Heart Search

by Robin D. Owens

  “I wondered about that,” Glyssa murmured.

  “How was it planned?” Camellia asked, knowing she’d finally get answers.

  Old man knew about you and talked to Black Pierre who told Brazos and Me. We DESERVE to live in Residence like Brazos.

  “So you only wanted to be my Fam because you wanted to live in a Residence.” That hurt, too.

  No. I love you.

  “I love you, too.”

  But you make Me angry! Mica hissed.

  “Ditto.”

  Mica lifted her nose. I will go talk to Brazos. He can make FamMan come back.

  “Good luck with that,” Camellia said but didn’t think that the young cat heard since she’d teleported away with a pop.

  Tiana was there, patting Camellia. “There, there. It will all work out.” And Camellia realized she was weeping, harsh, hurtful chest-sobs.

  “The priestess is right. It will work out. You have all your lives.” Glyssa took Camellia’s teacup from her hands and substituted a wineglass. “Drink up. It just hurts, and Lady and Lord we’ve all been hurt by men and HeartMates. We’ll get over it.”

  “Through the hurt to a brighter future,” Tiana said.

  “Yeah, of course,” Glyssa said.

  Camellia wept another couple of minutes until all her hurt was gone, then mopped up her face with a softleaf and drank the wine. “Enough of that,” she said in a froggy voice. “Not what I really wanted to talk about tonight. Must get on with . . . stuff.”

  “Secrets,” Glyssa said, toasted her with her own glass, sipped, then her face crinkled in a smile. “Mica will be peeved to miss it.”

  “Just as well,” Camellia said, finishing the wine and going back to the tea. “I don’t trust her to keep an important secret.”

  “Who knows with cats?” Glyssa shrugged but looked wistful.

  “You’ll get a Fam,” Tiana assured.

  “You are very optimistic and annoying tonight, Tiana. What was in your incense today?” Glyssa said.

  That made them all laugh. As soon as they were back in their usual places and her friends were watching her expectantly, Camellia translocated a bundle of papyrus copies of ancient documents to the low table.

  Glyssa blinked, sat up quickly, reaching for and thumbing through the sheets. “What do you have there? Lady and Lord, these are copies of Earthan documents! You have the originals?”

  “Safely tucked away at T’Reed’s.”

  Tiana frowned. “Where’d you get original Earthan documents?”

  “I found them in a small box in the attic when our home was taken from Mother and me.”

  “Your father and uncle weren’t around.”

  “Of course they weren’t. Mother and I would have tried to make them deal with their creditors.”

  “The NobleCouncil stepped in to help you and so did the Temple,” Tiana said.

  “Enough to pay the bills and charge it against Father’s and Takvar’s accounts, and to find us a place to live.” Camellia tried to keep her tone light. It had been a terrible time, and she’d hated leaving the Family house that was in poor shape.

  She’d also hated the place that the Temple had put them into. For a building that had been constructed by the colonists themselves, it had had little charm. Everyone there had been beggars. She’d worked hard to get out of the place but hadn’t made it until after her mother had died.

  Glyssa scowled at the papyrus, choked, and with a wild movement knocked over her glass of wine. Camellia yanked the papyrus from the table while Tiana said a cleansing spell that sucked the liquid from the rug and dispersed it into the atmosphere of the house. The air suddenly smelled like good red wine.

  Continuing to cough, Glyssa doubled over and Camellia and Tiana hovered, ready to teleport her to a HealingHall. Finally Glyssa gasped and waved a hand, croaked, “Water.”

  Camellia ran to the kitchen, came back with a tube of water for her friend. Glyssa drank it down, handed the tube back to Camellia, and wiped her eyes and nose with a softleaf, then collapsed back on her pillow.

  Her gaze drilled Camellia. “Those are copies of a subscription to fund a starship to find and colonize a planet.”

  “Yes.” Camellia tossed the tube into the deconstructor, sat up straight.

  Another cough from Glyssa, who eyed the papyrus. “And,” she whispered, transferring her awed glance from Camellia to Tiana, “the appointment of Netra Sunaya Hoku, a man who subscribed to the fund to colonize Celta, as Captain of the starship, Lugh’s Spear.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your Family is a FirstFamily, those who financed the colonization. Your ancestor was the Captain of Lugh’s Spear!”

  Twenty-one

  Heat flooded Camellia, then faded, leaving her cold. She’d known this would be difficult. “That’s right. But Lugh’s Spear crashed and he never got over that. Then he had to lead the remaining colonists from the crash site to here, where Druida was being built. Too much responsibility broke him. He didn’t want to be of the FirstFamilies, take a FirstFamily name. He wanted obscurity. So he didn’t take a plant name at all, but one that reminded him of his roots on Earth.”

  “Darjeeling,” Tiana breathed. She’d settled onto her pillow.

  “That’s right. And, like other things between then and now, his papers were misplaced and lost.”

  “What else do you have?” Glyssa asked sternly.

  Camellia licked her lips. “His journals from when he was Awakened from the cryogenics tube to the landing and the trek to Druida.”

  “And?” Glyssa pressed.

  Camellia didn’t look at her friend, mumbled the last, the most important, find. “Maps and blueprints of Lugh’s Spear, including his own notations of where the storage areas were, and his quarters.”

  “Cave of the Dark Goddess!” Tiana squeaked, put a hand to her temples as if to control the pounding of blood. “By Celtan salvage law, a Captain who has invested in a ship that is lost is entitled to a third of the amount of all retrieved salvage. He or his heirs,” Tiana quoted. They’d all learned that at the time of the lawsuit of the sunken ship.

  “Fortunes. Fortunes could be yours! Especially since they’ve found Lugh’s Spear and are beginning to excavate!” Tiana said.

  “No,” Camellia said. “All these things could be my father’s or my uncle’s. They’re first in line. Not me or Senchal. The only reason that I got the tea set is that I was the one who found the documents and pressed the case.”

  “Another Earthan name, all of the men’s,” Glyssa muttered.

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t let your father or uncle have any of the salvage. Ever.” Glyssa was fierce.

  “That’s why I’ve kept the papers a secret, why the originals are with T’Reed. But the documents could help so much with the excavation. I know it’s a dangerous undertaking. Maybe they could save lives if people knew where to work and such.”

  “This is like the tea set. We need to circumvent your elders so you can claim it,” Tiana said.

  They stared at the papyrus, then each other. “This isn’t going to be easy,” Tiana said.

  “No,” Camellia said. “I’d hoped to be able to present the documents to the proper authorities at this point. After the survey of Lugh’s Spear was done and before the earth-moving began. The ground caved under the ship once, it could continue to do that under our machines. It’s still dangerous. If the excavators had an exact map, they could go directly to the places most interesting to them.”

  She drew in a breath, “And, of course, I’m proud of my ancestry, of Captain Hoku. I wanted him to be honored more, his contribution to be more. I want him recognized as the great man he was. Providing his documents at this time would help the excavators and keep Hoku’s name in the forefront of history.”

  “The Cherrys’ play isn’t enough?” asked Tiana.

  Camellia waved a hand. “The Cherrys’ play is about their ancestress. Captain Hoku is a remote figure.”

 
“But heroic,” Tiana pointed out.

  “It’s not enough. He was changed, nearly broken. No one knows the cost to him.”

  “All right,” Tiana said.

  There was a moment of silence. “I was hoping that my father and uncle would be out of the picture.” Banished. Gone. Anywhere but alive and thriving in Druida City.

  Glyssa hissed out a breath, then tucked her hands under her armpits and rocked herself, laughing humorlessly. “Such treasures and we can’t claim them. I sat in on a consultation of an inheritance legal problem with my parents and a client and the SupremeJudge. It concerned a donation to the PublicLibrary. The end result was that the law doesn’t care if the inheriting person is a bad person. As long as she or he doesn’t do anything terrible to receive the inheritance, it is hers or his.”

  Camellia and Tiana stared at Glyssa, then Camellia flopped back onto her pillow, staring up at the mural of starry galaxies on the ceiling. “I thought so. If I put a case before the SupremeJudge again, the inheritance would come to my father and my uncle first.”

  “They’d do dreadful things with the huge amount of gilt they’d get from the artifacts,” Tiana said.

  “Or ruin the artifacts themselves,” Glyssa said.

  “If I ever truly own the documents, I’ll give them to you, to the PublicLibrary,” Camellia assured.

  “The question is how do we get your father and uncle out of your life?” Tiana said calmly, surprising them all.

  Camellia cracked a laugh. “Something I’ve been working on since I was fourteen and they showed up again.”

  “They’re evil men,” Tiana said. “Someday they’ll go too far.” Her forehead knit. “Your father’s scorn of the Sheela Na Gig should adversely affect him.”

  “What kind of ‘adverse affect’?” asked Glyssa.

  Tiana leaned forward. “There’s been some speculation by the FirstLevel Priestesses and Priests that his health would be affected. Not that I hope that happens, of course.”

  “Of course not,” Camellia and Glyssa said at the same time.

  “So Camellia’s father might have serious health problems, and they both are criminals just waiting to be caught. You’ve been recording all their thefts from you?”

  Camellia smiled brittlely. “Oh, yes. Down to the last steak.”

  “Sooner or later . . .” Glyssa said.

  “Yes. Let’s just hope it’s sooner, for everyone’s sakes.”

  “They can’t press their luck forever. Someday their crimes will catch up with them,” Tiana said.

  Camellia shrugged. “It never has so far. I’m not counting on that. When Druida City becomes too rough on them, they move back to Gael, or wherever else they cycle through.”

  Still frowning, Tiana sipped her wine and said, “I really wouldn’t want to be them when they pass on to the wheel of stars and reincarnate. Karma.” A shiver went through her.

  “By the way, Camellia,” Glyssa said. “Could I, we, the PublicLibrary possibly have copies—”

  Camellia translocated another batch, handed them to Glyssa. “Strictly confidential.”

  “Thanks!” Glyssa slipped the papyrus into her sleeve.

  “It can’t hurt to have your parents aware of the circumstances.”

  Glyssa nibbled her lips. “Worse comes to worse, we might be able to leak a little of the information to the Lugh’s Spear expedition. Say we recently found old, original sources in our archives.” She bent a stern look on Camellia. “You will provide the maps and blueprints, won’t you?”

  Sighing, Camellia said, “I suppose so. But the more people who have copies, the less likely my secrets will be kept.”

  “You know we can be trusted not to share anything you don’t want us to.”

  “Yes.” The Licorices had always been good to her.

  “Anything else you want to talk about?” Tiana asked.

  But Glyssa began humming absentmindedly, and Camellia shared a look with Tiana. They both knew to wait for Glyssa to think an issue through before commenting.

  A distant look came to Glyssa’s eyes, as if she were probing for her HeartMate. “He’s east.” She wobbled where she sat. “I think he might be with one of the Elecampane expeditions at Lugh’s Spear.”

  Camellia caught a note of longing in her friend’s voice. Again she looked at Tiana and knew they were both feeling anticipatory tendrils of dread. Glyssa would not stay in Druida forever. If her HeartMate didn’t come to her, she’d go out looking. Her pride was enough to wonder why he wouldn’t come to Druida City to claim her. She might track him down just to give him a piece of her mind.

  Then Glyssa blinked, downed her drink, and said, “No, nothing more I want to say.”

  The weekend split between her two teahouses kept Camellia busy, though her smile became tense when someone enthused about visiting the Great Labyrinth Fair.

  She spent some time with her brother, Senchal, who was envious of Mica but cheerfully working on a project, a portion of a mural on a boy’s center.

  Mica was unusually loving, spending a lot of time with Camellia and purring—and dropping a few hints on what kind of collar she would like after six months.

  After the weekend was over, on Mor morning, Camellia scried Cymb Lemongrass and got the blurry-eyed GraceLord. “Here? Hmm. Camellia? Wha’?”

  She winced. She’d thought it was late enough that he’d be up, but she’d misjudged. “Sorry. If you can hook me into your calendarsphere—”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to change our sparring schedule.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “I’ve found that before NoonBell is better for me.” She’d be avoiding Laev and his usual time.

  Lemongrass’s eyes narrowed. “That boy say something about those pistols?”

  “What boy?”

  “Hawthorn.”

  “What pistols?”

  “Never mind.”

  She felt in her bones that she should press, but didn’t.

  The next day the scry panel was flickering as she walked into the house after work. Her heart jumped at the light purple color. Over the last several days she’d repeated to herself often that she’d done the right thing. When, occasionally, she’d said it aloud, Mica had sniffed . . . then the small cat had grinned and started reporting what Brazos told him of Laev. That the man wasn’t sleeping well. He was grumpy and very polite with the staff and his journeywoman.

  Sounded like he was missing his dream sex—just as she was. It had been more than sex, had tipped perilously over into loving. She could still feel those soft strokes of his fingers on her back after they’d reached completion, the nuzzling and holding.

  So she stared at the scry panel as it melded abstract patterns in Hawthorn purple. Mica hopped up to her favorite perch on the large, rounded chair back, glanced at the panel, and casually lifted a forepaw to lick. That is from Laev T’Hawthorn.

  “Yes.”

  Mica slid her eyes toward Camellia. Maybe Brazos wants to talk to you, too.

  Camellia raised her brows. “Brazos has never wanted to talk with me.”

  With an ingratiating smile, Mica said, He is a good Cat.

  “I’m sure.” Camellia went into the small kitchen and the no-time to get some mint tea. Her stomach was a little upset. Probably from clenching it so tight. Her hands trembled as she retrieved the tea, and she cupped her hands around the mug for its warmth. She shouldn’t be so nervous.

  She shouldn’t want Laev so much.

  She stood until her nerves settled, experimented with a few expressions before she went up to the panel. Impassive. No, she couldn’t manage that. Her polite smile seemed more fearsome . . . or maybe fearful. And each second wound the tension inside her so tight that every nerve in her body quivered and her hands began to shake. She put her mug down on a tile-topped side table, straightened her shoulders, and walked toward the panel, touched it.

  The viz message began. Her heart stuttered as she saw Laev. In the few days that they�
��d been apart he looked thinner . . . or more refined, as if he was working as hard as she was . . . maybe sparring a lot, too. His eyes seemed set deeper.

  “Lover,” he said. And her knees simply gave out and she sat on the floor. His voice held a rough edge, like he was hurt and that hurt her. He leaned a little back in his chair and she realized he’d recorded this in his ResidenceDen. “Lover,” he said again. His mouth twisted. “I need to speak with you.” His gaze, which had been focused on the scry panel, now looked beyond it, and Camellia. “To discuss our . . . situation. Please scry as soon as possible.”

  Brazos leapt onto the desk, fur fluffy, stared at the panel, and yowled. Whatever the cat said made Laev smile. Then the stare came back, riveting her. “Viz me. Anytime.”

  Another grumbling comment by Brazos. “Or, if you recall the coordinates and light, teleport here.”

  Camellia couldn’t chance that. She’d been hanging on to Laev when he’d teleported them to his Residence and had been focused on him. Now she recalled the feel of him, his scent, and she yearned so much for him she had to gulp back tears that had welled in her throat.

  “Later,” Laev said, and it was in that soft voice that echoed through her memories of their sex.

  We should go right now. Mica leapt down to Camellia’s lap.

  “Have dinner first . . .” Camellia protested.

  Mica raised her nose. Sniffed right in Camellia’s face. T’Hawthorn Residence has good food.

  That had Camellia raising her own nose. “Maybe for cats. You didn’t eat bean curd sandwiches there.”

  Mica’s tongue protruded from her muzzle and her ears slanted in disapproval.

  “Yeah,” Camellia confirmed.

  Pig slop.

  “Yeah.”

  I will tell Brazos that We must be fed well. Mica trotted to the corner teleportation pad. Come ON!

  Camellia rose from the floor in one easy motion. Her matches with GraceLord Lemongrass had toned her more. “I need to dress.”

  The cat hesitated, paws lifted midstep, turned her head to look, then sat with a hiss. “Yesss.”

  Frowning, Camellia left her Fam lashing her tail in the mainspace, discarding clothes as she went.