brenna glanced past Jess, and got to her feet. “I’ll be back,” she said quietly, and walked away from them, toward a small hill nearby covered with wildflowers.

  Jess turned and saw Kyla behind her, holding Elise on her hip. She watched Brenna compassionately. Kyla, too, had loved Samantha deeply.

  “Lay camp, adanin.” Jess leaned an elbow on her knee and got stiffly to her feet. Jenny patted her arm sympathetically as Jess walked past her, keeping sight of Brenna as she disappeared over the hill.

  *

  Some instinct told Jess to allow Brenna her distance until the first storm of weeping had passed.

  Jess waited at the top of the hill, her hands clasped tightly behind her, aching with the need to hold her young wife. Brenna sat halfway down the gentle slope, her head buried in crossed arms, her shoulders shaking violently. Finally, after interminable minutes, Jess walked quietly down to join her.

  Brenna lifted a trembling hand when Jess settled beside her, not quite ready for touch. Jess filled her lungs with clean mountain air, and asked her Mothers for the wisdom to comfort this woman she loved more than sunlight. She had never doubted her intuition where Brenna was concerned, but then Brenna’s heart had never been this cruelly devastated.

  “I’m s-sorry.” Brenna cleared her throat. “I just couldn’t see Elise’s face, back there. Sh—she looks so much like Sammy.”

  “Aye, she does. It’s all right, Bren. Take all the time you need.”

  Brenna nodded dully. For all the life in her features, they could have been seated before the City Clinic gates instead of this beautiful expanse of cliffs and meadows.

  “Is it because she wasn’t Amazon?” Brenna sounded honestly bewildered. “Is that why Sammy didn’t rate Artemis’s protection?”

  Jess was silent for a moment. She reached for a scarlet wildflower and plucked it, and fingered its tender leaves thoughtfully. “Samantha is well-loved in Tristaine, Brenna. Our Mothers know her kindness, the sweetness of her spirit.” She laid the wildflower in Brenna’s lap. “Amazon or not, I believe They hold our little sister precious in Their hearts, just as we do.”

  “She was twenty-four years old, Jess.” Brenna showed her the flower, fresh, vibrant with color, but dying even now. She tossed it aside and stood up gracelessly. “Samantha was healthy. She had no chronic medical conditions. If the Goddess who guides Tristaine is picking and choosing
the sisters we lose, She had to stretch hard to take Sammy.”

  Jess made herself stay seated in the high grass as Brenna stumbled away from her.

  “Three fucking days?” Brenna searched the craggy mountain peaks, and Jess knew she was addressing invisible Listeners. “She couldn’t have lived three days longer to see her daughter? To hold Elise, just once?” She scrubbed her arm across her eyes and put one hand on her hip, fighting for composure, then turned to Jess.

  “We put Samantha through hell, Jesstin. She had a family, she had work she loved, and then Amazon Nation fell on her life. Like an axe. And she gave us...” Brenna had to pause again. “Sammy gave us Elise. She gave Tristaine a queen. Don’t you think that should merit one tiny, bloody shred of Gaia’s mercy?”

  “Aye, I do.” Jess got to her feet and closed the distance between them. Brenna let her come, but the heartbreak evident in every line of her body almost winded Jess. “I don’t know why Sammy was taken from us, Bren. The injustice of her suffering galls my spirit, too. We can’t change her sad fate, but one thing we can do for Sam. And we will.”

  Jess took Brenna’s hands. “We’ll see that her baby is raised cherished and free, in the heart of a loving clan. You risked your life to give your Sammy a wonderful gift, lass. You saved her child from prison, and delivered her to sisters who will nurture and guide her, all her days. Samantha’s joy in this must be immense.”

  Tears welled in Brenna’s eyes again, and she let Jess take her in her arms at last. Jess cradled her, and then held her up as she sobbed, her own tears blending with Brenna’s.

  It gradually occurred to Jess that a light rain had begun to fall. She heard it, but she didn’t feel it, and she scanned the cloudless skies, puzzled. Then she realized the hillside beyond their private embrace was dry. The fresh rain fell in a small, perfect ring around her and Brenna, not touching them, just gently encircling their grief.

  She turned Brenna’s head on her shoulder, so she could see the bright drops showering around them. “We’re not alone in weeping for Samantha, adonai.”

  They held each other until the rain stopped, and stars began to appear in the darkening heavens.

  *

  “Jesstin! Elise is gone!”

  Dana’s shout galvanized Jess, and she grabbed Brenna’s hand and powered up the hill, ignoring the ache in her side.

  “What happened, Dana?” Fear sharpened Brenna’s tone.

  “We were laying camp.” Dana spoke rapidly. “She was there, and then she wasn’t.”

  Jess’s mind sorted quickly through what she remembered of the surrounding terrain. “How long gone?”

  “No more than ten minutes, Jess.” Dana nodded back toward their camp. “Eva’s staying with Vicar. Jenny and Kyla are searching the meadow.”

  “Then we’ll take the forest beyond the pasture,” Jess said. “Spread out, but stay in each other’s sight.”

  They moved quickly through the deepening twilight, the stars emerging in isolated pinpricks overhead. It was dim and treacherous light to search by, and Jess called on her other senses to detect any sign of Elise. She cursed the lingering fogginess that afflicted her thinking and slowed her reflexes. Soon the trees surrounded them, still sparse this close to the cliffs.

  “Call her, Bren.”

  “Elise!” Brenna’s cry was strident, and Jess knew she was imagining the child confronting a bear or toppling into a swift stream. She shared those visions. Jess shuddered at the thought of telling Shann, mere days after she lost her younger daughter, that she had let harm come to this little girl.

  “Elise, honey, sing out!” Brenna managed to project a less anxious tone, and Jess listened intently for a response. She heard nothing but the faint song of a nightbird on a high branch.

  Jess could see Dana weaving through the trees several yards ahead, and Brenna turning in place off to her right. Then she realized she could see Brenna more clearly with every passing second, and she came to a startled halt. Jess held out her palms, and they filled with silver light. A luminous glow washed down from the sky on all three of them, growing steadily brighter.

  Brenna turned and pointed to the northern heavens, and Jess sighted the source of the eerie illumination. The Seven Sisters pulsed overhead with a fierce intensity, like sparking pinwheels in the blue-gray sky. Even as Jess watched, their light gathered and narrowed, and became a pure beam pointing above their heads. The beam disappeared behind a thick bank of trees just ahead.

  Jess whistled sharply, and they broke into a run.

  She heard a high-pitched yapping sound before she broke through the trees and saw the child. Elise was sitting in a large patch of wildflowers, brightly illuminated by the silver light, her small hand extended to a prancing wolf pup. Jess read the danger in a heartbeat and kept running, forcing more speed from her aching legs.

  The pup was young, perhaps not even weaned. Its mother would be close by, with the rest of its pack. Elise was obviously enchanted by the dancing little creature and ignored Brenna’s breathless call.

  A ferocious growling prickled the nape of Jess’s neck, and a large, full-chested gray wolf streaked into the far side of the clearing. Elise saw it, and her small body froze, hand still outstretched.

  The charging she-wolf was targeting directly on Elise, and Jess realized it would come down to a simple footrace. Running flat-out, she despaired of reaching the child in time, but Dana was racing ahead of her, already drawing her dagger from her belt.

  Half-crazed for the safety of her pup, the wolf never hesitated. It launched toward Elise’s throat, and Dana smacked solidly into its body in mid-flight. Warrior and beast crashed into the grass only two feet from the child.

  “Brenna!” Jess snapped. “There’ll be others! Get the girl!”

  Dana’s scream chilled Jess, and she saw the wolf’s powerful jaws clamped on her upper arm. The animal’s churning hindquarters almost knocked Jess off her feet, but she was able to twist and swipe her dagger over its haunch. The wolf released Dana, snarling, and backed a few feet to face both its prey.

  “Jesstin!” Brenna had swept Elise into her arms. She pointed toward two more gray wolves loping in on their left.

  “Hold!” Jess reached out to stop Dana. The she-wolf was still crouching, set to leap, but it hadn’t moved. Its silver hackles were raised, and it growled gutturally through bared, pointed teeth. Its pup was several yards behind it, cowering in the grass.

  “Jess?” Dana gasped.

  “Hold, Dana.” Jess risked a glance at Brenna, who stood behind them, carrying Elise. The two new wolves had stopped several yards away, bathed in the constellation’s strange light. Wolves on the hunt were known to attack a lone child, but they rarely confronted humans unless cornered. For a long moment, the only sounds in the clearing were the she-wolf’s low growl and Elise’s sobbing, and then both faded to silence.

  The strange tableau held an eerie quality that resonated in the part of Jess’s mind that harbored portents and prophecies. She couldn’t guess the pup’s gender, but all of the adult wolves were female, unusual in itself. Their gold eyes seemed locked on Brenna and Elise, even the crouching she-wolf, who slowly rose from its aggressive stance.

  Her eyes on the wolves, Jess put a hand on Dana’s arm, and touched sticky blood. “Back away,” she said quietly.

  They moved slowly and as one through the high grass, distancing themselves gradually from the motionless pack. The she-wolves watched them silently, and a shiver moved up Jess’s back. The beasts’ gazes remained centered on Brenna and Elise. As they reached the thick bank of alders and pines, the wolves turned and trotted back into the forest.

  The ghostly illumination of Tristaine’s starfield faded and left them deep in shadows.

  *

  Jess raised her fingers to sound an all-clear whistle, and Brenna shielded Elise’s ear with one hand. The child had stopped crying and sat in her arms listlessly, her head on Brenna’s breast. She talked softly to her niece as they trudged back
to camp.

  Brenna remembered Samantha at this age vividly, though she had been only a few years older. When they were taken to the Youth Home, Sammy had clung to her the way her daughter did now. She slept for months curled next to her big sister. Brenna kissed the top of Elise’s head, then forced Samantha out of her mind. “Dana? You’ve got some nasty bites on that arm.”

  “You’re telling me.” Dana examined her shoulder, frowning darkly. “Dang, another inch and that flea-infested cur would have chomped right into my glyph.”

  “She’s able to lift it, Bren.” Jess was still breathing hard after the brief climb, and her forehead gleamed with sweat. “How’s Sammy’s lass?”

  “Good question. Hey, little girl.” Brenna nudged Elise gently, and she lifted her head. “Did you get hurt, honey?”

  Elise shook her head, and snuck two fingers into her mouth. “Go get the puppy.”

  Brenna had to smile. “There are lots of dogs in Tristaine, sweetheart. Lots of puppies to play with.”

  “They were my friends,” Elise said. “The wolfs.”

  Brenna looked at Jess, startled. She wouldn’t have expected Elise to even recognize the animals as wolves.

  “I’ve never seen a pack focus like that, Bren.” Jess was catching her breath as they entered the camp. “Dana and I attacked them, but they never took their eyes off the two of you.”

  “Somehow,” Brenna murmured, gazing at Elise, “I don’t think they were looking at me.”

  “Oh, hallelujah!” Eva was grinning broadly, her hands on her hips. “Vicar was right about that whistle, our escaped waif looks fine.”

  “She is. Just a bit shaken.” Brenna smiled wanly at Eva, and let her take Elise. “Vic, how are you?”

  “I’ve rallied, Brenna.” Vicar lifted herself on one elbow.