Rhyz’s purr rolled as he looked up at Avellana. The Primross would like to speak with me NOW. Can I go? Or do you need me?
Avellana bit her lip, glanced at Vinni.
He squeezed her hand. “Do you wish to cancel our appointment with the matchmaker and just leave Druida City within the septhour?”
Her spine straightened. “No. That would give ammunition to those of your Family who do not believe we are HeartMates and should wed. Those individuals would say we are not a good match, that we feared such a consultation. They would win.” Fierceness lit her gaze. “I want to win. All these battles we fight.”
“Yes,” Vinni agreed.
Glancing down at Rhyz, she said, “You go and tell your story to GentleSir Primross. I do not think I—we—will need you during our matchmaking session—”
Bo-ring, sneered Rhyz, but that had Avellana’s mouth curving slightly.
“I am sure you would think so,” she replied to her Fam. “But we four will be leaving Druida City by MidAfternoonBell at the latest. Make sure you are ready.”
His tail thrashed. I will be. I am always ready. Then he disappeared, and the Vine glider stopped in front of them.
Thirty
Later, Vinni picked Avellana up at D’Hazel Residence. He’d—they’d—decided to consider the whole matchmaking deal a formal consultation. She awaited at the bottom of steps outside her squat castle, dressed in a tunic and trous that would cost a Commoner two years’ worth of salary. Dark blue edged in real silver thread, with hazel leaves embroidered in silver as a border to her long rectangular sleeve pockets and around the cuffs of her bloused trous.
She stood quietly, brown hair in equally tidy and formal braids, the streak minimized, hands in those opposite-sleeve pockets. As usual, his heart constricted at the sight of her. And he disliked that the recent loosening up of her manner that being a part of the new and energetic community of Multiplicity had brought seemed to have vanished. Whether the continuing physical threats or this giving in to emotional Family blackmail had caused her to retreat into her shell, he didn’t know. The sooner they got out of Druida City, the better.
Let Primross and the guards do their jobs and find and catch the villains.
He’d had a long talk with Primross as well as the Captain of the Druida City Guards, Ilex Winterberry, and given them all access to his records, as well as introducing the pair to T’Vine Residence. His home, at least, had agreed to fully cooperate with the investigation.
He thought the Residence looked forward to helping. And who knew what other houses might give advice.
As his glider door lifted, he heard the small whoosh of translocated items and noted two well-worn leather bags plopping down into the storage area of the Vine glider. His bags numbered five.
She hadn’t moved, and, closer, he saw her face appeared strained. As pale as every time he’d sent her away in the last few years.
He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I love you, Avellana, and from now on, we’re together.”
The skin around her eyes relaxed, the ends of her mouth curved up. “A good change, for sure.”
Tucking her hand in his arm to formally escort her to his glider, he sent a wash of sweet energy to her . . . and received it back. And that gentle wave of energy sank down into the depths of his being where, once again, he realized he held a simmering anger.
Someone doubted his belief, his word, his knowledge that he and Avellana were HeartMates.
Avellana felt a quick flip of anger from Muin, more from the tension of his arm under her fingers than from their bond. “Be easy, Muin. We agreed to this.” She paused. “And Saille T’Willow is your friend.”
Muin grunted as he courteously held up the glider door and she took the few steps up to enter, then slid in and adjusted her garments. He slammed down the door and marched around the front of the glider, sat beside her, and programmed the vehicle to drive to T’Willow’s estate.
Greetyou, Avellana, said Flora. She hung in a hammock attached to the bottom of the dashboard.
“Greetyou, Flora,” Avellana murmured.
We are going to Willows, where there are mean cats. I will stay here. Then we are driving ALL THE WAY to Gael City. It will take days and days, but be an adventure!
“I heard that,” Avellana said.
The housefluff rolled in her hammock, closed her eyes. This is the best place in the glider. Rhyz will have to ride in back on a pillow when I swing!
“I’m sure.”
Rhyz says he is already at Willows and playing with cats.
Obviously Avellana’s Fam and the trip appealed more as topics of conversation to Flora than the consultation with GreatLord T’Willow. Avellana found herself amused and the stress in her shoulders releasing.
Muin turned toward her and smiled through a sigh. “It irritates me that we’re doing this to please my Family.” He drummed his fingers on the seat, then raised his voice. “T’Vine Residence?”
“Yes, T’Vine?” The Residence’s light voice came through the glider scry speakers.
“I don’t ask you of those who gathered privately and spoke together within your walls supporting a formal matchmaking consultation with T’Willow. And who doubted my word, but I have changed my mind regarding the payment of his fees. I wish that each and every one of them be charged an amount of T’Willow’s fee against their salaries, proportionally.”
“Done. I am informing the individuals.”
They heard shouts and gasps echoing.
Muin’s lips curled up. “Good.”
Avellana let her own sigh loose. “I think my parents and sister should also be charged.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Muin frowned. “But I got the idea they just went along with the notion. They wouldn’t have thought of it in the first place, would they?”
“No.”
T’Vine Residence stated, “I sent a request for reimbursement of a sixteenth of the fee to D’Hazel and have been immediately paid.”
“No dispute?” Muin asked.
“No.”
The glider swept through T’Willow’s gates and to the front wall of the Residence. Like T’Vine fortress, the building formed around an inner courtyard and presented strong and solid walls to the visitor.
Avellana could not suppress a tremor of nerves.
“We’ll be fine,” Muin said in a rough tone that again spoke more of anger than nerves. Brows down, he slanted her a look. “You don’t think that Saille T’Willow will deny we’re HeartMates, do you?”
“Of course not,” she shot back. “But I am unaccustomed to formal interviews with FirstFamilies Lords and Ladies.” She sipped in and let out a breath. “The only such sessions I have attended are the mind-Healing ones with D’Sea, and she always puts me at my ease, of course.”
“Yes,” Muin agreed.
By then two men in the Willow red livery had lifted the doors to the glider, and one helped Avellana out of the vehicle and led her to the large door in the gold-tinted plaster wall.
It opened the moment Muin joined her and the youngish face of the housekeeper beamed at them. Avellana had rather hoped that Blush Willow Paris, who lived in Multiplicity, would be working today, to welcome them.
Avellana stopped gritting her teeth and tried a sincere smile back.
Muin took her hand.
The woman led them down the hall to T’Willow’s office, and another footman opened that door. A pair of huge specialized chairs that could provide comfort for hours loomed in Avellana’s vision, the seats placed before an equally massive desk. Behind them, the door quietly clicked shut and she and Muin stood facing the best matchmaker on Celta, GreatLord Saille T’Willow.
A man not quite as tall as Muin, somewhat older and thicker in body with an obviously less well-defined torso, stepped forw
ard and hugged Avellana’s HeartMate, thumping him on the back. “Greetyou, Vinni.”
Then T’Willow turned to her, bent, and kissed her cheek. “Greetyou, Avellana.” His blue eyes twinkled, and he strolled to the entrance to the conservatory that shared a wall with his office. “Let’s have some tea.”
Muin dropped her hand to slip an arm around her waist, and though his face wore a pleasant expression, she felt surprise at the greeting that echoed her own reverberate through their emotional bond.
As the matchmaker opened the door, the rich scent of verdant, blooming plants wafted into the room. Smiling, he held the door open as they walked to him—past the chairs and his desk and into the conservatory. There, in a small room defined by growing bamboo walls, stood a café table and chairs of white ironwork. Atop the graceful table were settings of floral place mats and softleaves, silver tableware for three, and a tall, curved, and gleaming silver teapot. A thin, fragrant spiral of steam rose from the spout.
T’Willow stood as Vinni seated Avellana, then took his own chair as Muin sat. The matchmaker poured a light-amber tea into delicate china cups and said, “I heard you preferred this tea, Avellana.” She understood then, as she smoothed a softleaf over her formal robes, that the GreatLord honored her with this setting.
“Thank you,” she said, and added a dab of honey to the cup of soothing herbal tea.
Muin cleared his throat and stared at the matchmaker. “I understood this to be a formal matchmaking consultation with you, Saille.”
Avellana realized the man did not wear any sort of formal clothes, tunic and trous or robe.
“Did you?” asked T’Willow, pouring himself a cup of tea and bringing it to his lips.
“Yes,” Avellana answered.
He sipped, let a grin spread across his face, then said gently, “There is no reason for a formal matchmaking consultation for you, Vinni and Avellana. Not when one look at you shows you to be HeartMates.”
“Oh.”
Muin inclined his head in respect. “Thank you, Saille.”
“You’re quite welcome.” With a wave of his hand, he said, “I’m charging no fee for this.”
“My Family members who insisted on the appointment will be glad to hear that,” Muin murmured.
T’Willow laughed. “I’m sure.”
The slight susurration of more than one fountain, perhaps the rippling of a human-made stream, added an element of peace to the atmosphere, and Avellana sat back as the men made small talk.
She poured a second round of tea for them all before Muin said, “Something’s irritating you, Saille.”
“Yes. This whole appointment. I dislike that your Families contacted me to do a full and formal consultation for you and Avellana.” T’Willow’s patrician jaw hardened. His blue eyes blazed as they met hers, then Muin’s in turn. “I will not allow a man’s or a woman’s inner feelings of being a HeartMate to be disregarded.” The GreatLord stood and paced along the windows looking into the courtyard, though his gaze remained on the thick plant life in the small room.
Avellana breathed in deeply, savoring humid scents unencumbered by the salt and briskness of a nearby ocean. The fragrance of the living planet itself.
“What?” Muin prompted.
The matchmaker pivoted. “A tenet of our culture is that an individual can sense his or her HeartMate.” He swept one hand wide. “Many people don’t need me or my consultations to know when they have connected with the soul who will fulfill them. This must not be changed. People, of all social strata, must believe that they can discover their HeartMates, through their Passages to free their Flair, or by presenting a HeartGift, or simply by feeling their mate. Or meeting him or her.”
“Oh,” Avellana said.
He pointed at Muin. “And that’s exactly what happened to you.”
Muin nodded, smiled with the simple joy she had not seen in so long, and squeezed her fingers. “Yes, I knew I had a HeartMate from an early age.” He paused. “I am not sure I ever thought I did not have a HeartMate. And when the Hazels brought their new baby to a FirstFamilies ritual in GreatCircle Temple, I understood Avellana and I belonged together.”
T’Willow nodded. “Exactly right. You knew.” He glanced at Avellana. “What of you?”
She blinked. No one had ever spoken to her about this, but then she put her free hand over her heart. “Muin has always been with me.”
Another nod. “That’s right, too. Every time I’ve ever seen you together, I could tell you were HeartMates.” He flipped a hand. “Yet here you are. You let your Family denigrate your feelings—”
“I think that was because we’ve been HeartMates for so long.”
The GreatLord snorted. “Maybe.” His lip curled. “And someone thought your love might change or you’d outgrow each other or something. Just. Not. True.”
“That we might not match anymore,” Avellana said softly.
“You do.” T’Willow took his seat again and drank down the tea. When he glanced at them again, he smiled. “One look at you and I know you match. But this must not happen again—Families insisting that they, as a whole, know better than the individuals involved.”
Avellana said, “I would think that would bring you, matchmakers, more business.”
He grinned. “Maybe so, but it is best that individuals believe in themselves and their natural instincts. This is not an action that must be taken from them, the right to choose their mate.”
Muin cleared his throat. “Occasionally the individual is wrong.”
T’Willow’s brows rose. “Occasionally. I have known one instance in hundreds.”
“Oh,” Muin said.
“Granted,” said the matchmaker, “that particular instance had long-standing, deleterious consequences, but it was one instance.”
“People can deceive themselves that they love,” Muin said.
Avellana stared at him. She would not have expected this line of discussion from him.
“Because they want to believe they have HeartMates? Or that they love a partner and want love from him or her? Perhaps, but I don’t want Families or anyone else to put a third party in between a person and his or her discovery of his or her HeartMate. It is an individual’s prerogative and responsibility to feel their HeartMate, and no one should take that from them.”
“Huh,” said Muin. He began to play with her fingers.
Avellana straightened her spine. “Muin T’Vine is my HeartMate. He has always been my HeartMate and I love him.”
“Avellana Hazel is my HeartMate and I love her,” Muin stated.
“Good, that’s good,” T’Willow said, with a lightening of his manner. He walked over to her and offered his hand. She took it and he drew her to her feet, sending a glance to Muin. “I’ve heard that you leave here for a trip.”
“That’s right,” Muin agreed.
A smile hovered on the matchmaker’s lips. “You can surprise everyone with your quick exit from this Residence and Druida City. My formal consultations usually last from a septhour and a half to four or five. I’ll show you out through the length of the conservatory, and you can pick up Rhyz on the way.”
“Thanks,” Muin said.
“Thank you.” Avellana smiled at the GreatLord and as he led her through the long room, she admired the plantings. “We will check on my home in Multiplicity on our way.”
“Be aware that when you two do HeartBond, your Families will know.”
That jolted Vinni and he saw Avellana’s eyes go round as she gasped. “Truly?”
Saille nodded, and a smile flickered over his lips. “Yes, GreatMistrys Hazel, your father will most assuredly sense when you link so deeply to another man.” Saille glanced at his own daughter, playing near a fountain. “Something I’m sure every father dreads experiencing.” He returned his gaze to Vinni. “Which of your Family members w
ill feel the linking, I don’t know.”
Vinni grimaced. His fingers twitched as he wanted to run them through his hair. This fashion for long hair, which he’d liked at first, wore on him. He’d cut it except Avellana liked it. “I don’t know which of my relatives will realize that I’ve finally HeartBonded with Avellana, either.”
Avellana slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow and said, “We will deal with that situation when it comes.”
Saille flashed a smile. “I hope not. I hope you don’t give your Families a thought.”
Thirty-one
They stopped at the Cathedral first because Avellana wanted to ask the Hopeful ministers for a blessing. Muin had agreed. The four religious leaders had just returned from blessing her home in Multiplicity, and remained in the blessing-for-her-and-hers mind-set. They all gathered, including Fams. The short and moving ritual left Avellana’s spirits uplifted and in more harmony with Muin and the Fams . . . and this trip.
At Multiplicity, they walked through her house, floors once again pristine, and talked to Antenn Blackthorn-Moss and Vensis Betony-Blackthorn about her house, the security of the community, and how that security had been breached. Apparently the gate scrystones—which had not previously kept records of the comings and goings of approved gliders—had noted one entrance and exit within a few minutes in the middle of the night before. The shieldspells of her house had fallen and no one knew why, how, or especially who had done that.
Since so few lived in the community, no one had noticed anything.
For a moment, once more, Avellana wanted to stay and defend her home, fight! But she had never been allowed to stay and fight for a home . . . hadn’t become deeply attached to any with a bond like the one she shared with Muin, Rhyz, her Family. And, as always, everyone wanted her away from harm.
She did not want to be attacked again, either, especially trying to defend herself with her minor self-defense skills. She should have worked more on the physical part of her being instead of the creative and spiritual.
And she did look forward to time alone with Muin.
Heart Sight Page 30
