Irresistible Forces

by Catherine Ansaro et al

  Silence.

  Scrambling to his feet, he glared over the plains. The breezes blew his red-gold curls in his face, and he pushed them out of his eyes.

  He saw no one. Although a person could easily hide in the grass, she should have left a trail of bubbles floating over whatever path she took here.

  Vyrl peered back the way he had come. He had left more than a trail; his wild race had stirred clouds of glimmering spheres. If someone was following him, she could have disguised her approach by keeping to his path. He should have noticed someone skulking after him, but then, he hadn't been paying much attention. None, in fact.

  "Who is here?" he called, trying to sound forceful. The words came out more startled than commanding, but at least his voice wasn't breaking anymore. It had finally finished changing and settled into a deep baritone, which pleased him just fine.

  No answer came to his question, however. The girl was playing a trick on him. Hah! He wouldn't let her rattle him. He saw no trampled grass nearby, but the reed-grass always sprang back fast. He had flattened a great deal of it when he lay down and already it was rising back into place.

  Vyrl continued his search but found no trace of the intruder. He began to feel a bit foolish. Perhaps he had imagined that giggle. Finally he lay down again, stretching out on his back with his hands behind his head.

  Another giggle floated on the air like a bubble.

  "Who is that?" He had heard her. Glowering, he jumped to his feet and stalked around the area, stomping at the grass. "Who's there?"

  Two bubbles detached from a nearby stalk and bobbed off over the plain. There! He strode forward, grasses whipping around his legs.

  A trill of laughter rippled in the wind. Then a girl jumped up out of the grasses, red-gold curls and blue skirts. With a laughing glance in his direction, she took off and raced away.

  "Hey!" he shouted. "Lily, you come back here!"

  Instead of running after her, though, he hesitated. Lily was the daughter of a local farmer. She and Vyrl had been friends practically since they had been born, but lately he had avoided her, unable to do more than stutter banalities in her presence. Lily didn't look like Lily anymore. She had changed, become all curves and mystery.

  She ran through the grasses, sending sprays of bubbles into the air. Her blue skirt swirled around her legs and parted the high grass, showing glimpses of her thighs, then hiding them again. The top of her dress fit snug around her torso, adorned by a maze of confusing laces. Vyrl had never figured out why girls needed so many ties on their clothes. She made a beautiful sight, though, her waist-length curls flying in the wind, streaming around her, shiny and red-bronze, touched with gold sun-streaks.

  Hah! He wouldn't let her get away with spying on him. He took off in a sprint. In the village, he would have held back, not wanting people to see them playing like children, but out here he felt less constrained. Chasing Lily, making her shriek and laugh, had always entertained him. Now the thought of catching her made his pulse quicken in a way that had never happened when they were younger.

  Lily glanced over her shoulder, her gaze flashing with mischief, her large eyes taunting him with an audacious gleam. Her teasing laugh sparkled across the plains. That laugh had been the bane of his existence for as long as he could remember.

  With his long legs, Vyrl easily gained on her. Coming alongside her, he grabbed her around the waist with a gleeful shout. They went into a spin, their momentum whirling them around. He almost regained his balance by swinging her in a dance step he didn't usually let anyone know he had learned, given that men weren't supposed to dance. Then they toppled into the grasses in a tangle of limbs and clothes.

  "Got you!" Vyrl flipped her onto her back. Still panting from his run, he pinned her upper arms to the ground. "Say 'Give,' " he demanded. "Come on, Lily! I win."

  In years past, she would have yanked up a clod of tube-reeds and thrown it at him, then escaped while he yelled and wiped his eyes clear of the sparkling dirt that clung to bulbs on the grass.

  Today, though, she wasn't laughing. She stared up at him, breathing hard, her chest rising and falling, her violet eyes huge. Most everyone in the Dalvador province had violet eyes, including Vyrl himself, but until this moment he had never realized the beauty of the color. Her lashes glimmered gold, a thick fringe against her milky skin. The rosy blush of her cheeks made his pulse race. He felt hot, then nervous, lying here, half on top of her, gazing at her face, which was so familiar and so new at the same time.

  Her emotions washed over his empath's mind: confusion, surprise, and an uncertain anticipation, sweet and intense. It all mixed with another emotion harder to define, a warmth that spread through her and made him even more aware of her curves. Vyrl flushed, unsettled by his heightened awareness of her. Usually he shared emotions only with members of his family, who were the only empaths in Dalvador. Even then, they had to be near one another to pick up moods, and they had learned to guard their minds, to give one another privacy. Yet with Lily, his mental defenses were drifting away as if they were no more than ephemeral bubbles that floated on the wind.

  They lay staring at each other, Vyrl with no idea what to say. Lily's mouth parted slightly, her lips full and soft. So soft. Plump. How would they feel if he touched them?

  Then she dimpled like an imp and grabbed a handful of reeds. "You must let me up, O clumsy sir, or I will be forced to shower your head with sod." Although she spoke as always, full of play, she sounded different today—breathless, a little scared.

  In the past, Vyrl would have wrestled her for the grass. Today he murmured, "You must first pay a fine for spying on me."

  She gave a mock gasp of dismay, her heart-shaped face as expressive as ever. "And what terrible fine would you wrest, you heartless beast, from a poor girl such as myself?"

  "Not so terrible," he said softly. Then he bent his head and kissed her.

  As often as Vyrl had imagined this moment, his daydreams were nothing compared to the real thing. A jolt went through him as their lips touched. She tasted so sweet and felt so soft, her breasts against his chest, her body round beneath his. His heart thudded hard, as if he were still running.

  Lifting his head, he whispered, "Lily." Then he kissed her again, moving his hands up her sides, caressing, feeling where her hips curved in to her waist.

  Her emotions had become a confusing tumult. Ah, no, she wasn't responding. Mortification swept over him. Had he made a fool of himself? If she pushed him away or laughed at him, he was going to die, utterly die.

  Instead she slid her arms around his waist, her embrace tentative, as if she wasn't sure where to put her hands. Her mouth parted under his and she nibbled shyly at his lower lip.

  Vyrl sighed, almost giddy with relief. He wanted to untie her laces and pull up her skirts, touch her everywhere, but he held back, afraid he would scare her.

  Her emotions flooded past the natural barriers in her mind, the protections all people raised without realizing it. Then he knew; this was her first kiss, as it was his. Despite his good intentions, his hands roamed. Still kissing her, he stroked her sides, down and up, his touch urgent. He folded his palms around her breasts, filling his grip with them—if only this cloth would disappear! He fumbled with the laces on her bodice, baffled by their complexity. Frustrated, he pulled harder, straining to undo them. Pushing up her skirt with his other hand, he reached for her thigh—

  "Vyrl, no. Slow down." Lily pushed his hand away from her leg. She was breathing hard now, but she had tensed, no longer pliant under him.

  He groaned softly, one hand on her breast, the other intertwined with hers at his side. With her mental barriers fading, he could feel her shy desire, but also her fear.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "You're just so soft and pretty." He brushed his lips across her nose. "I could kiss you all day."

  Her blush deepened, as pink as a sunrise. He had always thought Lily was lovely, even in their early childhood when cruder children had called her a "fat li
ttle sprout." Now the plump little girl had vanished, replaced by this curvaceous beauty. Warmth washed out from her mind and he closed his eyes, letting it flow over him. She felt so very, very right, as if he had always known he would someday hold her like this.

  "You've been working on your father's farm a lot," she said. "I've seen you doing your chores."

  Vyrl opened his eyes. "They don't seem like chores." He longed to kiss her more, but he held back, not wanting to ruin this moment by pushing too hard. He shifted onto his side next to her, their bodies fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. The grass waved above and bubbles shimmered in the air. One popped, scattering glitter over them. Vyrl laughed, then flicked the powder off Lily's nose.

  "I like to work in the fields," he said. He would far rather plow a field than study the physics his tutors persisted in trying to teach him.

  Her mouth curved upward, half shy, half teasing. "You look very fine out in those fields with your shirt off."

  He flushed. "You watched me like that?"

  "You know, Vyrl, you used to be skinny, like a stalk of too-tall-weed."

  Hai! He never had liked it when people called him that, even if it had been true these past years, when he shot up like the too-tall-weeds that grew over houses, seeking light from the suns.

  "So what weed do I look like now?" He tried to make light of it, though he would really rather not be called a plant.

  Her face gentled. "You don't." Touching his cheek, she spoke in her lilting voice. "You look like a man now, so strong and tall."

  An emotion swelled in him, one he wasn't sure how to define. He knew only that he was where he belonged. With a tenderness he hadn't known he possessed, he brushed back a curl that had blown in her face. Then he kissed her again, barely able to believe he had her in his arms. He wanted to feel her skin against his, to make love to her out here under the golden suns, just as he had so often loved her in his dreams. But he held back and did no more than kiss her, taking it as slowly as she needed.

  When the larger sun touched the horizon and shadows stretched across the plains, Vyrl and Lily headed back to the village of Dalvador, walking hand in hand, smiling and shy with each other. Vyrl was in no hurry. Now that he and Lily had made clear what had always been unspoken between them, they had plenty of time—their entire lives—to explore what they had begun today.

  The Hearth Room was empty. The fireplace at the far end of the long hall slumbered, its coals dark, no flames licking its blue stones. No one sat in the armchairs there, and the standing lamps with their rose-glass shades remained unlit.

  Lost in daydreams, Vyrl walked across the other end of the long hall, far from the hearth, in the shadows. As he passed the great stone staircase that curved up to the second floor, he glanced around to make sure he was alone. Then he turned in a circle, pretending to dance with Lily. With a flourish, he snapped his foot to his knee and spun fast, three times. He came out of the turn in a leap, jumping high off the ground. Then he landed on bent knees and stopped, checking to make sure no one had seen him. Laughing softly at himself, he resumed his staid walk.

  "You're late," a voice said.

  Vyrl froze. In response to the speaker, the lamps at the far end of the hall came on, shedding warm light over the hearth. This far from the lamps, shadows filled the hall, but enough light filtered back to show a man standing a few paces away, in the doorway Vyrl had been approaching. He hadn't heard anyone enter, probably because he had been dancing.

  Vyrl managed to find his voice. "Father."

  Eldrinson Althor Valdoria, who carried the title of Dalvador Bard, looked to Vyrl like the hero of an epic poem. At five feet ten, his father stood half a hand-span taller than the average man of Dalvador. He had a well-built physique, his muscles firm from years of farming. Wine-red hair brushed his shoulders, its healthy sheen visible despite the dim light. Even Vyrl, who understood almost nothing about how women saw such matters, could tell his father had a handsome face, with its straight nose, high cheekbones, large eyes, and classical features. Although Vyrl never knew how to respond when people exclaimed over how he resembled his father, he considered it a compliment, more because he admired his father than because he cared about appearance.

  "Where have you been?" Eldrinson asked, frowning.

  "Out in the plains." Vyrl tried not to look guilty about his missed schoolwork. His father would never understand. No one could. Vyrl was all brimming confusion and desire. Although his older brothers sometimes saw girls in the village, he was certain none of them had ever felt the way he did about Lily, as if his heart could soar one moment and shatter the next.

  Eldrinson came over to him, and Vyrl again had the unsettling experience of looking down at him instead of up. He had yet to become used to being taller than his father, and he was still growing.

  "And while you were running in the plains," his father inquired, "who was doing your lessons?"

  Vyrl imagined a black velvet cloth over his mind, hiding his thoughts about Lily from his father, who was a strong empath. "I'll finish them tonight."

  "You shouldn't leave them until so late."

  "I can't study all day," Vyrl grumbled. "I'll turn into a mad marauder."

  "A marauder?" Eldrinson tried to hold back his smile. "We can't have that."

  Although his father had guarded his mind, Vyrl could tell he wasn't angry, either about the missed homework or about Vyrl dancing, which he had probably seen.

  "I feel suffocated in here," Vyrl said. "I need to run."

  His father tried to look stern. "If you intend to carry through with this idea of yours, to earn a doctorate in agriculture someday, you have to study."

  "If I go to the university, I'll have to go off-world." The prospect dismayed Vyrl. "Maybe I could attend through the computer webs instead."

  "You mean in a virtual classroom?"

  "Yes." Vyrl's mood lightened. "Exactly."

  Eldrinson rubbed his chin. "I don't really understand it, these machines and things of your mother's people."

  Having grown up with the technology his mother had brought to Lyshriol, Vyrl had never shared his father's unease with it. Eager now, he said, "I've been checking colleges. Many have programs for virtual students. I would never have to leave Lyshriol." He longed to learn the science behind the farming he loved. Lyshriol was more than his home; the plains, the suns, the land itself were part of him at a level so deep he couldn't separate them from his identity.

  His father spoke carefully. "Many possibilities exist."

  Vyrl could tell something more than unfinished homework was troubling his father. Disquieted, he looked around. "Where is everyone?" Usually the house bustled with life. He had six brothers and three sisters, all at home except for Eldrin, his oldest brother.

  "They went to the festival in the village," Eldrinson said. "I've been looking for you."

  "For me? Why?"

  "To talk." His father's expression had become unreadable. "If you stay here on Lyshriol, your life will have many constraints. You wouldn't have to accept those limitations if you went off-world."

  Apprehension brushed Vyrl. "I don't want to leave."

  "You may change your mind when you're older."

  He pondered his father. Although Eldrinson didn't seem overly upset, he wasn't happy either. Vyrl had tended to avoid his parents lately, but this cautious conversation bothered him. His father was shielding his mind more than usual. It didn't feel right.

  Vyrl went to the stairs and sat on the fourth step, stretching out his legs. "What happened?"

  Eldrinson came over and leaned against the banister, his elbow resting on its gold curve. "You are familiar with the House of Majda?"

  "I guess." Vyrl knew Majda the way he knew the other noble Houses, as institutions he studied in school and otherwise gladly forgot. In this age of elected leaders, the Imperial nobility were an anachronism—including his own family, the Ruby Dynasty, which topped that antiquated hierarchy.

  He winced,
reminded of the history lessons he had neglected yesterday, earning his tutor's disapproval. His mother's ancestors had ruled the Ruby Empire until that interstellar civilization had fallen, stranding its colony worlds. During the ensuing dark ages, many colonies had lost their technology. Only in recent centuries had his mother's people regained star travel and begun rediscovering the lost colonies, such as this one on Lyshriol. Although Vyrl knew the House of Majda had been a strong ally of the Ruby Dynasty throughout history, he had never met a single member of that venerated line. Majda belonged to off-world politics, like a distant fog.

  "Devon Majda heads the House of Majda," his father said. "She inherited the title of Matriarch ten years ago, just after her twenty-eighth birthday."

  "Oh." Vyrl leaned back with his elbows on the stair above him.

  Eldrinson shifted his weight, then cleared his throat. "As Matriarch, Devon has… responsibilities."

  "I see." In truth, Vyrl had no idea what his father was talking about. He couldn't pick up anything from Eldrinson's guarded mind. He wondered if he could make it to the festival in time to have dinner with his brothers.

  "Do you know what those responsibilities are?" Eldrinson asked.

  Was this a test? Maybe his father was more annoyed with him for playing truant than he realized. If he had to stay in tonight while everyone else enjoyed the festival, he wouldn't see Lily.

  He tried to sound knowledgeable. "As the head of her House, Devon Majda has a seat in the Assembly." Vyrl scoured his memory. "Most councilors in the Assembly are elected leaders who represent various worlds. Only the noble Houses have hereditary seats. It's left over from the days when the Ruby Dynasty ruled instead of the Assembly." He squinted at Eldrinson. "You and Mother have seats, too, don't you? Mother is the Councilor for Foreign Affairs."

  "That's right." His father paused. "Your mother's seat is more than hereditary; she ran for election and won. It gives her more votes."

  "Oh. Yes." Although Vyrl admired his mother's work in a theoretical sort of way, right now he had more concern for his growling stomach. Lately he was hungry all the time. He ate twice as much as his younger siblings, but it never seemed to be enough.