Korl paused, his breathing harsh as if he’d poled all night long, and removed the circlet of crystal he wore, studying it as if he’d never seen it before. “They told her it wouldn’t live in captivity, that some creatures had to be free to survive, but she wouldn’t listen. Instead she tried to Heal it with the Power, to grow it new feathers, to calm its mind so it wouldn’t beat senselessly against the walls of the cage.”
He threw the circlet into the petals at Mahri’s feet. “She gave it everything… everything!” Korl raked his hands through his hair and he looked at her, anguished rage twisting his face. “But you know what happened, don’t you?”
Mahri couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She hoped that Lista had set it free, that the tale had a happy ending, but knew from the expression on his face that it didn’t. It was only a bird, she thought, yet she knew they spoke of more than the qa’za.
“It beat,” and he ground the words out, one by one, “at the bars of the cage until it lay bloody and dead.”
Mahri lifted out a hand to him, slowly, carefully. Did he understand, then? Could she hope that the story of a captured qa’za had somehow made him realize how useless it was to keep her imprisoned here?
She managed to speak. “At least it was free.”
His face turned red. “It was an exceptionally stupid bird!” he bellowed.
“Aya.”
“Come here.”
She walked forward, stepping over the circlet, unable to disobey. To get anywhere near him seemed the most foolish of things to do, for his body radiated his fury, his eyes sparked with more than the zabba in his system. For the first time Mahri felt weak when compared with his strength.
But she couldn’t quench that flare of hope that he might, just possibly, let her go.
Korl read something in her face that enraged him even more and his muscles tensed and he reached for her clothing and with a violence that took Mahri’s breath away he ripped the silk from her body. Strong arms enclosed her in a grip that pulled her from her feet and slammed her against his rigid torso.
“You will love me,” he commanded, crushing his mouth to her own, plunging his tongue inside to possess her, and she couldn’t fight him off. Wouldn’t even if her body had let her. For this one moment in time he wouldn’t be denied and she knew it, and although startled at first, something inside of her responded to him so that, like the first time they’d made love, Mahri was more than ready for him.
She must be the savage the Royals accused her of being, because his need to dominate excited her beyond reason. When he pulled back from her to tear his own leggings from him, and kept one hand fisted in her hair so that she couldn’t escape, she whimpered not from pain but from the sheer animal desire that swept through her. Mahri reveled in the knowledge that he wanted her with a mindless passion, that he’d fight an army and win if it got in his way between them.
Had any woman a man that wanted her this much?
He shoved her down in the carpet of fallen petals and plunged inside of her and Mahri raked her nails across his back. She matched him thrust for thrust and when he growled his release a cry tore from the back of her throat as a wave of ferocious pleasure ripped through her entire body with contractions that made her arch her back again and again.
Mahri relaxed in complete fulfillment. A drop of wetness hit her cheek, and she looked up in surprise to see Korl’s face twisted with horror.
“What’ve I become?” His face reddened with shame and he pushed away from her, scrambled in the colorful softness for her clothes and tossed them at her.
“Korl…”
“Get dressed.”
Mahri held the strips of shredded silk up in the air, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “In what?”
His mouth hung open while he struggled into his leggings. “I did that?”
“Aya.” Mahri giggled.
Korl straightened, hands on hips, leggings slouched just below that, covering him halfway so that her eyes strayed to the curls of dark gold hair shimmering over the tops of them. “How can you laugh after what… what I just did to you?”
“Oh, quit being so patronizing. Do you really think you did anything that I didn’t want?”
That arrogant mask fell back over his features and Mahri sighed with relief. Better that, than…
Korl flexed and crossed arms that bulged with muscle over his hard, broad chest. “I suppose you think you’re stronger than I am, too?”
Mahri shrugged, wondering what the “too” meant but so satisfied in her bed of spent flowers that she could only grin back up at him. “Of course not, your Royalness. But I did have my staff within reach.” She rubbed the top of her weapon that still lay securely in its loop from her waist-belt, having withstood the shredding of her silk outfit.
He gave an imperious nod, acknowledging her skill with the weapon against his own brute strength, but with enough skepticism to let her know she’d have to prove it for him to believe it.
“You couldn’t have stopped me,” he growled.
Mahri sniffed and scooped handfuls of multi-colored blossoms over her skin, refusing to reply. She knew a thousand armed warriors couldn’t have prevented him from taking her, but she’d be drowned before she’d admit it. The man already thought too highly of his physical prowess.
He grinned at her, watching the petals that blew across her navel. “I’ll never look at another flower without imagining the velvet of your skin hiding beneath. You are a wild thing, aren’t you?”
“Mmm,” sighed Mahri contentedly.
And then he frowned. “Like the qa’za.”
She hesitated. “Aya.”
“It was a stupid bird.” Korl spun and left the clearing, returning moments later with a pack made from otter skin. He tossed it down next to her with a negligent flick of his wrist.
Mahri sat up, dark red hair covering her like a cloak. She reached into the pack, pulling forth newly stitched snar-scale leggings and vest, a hand-tooled belt of such fine scales that it lay fluidly across her palm, a full bag of zabba attached to it. She looked up at Korl through her lashes.
“The qa’za should’ve been happy.”
She nodded.
“It had the best of everything.”
“Aya.” Mahri’s heart soared with happiness, and Korl felt that rise of feeling and swayed in reaction to it. But she couldn’t suppress that flare, for she knew that he’d decided to free her. To let her return to the swamps. She scrambled into the snar-scale clothing, replaced the gem-studded belt for the plain, scaled one from around her waist, settling her staff into it without a hint of regret.
She clucked at Jaja to wake, who blinked sleepily before emerging from his petaled cocoon to scramble onto her shoulder. Mahri fished zabba from her pouch and crunched into the bitterness while she followed Korl to a leaf-shrouded door that opened onto the wide channel that surrounded the Palace Tree. The low-lying branch the garden had been made on sat just above the surface of the water, and Mahri looked over the edge to see her boat anchored below.
Jaja squeaked in glee and dove, popped up near the bow of her craft and crawled aboard, inspecting the inside as if to be sure that it was indeed, their own little boat.
Mahri turned and looked into a face rigid with grief and rage. She didn’t need the Bond between them to feel Korl’s soul. But the joy that spread through her own overshadowed her empathy for him, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it.
“I’m truly free?” Sparks of Power flashed from her eyes and she could feel the tiny explosions that rippled through her pathways.
His hand shot out, wrapped in her hair and dragged her up against his chest, belying his words. “Yes. You’re free to go, but that doesn’t mean you have to.”
She stiffened beneath his warm lips against her ear. Her next words dripped sarcasm. “Ach. So just knowing I’m free should be enough?”
“Yes. No. Water-rat, let me in.” He slid his mouth along the side of her face and her traitorous
body responded to his need, pulling toward him even while her wit fought against that draw.
“Just this once, let me feel your mind within my own,” he continued. “Then you’ll understand why you can’t leave me.”
Although she couldn’t fight the lure of his skin she had no trouble battling his will, so that when he entered her pathways to tap at her mind-barrier she held it firm.
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Isn’t it enough that we’re Bonded? That we’ve forged ties that can’t be loosed? My thoughts are my own and will stay that way!”
His entire body sighed, and she felt the mourning within him overwhelm all other emotions.
“You ask too much, more than I am willing to give.” Her hands sought the silk of his hair, twined within that pale mass and drew his mouth to her own, apologizing for the hurt she gave him in the best way she could.
“That’s why I have to leave,” she murmured when they drew apart.
Rage surfaced again and Korl pushed her away, his face rigid, the parallel scars along his cheek standing out in high relief. “Go then, water-rat. I don’t know what got into me anyway, allowing scum like you into my bed.”
Mahri knew he meant to hurt her, to use words like knives to give her back some of his own pain. And he’d succeeded admirably, throwing her own insecurities at her; that she wasn’t worthy to be a princess, that she belonged in the swamps with the rest of the peasants. She wanted to defend herself, but swallowed the nasty words, knowing his pain to be greater than her own.
Mahri bowed to him instead, a parody of a courtier’s obeisant sweep to the ground. “This scum was honored, Your Highness, to be allowed into that most Royal of Chambers.” Her olive eyes twinkled up at him, and he fought, ach, how he fought the tug of a smile at the edge of that handsome mouth.
“I didn’t mean it,” he sighed, raking his fingers through the waves of his hair.
“Aya, you did. But it’s all right, for I know what I am, and it’s why I must leave.”
It no longer mattered what the natives demanded of her, nor her own intentions to stay and help him rule, for she knew the truth, that she’d never be his equal, nor allow him to so control her mind and body that she’d cease to exist. The gulf between them lay too wide to cross.
Mahri turned to leave but he reached for her again and she couldn’t refuse, knowing this may be the last time she’d ever see him, certainly the last time she could ever touch him. So she allowed her hands to feel every inch of her prince, to glory in the liquid texture of his hair, the warm curve of his neck, the firm muscles of his shoulders and the tight mounds of his bottom.
She tried to memorize each glorious part of him, and felt the exploration of his own fingers as if he sought to do the same.
And then the liquid heat of his mouth across her own made her sob his name. How could she leave him? How could she purposely seek to be anywhere but within the wondrous circle of his arms? Korl felt her sudden indecision for his hold tightened and he traced a fiery path to her ear and whispered and growled his love for her.
Fear shivered a path up her spine. If she didn’t take control she’d be bound to him for certain. Mahri yanked his head back with a tug on his hair, and he allowed her to, the muscles in his jaw rigid as she stroked her tongue up his neck and across his own ear, whispering back to him, “I’m sorry,” before rising on her toes and grinding her mouth atop his with a ferocity that stunned them both.
Feeling that it was the hardest thing she’d ever have to do in her life, she let him go and dove into the water, heaved herself into her craft and loosed the anchor. Mahri grabbed her staff and flicked her wrist in the pattern that extended it to poling length and pushed away from the Palace Tree branch.
She drew on the Power and Saw into the water, churning it beneath her to aid the current, reveling in the feel of that welcome, familiar liquid. Then she felt another inflow of strength and looked up to where Korl stood above her, Power flashing from his eyes, legs parted and head thrown back.
He fed her Power, helping her to be free.
Mahri held the wave beneath her, felt it churn to be set loose and propel her boat forward.
“You’ll be back,” Korl shouted at her.
She memorized the proud, strong look of him.
“I’ll leave a light burning in the window of my old room in the Healer’s Tree.”
Mahri smiled sadly. She’d never forget that she’d thought it had been her bad luck to choose that door, when in reality she’d had no choice—the natives had led her to it. Would he truly leave a light burning for her there?
The Wilding shrugged, vowing she’d never know, feeling something inside of her tear apart at that surety.
Mahri released the wave and her craft shot forward, Jaja in the bow, his tiny webbed fist raised forward and his tail finned out behind him.
Chapter 19
KORL MADE HER BREAK EVERY VOW SHE’D EVER SWORN.
He’d been true to his word and had kept a light burning in the window of his small room in the Healer’s Tree. A light that screamed like a beacon across the water, for he’d used the Power to create such a blaze; no light-globe could have produced such brilliance. Mahri had been drawn there night after night, had sat in the shadows and stared at that beckoning warmth, cursing herself for her weakness, cursing him for his stubbornness.
She thought he’d soon forget to set the light; she thought she’d eventually cease to go check. When neither happened, she realized that the only way to stop this tugging on her heart was to get as far away from him as possible.
But it seemed that Mahri couldn’t get far enough away from the draw of that light, for it stayed in her mind while she traveled through the swamps, to the very outskirts of human-settled trees, through the Gap Channel—that dividing river of water that must be crossed to reach the Unknown tree forests.
And after several weeks of travel through those wild regions, she still saw that beacon of light whenever she closed her lids.
“What’s wrong with me?” Mahri asked Jaja as she poled through an unusually calm channel. “How far must I go until the hold this man has on me is broken?”
Her pet shook his head and slapped his forehead with a webbed hand. The pooch of his tummy had shrunk to a tiny sag of scale-skin as they’d traveled, and he hadn’t been a particularly good companion. She knew he dreamt of sugared fruit and fish pies and blamed her for the lack thereof.
He’d spoiled so easily, thought Mahri. Soft beds, gourmet food. Aya, it’s a good thing we’d left when we did. Otherwise we might’ve been trapped there forever.
The current slowed, almost reversed back on itself, and her mouth dropped open. Before them lay the open sea, a smooth expanse of blue-green that shimmered beneath a sun unhindered by any canopy of trees, and beyond that, another line of forest, arising from the water to stand no bigger than her thumb because of the distance.
Mahri anchored the boat before it reached that open expanse and stared. By-the-thirteen-moons, how far had she come? She’d never heard of an end to the Unknown, had just assumed that it faded to open sea, yet beyond lay another cluster of tree forest that bespoke of another place. A Beyond the Unknown.
“Would that be far enough?” she mused aloud.
Jaja chattered and shook a finger at her.
“Ach, it’s not that far. We could make that line of trees before nightfall.”
He slapped a tiny webbed hand against his scaled forehead and fell backward.
“Dramatics won’t change my mind.” And Mahri flicked her wrist and the pole shifted back into a short staff. She eased it into her belt, lifted anchor and grabbed the oars. When she sat, Jaja hopped over to her and took both her cheeks into his scaled palms, those brown eyes luminous and compelling.
That barrier around her mind cracked a tiny portion, a testament to the panic of her monk-fish, that he did so without her permission, and the gentle thoughts of her pet trickled into her awareness.
No, no, spirit-friend. No n
ative go there, no protection for you.
“Jaja,” whispered Mahri. “I can hear your thoughts.”
This wasn’t like when she’d mind-melded with Korl, or when she’d been bombarded with the senses of the Sea Forest. His thoughts were such tiny things, no threat to her own identity, just a sharing that she welcomed as if a part of her head had been empty and only now felt whole.
You ready now friend.
“Wha… what do you mean?”
Lots zabba open way. You strong now, no hurt. He make you strong.
Mahri knew that Jaja referred to Korl, but she still didn’t understand. “How long have you thought I’d be strong enough to breach that mind-barrier?”
Jaja hung his head as if ashamed. For long now. But not happy with you. He looked back up at her and sighed. Good food at Big Tree. Humans make fish warm, make tender. Like stay with prince, foolish friend. And he shook his head with disgust as he thought those last few words.
Mahri’s head swam. Could she be dreaming all of this? Had she chewed too much root again? But she felt the sun’s heat on the top of her head, felt the breeze caress her skin and smelled the salty tang of the ocean too clearly for this to be anything but reality.
She frowned down at her small pet. “So why now?”
Make choice. Go this way, and he pointed at the enormous expanse of open sea, no come back. Prince of Changes need you. Future of Sea Forest need you. You other half of soul, must join.
His thoughts had started to fade so Jaja dug in her pouch and pushed a piece of root into her mouth and she crunched it between her teeth. Bitterness flooded her throat and Power sparked through her pathways, and Mahri widened that crack in her mind-shield with caution, remembering the overwhelming surge of sensations she’d experienced before.
But it seemed Jaja was right, for she could now control that flood of thought, could sense the hunger of a stingray without getting pulled into the creature’s own little awareness, could feel the cold of the deep ocean through the narwhal without getting sucked into that ancient sentience. Mahri could tap into the wealth of life that teemed throughout the forest without it overwhelming her.
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