Challenges

by Sharon Green

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The garden had been wet from the rain earlier today, and the sky had looked like it was preparing to rain on us a second time. I thought about the sky and rain as I walked back through the house, but for some reason it didn’t help to distract me. What I had to say to Lorand hung in my mind like a burning missive from the Highest Aspect, an unignorable command to rush headlong into desperate danger and unknowable jeopardy.

  Which was just plain silly. I shook my skirt a little as I walked, trying to get rid of the beads of moisture I’d picked up outside, telling myself silently but firmly that I was being ridiculous. Lorand wasn’t a stranger off the street, after all, and Rion had shown me how pleasant lying with a man can be. On top of that it was necessary for our Blending, to make us the best we could possibly be. So why was I beginning to move so slowly, reluctant to peek into the library because Lorand might well be in there?

  One of the answers to my question was that I’d released all but the faintest touch on the power. My memories relating to men still weren’t the nicest it was possible to have, and the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally hurt Lorand if one of those memories got the better of me. The fact that that brought me back to my usual cowardly self couldn’t be helped, except for the way I’d begun doing it: turning stubborn and refusing to back down.

  So I took a deep breath, set my teeth firmly into a good chunk of stubbornness, and went to open the library door. The relief I felt when the room proved empty made me ashamed, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the relief for a short while. But it was a very short while, because empty downstairs rooms meant Lorand was probably in his bedchamber. The thought of that made me blush, which in turn made me even more disgusted with myself. I was supposed to be an adult, after all, not some silly, mouse-like child…

  The wonderfully mature adult that was me found it necessary to peek into the dining room before it became absolutely certain that she had to go upstairs. I’d caught a glimpse of Jovvi earlier, going directly upstairs, but when I reached the upper hall there was no sign of her. She wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary, I pointed out to myself sternly. She didn’t stand around hoping some catastrophe would happen so that she’d have to change her plans.

  The admonishment made me feel properly ashamed—until I remembered who she was being so efficient with. That very strange feeling flared in me again, the one I’d thought I’d gotten so well under control, the one I really couldn’t understand. I’d definitely decided to try to discourage anything deep from developing between Vallant and me so that he’d be safe, but the idea of him being with another woman made me feel—fluttery-bothered. There didn’t seem to be any other way to describe the combined physical and emotional reaction, but the words were so inadequate…

  I suddenly awoke to the fact that I’d knocked on Lorand’s bedchamber door. Part of me must have preferred the distraction of painful embarrassment to thinking about what would happen if Vallant discovered that he preferred Jovvi after all. The idea should have pleased me, especially since it was Jovvi rather than some strange woman I neither knew nor liked. But it didn’t please me, not in the least. I’d never really had Vallant as anything but someone to argue with, and it could very well turn out that I never would…

  “Tamrissa?” I heard Lorand’s voice say. “Did you want something?”

  “I … need to speak to you,” I replied, pushing away my previous thoughts with every ounce of strength I possessed. I’d been so distracted, I hadn’t even seen Lorand open the door. “Do you mind if I come in?”

  “No, not at all,” he said, opening the door wider, then he added softly, “No one but the five of us is upstairs right now, so your timing is perfect. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Jovvi made a rather important discovery that you need to know about,” I said after turning back to him, taking the coward’s way out, at least for the moment. “Let’s sit down and I’ll give you the details.”

  He’d closed the door by then, so he nodded with a smile and returned to the chair that had a book near it on the adjacent table. I’d already taken the second chair, so as soon as he was settled I described Jovvi’s discovery of her talent to “tell” people things. Lorand listened with his brows high, and then he shook his head.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder why we weren’t taught about any of this,” he said after letting out a long breath. “The nobles try to keep every bit of useful information to themselves, which holds the rest of us under their thumbs.”

  “It’s always possible the nobles don’t know about it either,” I pointed out. “Many of them seem to be as ignorant as we are, but at least the five of us are learning. And this new ability just may be the answer to another of our problems, but you and Vallant have to decide about that. You two are the ones most directly involved, but you have to remember that any experiment could make things worse rather than better.”

  “What sort of experiment are you talking about?” Lorand asked, now appearing a good deal more intense. “If it’s Vallant and me who are involved, it has to concern—Tell me what you mean.”

  “Jovvi and I once agreed that it’s much easier to solve someone else’s problem than your own,” I explained slowly, trying to find the best way to put it. “What we meant was that Vallant could overcome a worry about burnout easily, and you would have no trouble controlling an intolerance for enclosed spaces. It’s possible that Jovvi could … get you two to exchange problems, but it’s also possible it might not work.”

  “But if it doesn’t work, we won’t be any worse off than we are right now,” Lorand said, his whole being brightening with the possibility. “And if it does work… I’m for trying it as soon as possible.”

  “It isn’t necessarily true that you won’t be any worse off,” I put in, holding up a hand to slow the tide of his enthusiasm. “There’s always the chance that you might end up with two problems instead of just one, and find them both equally unmanageable. Don’t forget that Allestine stayed here in Gan Garee, despite the very real possibility that she would be arrested. If she hadn’t been under a compulsion she might have gone home at least for a little while, just until she knew whether or not Jovvi preferred charges. Staying here was insane—but she did it anyway.”

  “There’s got to be a way around that, so we’ll just have to look for it,” he said with a smile, all but dismissing every word of caution I’d spoken. “This is something that has to be tried, and the sooner the better. You can tell Jovvi that if Vallant wants to wait while I go first, I don’t mind in the least.”

  “I’ll tell her, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to discuss the details with you,” I said, making sure I promised nothing. “In the meanwhile, we want to see if Blending again won’t solve the two problems without any additional effort. For all we know it will, and then no one will have to take a chance.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Lorand said, now looking surprised. “And you’re right, we do need to try that first. I just wish we didn’t have so long to wait until we’ll be able to do it. When you knocked I was in the midst of thinking about taking a nap, to make sure I don’t yawn in everyone’s face and mind tonight.”

  “I have a different suggestion,” I said, getting the words out before I could lose my nerve. “Do you remember agreeing to lie with me? Well, I thought that now would be a good time, because…”

  “Tamrissa, please,” he interrupted, suddenly looking very upset. “You can’t mean you expect me to lie with you now?”

  “If it’s a bad time I can come back later,” I said, half relieved and half disappointed. “I certainly wouldn’t want to intrude if you have something else that needs doing. We are friends, after all, so—”

  “No, listen to me,” he interrupted again much more gently, leaving his chair to crouch in front of mine before taking my hand. “Your face and voice say you think I’m rejecting you, but that couldn’t possibly be farther from the truth. You’re a very beautiful
, very desirable woman and I feel honored that you would consider lying with me, but I agreed to your request before I had that talk with Vallant. Now that I have, everything’s changed.”

  “What could possibly have changed?” I asked, completely at a loss. “And what does your conversation with Vallant have to do with me or us? You’re really not making any sense, Lorand.”

  “I had the horrible feeling I wasn’t,” he muttered, almost looking desperate, and then he forced a smile. “Let me see if I can explain what I mean, and then if you have any questions I’ll try to answer them. All right?”

  I nodded because that was what he clearly wanted me to do, not because I knew what was happening. Or why Lorand had suddenly turned so strange…

  “Men seem to have a … different way of looking at things than women do,” he began slowly and haltingly. “I suppose I’ve always known that, but being here with you and Jovvi has really brought the point home. The difference we’re discussing now is the one about a man and a woman lying together when another man has … involved himself with caring deeply about the woman. If a man knows that another man feels that way, he’d be a cad and worse to lie with the woman anyway. Are you following me?”

  This time I shook my head, not daring to say a word. Whatever was making Lorand so unintelligible might be catching, and keeping silent could be the only defense against it.

  “Still not following me,” he muttered, apparently fighting not to become even more upset. “All right, look, I’m just going to say it straight out, without giving you any detailed explanations. If you still don’t understand, you’ll simply have to take my word for it. Tamrissa, I would love to lie with you, but if I do it will cause Vallant a lot of pain. He’s as crazy about you as I am about Jovvi, and your lying with me instead of him will hurt him very much. It may not make sense to you, but you have my word that it’s the truth.”

  For an instant I didn’t understand, but then I remembered how the idea of Jovvi lying with Vallant made me feel. It wasn’t what I consider pain, but hurt was a fairly good description. The idea hurt me, in a way that had never happened before.

  “I think it’s beginning to make sense,” I admitted after a moment, which brought an immediate look of relief to his face. “But I would advise you not to be so happy about it. This makes for another, very large, problem.”

  “Which is?” he asked, now eyeing me warily. “I have the feeling I’d be better off not knowing, but I still have to ask.”

  “Well, Jovvi and I discovered that intimacy with a man makes the Blending bond stronger,” I said, glad that he was still holding my hand. “If we want to have the best Blending possible, she and I have to lie with every one of you men. But if it’s going to cause hurt and difficulty among us, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  “Are you two absolutely sure about that?” he asked, his look of relief gone again. When I nodded he said, “How right you are about it being a problem. I can see that Vallant, Rion and I will have to talk, but I refuse to try to guess about how it will turn out. I’m not feeling any too broadminded myself right about now…”

  His attention drifted off at the same time his words did, and I made no effort to call him back. Very frankly, I was too busy thinking about Jovvi and Vallant. I was sure she’d had better luck than I, but what I wasn’t sure about was how I felt about it. Even my sense of language was becoming tangled, confronted as it was by the picture of Jovvi and Vallant together. I wanted Jovvi to be successful, but I didn’t want her to succeed. But she had to succeed … even though I didn’t want her to…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jovvi saw Tamma dawdling around, but she went upstairs rather than stopping to encourage the girl. The horde of servants trying to watch them were out of sight, but not quite out of hearing range. Any casually exchanged words would be overheard, and if they weren’t properly argumentative… Better to just let things be, and allow Tamma to work them out for herself.

  Not to mention the fact that Jovvi didn’t want Tamma to hurry in finding Lorand. Just because something is necessary, that doesn’t mean it also has to be pleasant. Those words of wisdom made Jovvi sigh as she stopped in front of Vallant’s door. If she and Lorand hadn’t had that problem between them, she wouldn’t have thought twice about the necessity. Sharing a man’s body didn’t necessarily also mean sharing his love, at least not the kind of love that had nothing to do with the physical sort. But the awful uncertainty caused by her own stupidity was now twisting everything out of normal shape and size…

  Jovvi quickly knocked on Vallant’s door, before her rampaging thoughts took her to Lorand’s door instead. He answered sooner than he might have, as he’d been up on his feet rather than sitting or lying down.

  “Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” Vallant said with a smile when he saw her, then the smile disappeared as he stepped back to allow her entrance to the room. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not really,” she replied with the best smile possible as she accepted his wordless invitation to enter. “There are some things we need to talk about, and there’s a decision you’ll have to make.”

  “A decision,” he echoed, staring at her calmly as his mind raced. “That sounds almost portentous, so I’ll need a cup of tea to fortify me while I listen. There’s a second cup if you’d like some yourself.”

  “There’s always a second cup when you ask for an individual tea service,” Jovvi grumbled as she joined him in walking to the tray. “Is that a command not to drink alone, do you think, or a snide slap to tell us they know we never do? I’ve been wondering ever since I got to this house.”

  “It’s probably for use in case your first cup gets too clogged with tea leaves,” Vallant answered, doing an excellent job of hiding his surprise. “In any event, I’ll wash your cup after you leave, since these days I ought to be drinkin’ alone. Are you sure nothin’ is wrong?”

  “What I’m sure about is that the testing authority used the wrong thing to ruin my balance,” Jovvi answered ruefully, his continuing calm helping her to find her lost control. “If they’d wanted to do a really effective job, they should have used the topic I’ve found. But that’s beside the point. What isn’t is Allestine’s trial, which you were there for. Did anything about it strike you as really odd, more than the rest of it?”

  “I’m glad you qualified that,” he said, waiting until she had her tea poured and sweetened, and then following her to the chairs. “There wasn’t anythin’ about that trial that wasn’t odd, so findin’ one item in the bunch is almost impossible—at least for me. Which thing were you thinkin’ about?”

  “It was what Allestine said when she was asked why she hadn’t left Gan Garee,” Jovvi replied, sitting in the chair Vallant had gestured her to. “She said something like, ‘It isn’t possible to leave,’ and I remember that her response bothered me at the time. Somehow the words sounded familiar, and a little while ago I realized why. I’m the one who told her that.”

  “You did?” His frown was clear as he settled himself in the chair, just as clear as the confusion in his mind. “Jovvi, are you sure? People are always sayin’ somethin’ like that, and not because someone else has said them first. This whole trial business has been hard on you, I know, but—”

  “No, Vallant, really,” Jovvi interrupted, tenderly amused with how genuinely concerned he was. “I’m not trying to find more things to blame myself for. What I’m trying to tell you is that when I was in the coach with Allestine and had opened fully to the power in order to control Ark and Bar, I told Allestine that leaving would not be possible. I was trying to frighten her into believing I meant to report the incident to the authorities, and never even stopped to consider how much power was then flowing through me.”

  “Power,” Vallant said, now looking startled. “Of course. I also missed that, and probably everyone else did, too. You told her to do somethin’ while you were filled with the power, and she couldn’t even disobey to avoid bein’ arrested. I’ve never hea
rd of someone with Spirit magic doin’ that, and it’s fairly obvious you haven’t either.”

  “Someone has to know about it, but clearly not someone who’s in the habit of sharing information.” Jovvi was annoyed at that, but brushed the emotion aside. “And if that wasn’t revelation enough, Tamma and I have once or twice thrown an idea around that now seems possible rather than ridiculous. She and I agreed that solving and handling other people’s problems is always easier than coping with your own. Do you agree with that?”

  “Certainly,” Vallant granted at once. “Problems are always easier to handle when you’re not emotionally involved. So where is that leadin’ us?”

  “To the possible solving of your and Lorand’s problems,” Jovvi said with a faint smile, very aware of the leap of hope inside the man. “But first I need to have some idea about what caused your problem in the first place—if you know. Lorand told me about a girl at school burning out when he was very young, and the picture of her sitting mindless in the rain has always stayed with him. But what about you?”

  “It…started after that swimmin’ incident, I suppose,” Vallant replied after a very long hesitation. “I don’t usually talk about it, and even try not to remember. I was about eight or nine, and decided that followin’ my older brothers when they went explorin’ in the underwater caves of our cove would be fun. I couldn’t let them know about it, you understand, or they would have told Daddy and he would have ordered me to stay home.”

  Jovvi nodded silently while Vallant gulped some tea, understanding only too well. Telling a bright, adventurous, outgoing child not to do something dangerous almost always brought about tragedy. Why people didn’t simply teach the child to do that something properly, with supervision, was beyond Jovvi. Was it simple stubbornness? A need to feel superior about something? Possibly a simple matter of laziness? Most street children learned not to take unnecessary chances, but that was because they had no families. Could there be circumstances where a family was more of a burden than a blessing?