A broken moment that would never come again.
FamMan? asked Flora sleepily.
We are Family, too. And we were promised a treat right now and you have not taken us, Rhyz scolded.
“What?” Muin asked. He sounded as dazed as she felt. His breath came in quick pants and, like her, he was ready to mate.
You SAID we would go to the mysterious Yew estate and visit the FamCat Baccat and See All There Is To See There! Not very many Fams are allowed in because they try to Chase the Raven. I told You We would not Chase the Raven. I promised. And You said We could come to the appointment that will give My FamWoman personal armor.
Avellana frowned. “What?”
He PROMISED Flora and Me could come if I told You last night that getting personal armor was a good idea AND I DID.
Avellana stepped away from the heat of her lover, his aura that enfolded her. “You suborned my Fam.”
“That I did,” Muin stated. His expression appeared impassive to most, but hurt had filtered back into his eyes.
She sighed. “I understand.”
Rhyz arrived, grumbling, his mouth full of . . . Flora, whom he let go to sit on Muin’s feet.
It is time to leave for Your appointment and Our treat. I ’ported with Flora so she would be with Us. Antenn called your glider to outside Our new home.
Avellana walked to the windows showing the front grassyard and the gliderway. “Oh! You brought your new twoseat glider. It looks very elegant sitting in front of our house.”
Muin grunted.
“A very nice picture for those who observe,” she approved. “They will visualize their own glider on the new road in front of their own custom home. We will make more sales by the end of the day, I am sure.”
Turning back toward her love, her own heat subsiding a little, she saw him bend to pick up Flora.
I promised not to Chase the Raven, too, Flora said. I have heard there are special munchies in a wonderful garden at Yew Residence.
“Did you, now?” asked Muin.
So Baccat, the Yew FamCat, says, replied the housefluff. He says Yew estate is best!
“All Cats say that,” Muin pointed out.
A loud bang reverberated throughout the valley. Avellana ran toward the noise outside the north windows and caught her breath as she saw Antenn and a team at either side of the wide gliderway leading into Multiplicity. She pointed. “Look at that! Tall pillars have been erected by the entrance to our community!”
I must go see! Rhyz said.
I want to go see, too! Flora added.
Picking up Flora in his mouth, the cat teleported away, sending back a last thought. We will see and then wait for you in the glider.
Avellana narrowed her eyes to study the situation better, paying little attention to the teleport-hopping of the Fams from her house to the entrance of the town.
“Rhyz is getting good at teleporting around here,” Muin said.
“Hmm,” Avellana replied absently. “The builders are setting a greeniron gate between the pillars!” She huffed and paced the few meters of her room, then back. And forth.
“Let’s look.” Muin waved a hand and the nearest window magnified the entrance so the activity jumped into view as if they were a meter away. “Nice pillars, unique. Rectangular with carved Celtic knotwork.” Yet not looking at her, he murmured, “Antenn might have gotten one of the sculptors who’s working on your Cathedral. Truly, the pillars and gate make a statement.”
Stopping again to look out the window, frowning, Avellana muttered, “It appears as if a wall is going up. We did not have a wall in the plans.”
“No?” Vinni asked.
She shrugged irritably. “Down the timeline, for next year, perhaps the one after, but not now.”
“Ah.”
That single word clued her in. Whirling, she stared at him. “You did this, did you not? And I can see how. You provided the gilt, funneled it through my governess’s account and”—Avellana flicked a hand—“up goes the wall. Before more roads, the solid pathway to the ocean, the reinforced banks for the streams.” She blew out a breath. “Muin!”
“Yes?”
“Walls, Muin? Walls to put me behind instead of the open space of freedom?” She flung out her arms, feeling overdramatic, but wanting to emphasize her point.
Anger suffused his face and he stomped over to her. “Nothing is enough! Not the protective amulet, the personal armor, others keeping an eye out for you, the gate and shieldspells around your house and your town. Nothing. I would swaddle you in cushions and set you in a corner of T’Vine HouseHeart to keep you safe, if I could.”
She stared at his rant. “Muin—”
He made a cutting gesture. “But I know I can’t. I know you would leave me and that is the worst thing I can imagine. You being taken from me. You leaving me. Being without you in my life.”
“I am sorry, Muin. I will let you protect me as you will, but I insist on living my own life as an adult.”
“I know.” He grabbed her, yanked her close, nearly stifling her against his body. “You’re right. You die, I die.”
A great sorrow washed over her. “I am sorry that you live—have lived—with such fear.”
He simply held her, and rocked. “You would have thought I would be reconciled to death by now, I’ve seen it in visions and portents and auras enough, but I am not. Perhaps my own, but never yours.”
Her chest constricted at the thought, at the feeling emanating from him, at her own imagination of trying to live a life without him. No full life would be possible without him. No life at all.
“But you know we are so closely emotionally tied together that one will not survive the other’s death.” She paused and gave him a deep truth. “I know this and, I admit, it comforts me.”
His breath shivered from him. “I must admit, I didn’t think of that until lately, when you pointed it out. You’re right, the notion we’d die together is some comfort. But I don’t want to last even a minute without you.”
“I hope that does not happen,” she responded. “I would promise so, if I could.”
Muin shrugged, and she felt every muscle in his body.
“I’d rather hoped we lived until a great age. My predecessor did. Not having an heir yet, I’d planned on being around for a long time. And you, too. I don’t like the threats to you.”
“I think you have made that clear. Let us go to D’Yew for my personal armor, then we can prepare for the ritual tonight . . . separately.”
A grumble rose from his chest. “We had the MistrysSuite in T’Vine Residence redesigned and decorated for you two years ago. Since Antenn knows your taste so well, I’ll contact him for an update.” Muin paused, then added casually, “Tonight you could stay in that suite in my tower in T’Vine Residence.” He cleared his throat. “Alone, even.”
“My parents wish me to remain at D’Hazel Residence until I move into Multiplicity.” Now the rumble in his chest sounded more like a growl. She ignored it. “My parents did not come today.” She could not keep a mournful note from tinting her voice. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
He squeezed her. “Perhaps. Your Family will take part in the ritual tonight. We will link with them and sense their emotions.”
She leaned against him. “And we will prevail against those who have tried to separate us.”
He kissed her briefly on her lips. “So I believe.” Without releasing her from the circle of his arms, he angled his chin toward the windows facing east. “I still want a house here.”
“I am sure Antenn will be pleased to create one for you.”
“I’m sure about that, too.”
Their calendar spheres popped into existence and pinged together. Avellana’s said in her mother’s voice, “You must leave now from Multiplicity to reach your appointment with D’Yew in a timel
y manner.”
The pretty tune on Muin’s sphere ended with no such warning, but they knew the final note indicated the last-minute countdown.
Vinni kept his arm around her waist as they descended the staircase, wide enough for two, which he hadn’t noticed before.
He felt freer for those emotions he’d let out and expressed, outer layers of a hard kernel that still lurked inside him. How could he escape his rut and send his life in a different direction? Well, starting his true life with Avellana as his HeartMate would definitely help.
Near the front door, he let his arm fall but kissed her cheek. “Tonight,” he said huskily. “Our first time as leaders of a ritual circle for our Family. Tonight we’ll take another step as a couple together.”
When she lifted her face to him, her deep blue eyes showed her usual serious expression, with a hint of melancholy added. “Yes, another important step in our relationship, in our betrothal.” Her mouth thinned, then she continued. “And that portion of your Family who do not approve of me as your bride forced us into this situation.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he responded immediately. His lips twisted. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
She gave a little sigh and shrug. “We brood on our failures. Both of us. Perhaps the reason that some of your Family doubts us as a good leading couple, because our humors are much the same, because we tend to the sober, and because we doubt ourselves. An unhealthy habit.”
He brought her hands to his lips, one after the other, kissing her palms, flicking his tongue on her palm, tasting her and that wisp of her essence, taking it into him, letting it settle in his groin once more and give him a pain-pleasure buzz.
“From now on,” he said huskily, “I will try to keep my mood light when you become sad, and you can do the same. That way, we may traverse our life path in a more cheerful frame of mind, lighten both our spirits as we progress.”
Her smile bloomed. “Yes. Just as you have done right now.”
“I’m no longer brooding, for sure, and you’re more lighthearted,” he agreed. Inhaling deeply, he opened the door so they could go out once more in public.
They’d just reached the bottom of the steps when Antenn shouted, “Hey, Avellana!” He gestured to the house behind them.
Setting his arm around his beloved’s waist, Vinni walked them to his glider, then turned them both toward their friend, who grinned. Sure enough, Avellana’s new home—her studio when she became D’Vine—stood finished and perfect. He’d been aware of the roof going on, and now a weather vane garnished the top of the house.
He narrowed his eyes. It looked as if Antenn had coated the brick with some sort of glassy spell that would shriek an alarm if anyone entered uninvited. Good.
Avellana pouted. “I missed watching so much today: some of the raising of the Community Center, my former governess’s tiny house, now the last touches on my very own home!”
“Don’t worry,” Vinni soothed. “I see that Antenn has a professional viz recorder and operator down there. I’m sure he saved it all.” Vinni kissed her temple. “Especially the building of the wonderful, unique home for Avellana Hazel, the person of highest status in Multiplicity. Excellent marketing.”
“All right. But watching a viz is not the same. And tonight, I will miss Arta Daisy’s multi-level circular home being constructed. She wanted a whole morning scheduled for it, and today, of course, but Antenn insisted that the Community Center go up first. So she decided to have it erected during the First Quarter Twinmoons apex.” Avellana’s smile showed briefly. “I like her very much. She tends to be dramatic.”
Vinni grunted. “Like all the Daisys.”
Avellana stared at her house. “It looks better than I had imagined.” She did a few small dance steps in a most un-Avellana-like manner. He’d make sure she’d loosen up along that life path, too.
“For sure you are happier now.” He grinned as he led her to the glider and handed her inside.
Twenty-two
A few minutes later, Vinni pulled up to another set of pillars. These rose a full four meters tall, rectangular and smooth with armorcrete, tinted a pale green, with an incised design of thick Yew tree trunks.
The greeniron gates here curlicued in fancy shapes that would barely let a kitten through, let alone a housefluff the size of Flora, or the medium-sized Rhyz FamCat.
A slight wavering in the air showed a field of additional shieldspells on the gate and in the walls. At one time, this estate would have been the easiest of all FirstFamily areas to break into, due to the enmity of the Yews to the best shieldspell practitioner. Not now.
Atop one pillar on a thick horizontal capstone sat a large, gray cat, appearing like a sculpture himself. Greetyou, T’Vine and Avellana Hazel, Fams Flora and Rhyz. He leapt down in front of the gates. I am pleased to welcome you to my demesne. Fams, you may follow Me. Long tail waving, he strolled along a path to the right of the gates.
Avellana touched her door and it lifted for their companions to hop out. “Dinner is in a septhour and a half,” she reminded them.
She closed the door and Vinni thinned the windows of his glider. He waved a hand at the new and large opalescent scrystones set into the pillars, then addressed one. “Vinni T’Vine and Avellana Hazel to meet with D’Yew. We have an appointment.”
“Please leave your glider outside the greeniron gates,” Draeg Betony T’Yew’s voice came.
Vinni and Avellana looked at each other.
“Draeg is being very cautious,” Vinni murmured. He flicked his fingers to lift his door, went around, and took Avellana’s hand as she exited the glider. “I know him from my days at The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon; he was the master’s favorite protégé.”
She scrutinized his face. “You are not telling me something.”
“You know me too well, as you’ve proven several times this morning.” He answered lightly, squeezing her fingers. “What did you hear about the last attacks of the Traditionalist Stance extremists?”
He’d sent her away as soon as he’d figured out trouble brewed.
Frowning, Avellana said, “They targeted children. I think they tried to poison Marin Holly’s and Walker Clover’s children?”
“Yes.” Vinni bit the word off, squelched the anger and uneasiness as he lowered the glider doors by spell—too quickly, because they slammed shut. He thickened the windows until they reached armorglass status, with the capacity to sound an alarm if someone tried to breach them. “The Traditionalist Stance fanatics don’t believe children of former Commoners should be acceptable in Noble circles.”
“But Walker Clover Tested for his GrandHouse nobility,” Avellana insisted. “And he married his HeartMate, Sedwy Grove, a woman of the FirstFamilies. Walker’s children have excellent pedigrees. Anyone would say.”
“Anyone should say.” Vinni nodded, then grunted as he muttered a Word to move his glider, hide and protect it. “But the Traditionalist Stance people don’t want any more Nobles, especially Nobles raised from former Commoner families.”
“And they fear people with different Flair,” Avellana stated. He heard no quiver in her voice. “That is why you wished me to stay away earlier this year.”
“There were ‘accidents.’ I worried for you.”
She sighed. “I know.” She walked with him the few strides to the locked gates. “Did they also threaten D’Yew?”
“I did tell you that members of the movement were found in the highest Families. Several held the Yew name.”
Avellana gasped, stopped, and looked at him with wide eyes. “Truly?”
“Yes. And I don’t think that we caught all the extremists, perhaps not even the current secret leader of the Traditionalist Stance.”
Her frown deepening, Avellana said, “The Yews were always the most conservative Family, and the past two Heads of Households showed a nasty s
train of . . . I should not speak so negatively about them. So many people hold negative views of me.”
Her words flicked him on the raw. “That is not so!”
“Yes, Muin, it is. They believe I am fragile. I cannot be trusted to take care of myself. I am accident prone. I had—perhaps continue to have—brain damage. And people whisper about my psi power, whether I am truly a holo mural artist.”
“And you’re HeartMate to the equally odd Vinni T’Vine.” He made a cutting gesture.
She came up and stroked his cheek. A lot of touching going on between them today, absolutely great. “You are not odd.”
“I am so considered, for stopping when visions take me and spilling futures for good or ill without warning or thought before people. Makes them nervous.”
“It is just your great Flair in action. People have always been wary of the FirstFamilies’ great Flair.”
Vinni snorted. “Maybe so, but I guarantee your sister’s botanical talent is a lot less scary to people than mine.”
With a nod, she said, “To others we might be alarming. Even to your Family, which is why we are leading them in the ritual tonight, to show them we are regular people. And you fear for me because of this hiding or missing leader of the Traditional Stance. You think he or she remains free and dangerous to me.”
He didn’t respond.
“Because my Flair is the oddest and most fearsome of them all.”
“Hey, Vinni, it is you,” said a man’s voice from the pillar scrystone.
“Hello, Draeg. You couldn’t tell from my expensive glider and the coat of arms on it?” Vinni replied.
“Not taking any chances, is all. Baccat has also announced that he’s entertaining Flora and Rhyz. Gates are open now.”
The greeniron swung with no sound along the smooth ground. Vinni strode hand in hand with Avellana up the gliderway and to D’Yew Residence.
Both Draeg Betony-Blackthorn T’Yew and the Head of the Household, Loridana D’Yew, stood in the large entryway of their Residence. A heavily muscled man six years younger than Vinni, Draeg stood easily in fighting stance but held hands with his even younger blond and willowy HeartMate, a new adult at no more than eighteen.
Heart Sight Page 22
