More silence. I hear murmuring up above, but it isn’t distinct. A moment later and I hear a loud cranking and a dull creaking. The heavy wooden drawbridge groans as it lowers and I have to step back to avoid getting crushed by it. Merquin and Librida appear on the platform, an Eshimiri globe floating just behind them. It burns a slightly whiter color than the orange we’re used to, a sign that the new oil is working.
Librida strides purposefully towards me, her hands clasped in front of her robes. Even though Merquin looks like she wants to impale me — and she’d have every right to — she’s waved off by Librida who moves to the very edge of the drawbridge and gives me a stern, sad look with her large, black eyes.
“You know that you do deserve her, Raingar. You didn’t think you deserved to be clan chief, either. but there’s a reason you are. I can see it, the clan chiefs see it, even Essmira sees it. You should hear how highly she speaks of you. It drives Merquin crazy.
“When Merquin first approached me with questions of courtship, I wasn’t half as open as Essmira is to you. You’re already her hero. You got her out of a bad situation. It’s clear you already love her. You just need to show her that you respect her, too. That you trust her.”
“I know…I just…It’s hard…”
“Nob, Raingar. It isn’t. You just don’t trust yourself. You know that you are good enough for her. You know that your position as clan chief is earned. There is no clan chief kinder to their village or more helpful. You consider everything. You made sure to negotiate Walrey honey for Moreth even though its healing properties are only experimental. Your actions are what show that your village can’t do better for a clan chief. Show her through your ohring actions, Raingar, that she can’t do any better for a mate.”
I cringe through her explanation. I hate praise. I hate when the focus is on me. I hate having to try. I don’t know how to try. But…I do know how to do. I can show her things. I know what she likes, at least a little. I can do this.
“I am the chief of my clan. I can do anything,” I tell the two females — two beings that I trust more than any others in the galaxy. Well, aside from Gorman.
And Tana and Reyna and Bebette.
And a host of others.
Pagh! I trust them all equally. And Librida’s right. I trust Essmira, too. Is the only being I don’t trust in the whole of Lemora me? Ohring stars, Essmira’s right. I am an idiot.
“For comet’s sake,” Merquin groans. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re insufferable. Now can I just see my mate?”
“She isn’t here.”
“This again? If I have to camp out here all lunar and sing victory songs, I will.”
“Stars, that’s terrible.”
“You know you can’t sing,” the two females say simultaneously. They share a look, then laugh.
“She really isn’t here, Raingar,” Merquin shakes her head. She steps up next to Librida and slides a hand possessively around Librida’s lower back, settling it on her hip. I swallow, focused on that hand, wondering how she mastered the ability to touch her mate without hurting her. So much control. So much trust. And it goes both ways between them.
“You mean it?” I rub my chin, unsure.
“Yeffa.”
My brows draw together. My pulse spikes. “Well then, where in Lemora’s suns is she?” The two females exchange a look, debating whether or not to tell me. I can’t let them decide against. “Pagh!” I shout, taking a haggard step forward. “Just tell me. I’ll behave…”
“He will have to or the drunken mob will come after him,” Librida chuckles, shoulders jerking as she laughs.
Merquin grins lopsidedly at her female before turning her gaze back to me and it’s stony all over again. “I hear the party at Winter’s End is wild this lunar. You may need a pad pad if you expect to get there with enough time to catch her.”
“Then ready the beast!” I can’t believe it. Both Gorman and my entire ohring village lied to me to protect her. The thought makes my chin wobble. They love her already. They really do love her.
Librida takes off but Merquin still stands there, arms crossed, frowning. “You’ve done a bad thing, Raingar. A series of them.”
I nod but I don’t disgrace myself, Merquin or Essmira by looking away from my accuser. “Yeffa.”
“You think you’re ready to try for her, but you aren’t.”
I don’t say anything. If Merquin says it, she’s probably right.
“That’s why I wanted space between you two. She’s still discovering herself. And if, this lunar, you go and find her in the arms of another male dancing, what are you going to do?”
Shred his face off. Disembowel him. Throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my chambers and lock her in… “Nurfigh,” I say, stubbing my toe into the mossy soil roughly.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I’m not going to do anything!”
“Hm,” she says. She doesn’t believe me. I know I don’t. But I’m going to try. Is there any more that a mate can do for his miriga, but try? “Behave.”
I grunt. “I’ll try that, too.”
“What?”
“Norfig! Bye!”
A miserable pad pad ride later and I’m riding back into my own ohring village. I stable the pad pad and stomp past the partygoers, my heart hammering in my chest, trying to pound its way through my sternum. The streets are eerily clear — up until I pass the town square. There, the orbs shine bright, illuminating the party that’s spilled near and into the fountain where half a dozen drunk creatures bathe in the shallow pool.
“I hope you all drown! The lot of you!” I shake my fist at them, but only two acknowledge my barb.
One Lemoran male breaks the kiss he has ongoing with his mate just long enough to scowl at me. Both his and his female’s horns are a dull white, where the molting of my horns has stopped.
“Pagh!” I wave him off and drag my heavy feet toward the entrance of an inn I’ve successfully avoided for rotations due to a general dislike of merriment and revelry. But I’ll be merry and revel for her. Well, I’ll try.
I hesitate at the door, terrified of what I’ll find inside. Terrified of…just terrified. I’m damp from the drizzle and grateful that I’m bare chested. I’m wearing the trousers she made for me. She doesn’t like my other trousers. I knew that, but I wore them anyway. Another, small wedge to separate us? Another small rebellion to keep her away? I frown at myself, and plan then never to wear anything but her creations ever again. I want to appear beautiful for her.
Beautiful.
Even if I’m a rock with horns and a temper.
The door swings open in front of me and music bombards my senses first. Then come the smells. Sweat and roasted ruffalumph and, more than anything, lobba-spiced ale. I take a deep breath and take a step forward carefully…only to be crashed into by three Rekkaru buzzing about in front of me. They drop down onto their feet — a drunk Rekkaru is rarely a flying Rekkaru — and laugh when they topple into each other.
“Your mate is a beautiful dancer,” one of them supplies. A female with large grey eyes and long, black hair.
One of the other females walking beside her agrees while the other hisses under her breath, “Didn’t you hear what he did? He imprisoned his mate. Put her up in a tower, he did…” They step out into the lunar and her incriminating words are dashed away from me, drowned out by music and singing, shouting and laughter.
I turn to face it, keeping to the edge of the room. A balcony wraps around the inside of the second story and couples in various states of undress hang from it. Some are mated pairs, but I don’t look at them. I eye the crowd, ignore the stares and the sneers and try to find her and, when I do…I stop moving altogether.
She’s standing on top of the longest table in the room. Barefooted, she lights up the world. Winter’s End is known to be rambunctious, but even this level of debauchery is
rare and I know that this lunar, it’s because of her. Every creature in here is looking, leaning, dancing, moving, shifting, glancing towards her. Like she’s the central star that Lemora gravitates around, and we’re all successfully ensnared.
They call her miriga. They honor her. They honor me.
They may not be talking to me right now, but they haven’t forgotten that they care for me at least a little bit. Enough for this. My lips quirk.
I take a step toward her but I’m crippled by her next loud laugh. It’s louder than I’ve ever heard it, more careless, more wild. Her head and torso fall back, but the arms linked through hers keep her upright. I want to focus on the beings next to her, but I can’t pull my gaze away. So I don’t.
My fingers fumble clumsily for a chair — any chair — and I find one and wrench it underneath me. I sit and stare like a slack-jawed idiot, planting my elbows on the small table I drag across the floor until it sits beneath me. Three wyrns of ale tip and two of them shatter on the floor. The Lemoran males who’d been seated at the table stand up and shout curses at me, but I don’t even see them. All I see are her arms above her head and her feet moving and her hips…
I swallow, a brutal image assaulting me as I watch her hips sway underneath a garment that’s far too loose. It should be tighter. Then I could see her shape and picture it more clearly. Her. Underneath me. Moving. Just. Like. That. I don’t have a very good imagination. I need more.
But…
I’m not ready. Touching her again will need to be something I can work towards.
I edge back into the shadows when she spins all the way around, worried that she’ll see me and that I’ll ruin her lunar. I watch her dance. I watch her lips move to words that speak to histories she shouldn’t know, but that doesn’t seem to matter. She is Lemoran. Ohr her past. Ohr what I said to her before in the heat of the mines. Ohr me.
She spins out of Prilla’s grasp and is caught by Charana and the two females spin around and as they continue spinning, a soft chant picks up throughout the inn. I’m not paying attention to the words they say — I never do — until it occurs to me that they’re saying her name.
I smile. And then my gut falls. Prilla’s hands touch her waist again. He’s only touching her to steady her. Not because she feels good against his hands. Not because she’s smiling at him and making him feel like king of the mountaintop.
I close my eyes and take several deep breaths in and out through my nose. Trust. Trust her. Trust me. Trust Prilla. I can do this…I think.
I hope.
I open my eyes and she’s still spinning, but her feet are bare and there are things on the table. She’s heading too close to the edge and she isn’t paying attention because she’s making this high sound with her mouth and they’re all cheering up at her and she’s smiling around at them and then it happens — she trips over a discarded wyrn and loses her balance.
Her heel spills off of the edge of the long table and her arms reach for Prilla and Charana, but both are too busy falling themselves to catch her.
She needs someone to catch her.
I dive forward, shoving creatures out of my way as I lunge to gather her in my arms. She hits my grip and it curls to crush her against me in relief and longing. But we’re still fighting. Maybe she doesn’t like this? I hold her out away from me, every intention of setting her down, but she clutches my arms, unfocused gaze boring through mine. It’s hard to keep the line of her stare. Her eyes, they’re so…so bloody happy.
She makes soft, fluttery sounds as she tries to catch her breath. It makes me want to hold her closer, but I fight and push and pull against the instinct. Instead, I open my mouth. I try for her name, but I have to clear my throat a thousand times, which draws my attention to the fact that everyone in this jumbled, drunken tavern is watching me — watching us — waiting for what happens next…
“Essmira?” I choke, dropping my voice, hating that they’re all listening. I don’t know what to say, what to do, what to ask… I clear my throat. “Can I, uh, cut in?”
Her face softens even more and she smiles and her teeth are so white and straight and her little pink tongue shines so brightly, it almost looks like it’s radiating light…huh. Funny. Then she says, “You would like to dance with me, my Lord?”
I scowl, but I don’t correct her. I haven’t earned my own name back yet, it would seem. “Ughm…yeffa. Yeffa, I would.” I nod vigorously while my insides boil and steam. But the fire is assuaged when she smiles at me. She smiles at me and it’s an inundating thing.
“You’ll have to set me down, my Lord.”
I lift Essmira and set her feet down on top of the table. As I amble up beside her, I use Pilla’s shoulder to help stabilize me and I may squeeze it a little too hard as I climb. And I might also shove him a little too hard as I step up beside her. And I might…push him, too.
I’m trying. I’m not perfect.
He stumbles off of the bench seat and hits the ground. A Lemoran male catches his arm as he does, keeping him upright. He rolls his eyes, but still smiles at me slightly before ambling off, another horn of ale tight in his fist.
I glare at his back, but Essmira keeps me from killing anyone by shouting, “What happened to the music?”
Elmina, who owns the tavern, releases a high pitched whistle and the beings carrying instruments continue in a staggered mess. I can see the three Rekkaru who make up the troupe from here, but only because they’re flying above the heads of so many other clustered bodies.
Two of them carry walbows, large, stringed instruments that carry most of the tune, and one of them has hold of a yiyi, a blue gelatinous mass that makes a high trill through its inner vibrations. Judging by sounds alone, there are at least three horns, two drums and a handful of bells that make up the entire congregation, but I know that they’re likely to swallow up and spit out other players over the course of the lunar.
Folks start to sing and even though Essmira doesn’t know the words to this song, she hums along and the sound is piercing and hypnotic. I feel shaky with need standing so close to her as her eyes close and she starts to sway. The scent of spiced lobba clings to her skin and hair and I know it’s the reason she hasn’t started shouting at me yet.
On her other side, Charana hands her a full wyrn of the stuff. She takes the curved horn in her hand and tilts it to her lips. “Would you like some?” She asks me.
“Did…did you know that this horn is made from wyrn?” I say stupidly.
She smiles and blinks at me languidly and I force myself not to touch her, just to step close enough that I can shout over the sound of the revelry picking back up. “Nob. What is wyrn?”
“Wyrn. Oh. It’s a mineral deposit that forms naturally in the kintarr mines. Delicate, but plentiful, most drinking vessels are made of wyrn. Wyrn is also the name of the mineral its’ made from. It uh…brings out flavor in the lobba spice, too. The ale, I mean. The ale you’re drinking is made from lobba spice.”
Essmira just grins at me, her cheeks full and round beneath her pretty eyes. She stares at me and her eyes twinkle with violent delight. “Charana,” she calls, twisting away from me to grab the female on her other side by the arm. “Is there another wyrn of ale for our clan chief?”
I blush at the title and the obvious deference. Charana seems to think it’s hilarious and snorts. “Of course! There’s always lobba for clan chief Raingar. So long as he deserves it. Do you think he deserves it, Essmira?”
My throat tightens. I watch Essmira’s face as it splits into a staggering smile. “Everyone deserves lobba. But only if they get it in a wyrn. This is the fanciest cup I’ve ever used. Did you know it’s naturally forming from mineral deposits?”
“You don’t say?” Charana cackles and, moments later returns with a wyrn of lobba for me. She reaches across Essmira’s body to drop it into my fist and hugs her before pulling back. “We rather like this one, clan chief.” She winks, the stare directed at me. The challenge.
“
I do, too.”
“Then why aren’t you dancing with her? Isn’t a dance what you promised our miriga?”
She’s teasing me now, but I refrain from strangling her. “You’re quite right,” I say through gritted teeth and Charana laughs it up when I stand back and start to…dance?
It doesn’t surprise me that every single bottomless soul in this inn is laughing at me. Here I am, their clan chief, stomping my big ugly feet on the table in front of the most beautiful female in the galaxy. And she doesn’t seem to mind at all.
She spins in the cage of my arms, pressing her back to my front. Her head falls against my chest and she sings loud and clearly to a new tune she recognizes. She tips her wyrn to her lips and some of it spills over the sides and down her neck. I watch the droplets curve over the soft skin of her breasts before kissing the top of her dress.
It was once a pale green color, but now is much darker, stained red in places from the lobba, and pink in others from the kintarr down in the mines. I swallow down my desire and try to match her movements. I fail abysmally, distracted every time.
“I can’t…can’t dance. You can dance but I can’t.” I tell her, trying to peel my body away.
She turns in my arms, pressing her breasts against my chest. Her hooded gaze blinks slowly and she trips and my arms come around her, trying to keep her steady. “You can dance, my Lord.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You’re either a mad female or you’ve had too much ale and I’m willing to bet on the latter.”
She snorts at that, but slides her hands down my chest to my hips. I swallow hard. “You’ve clearly never done this before. But just because you haven’t done this before doesn’t mean you can’t, or that I can’t enjoy you.” Is she…is she still talking about ohring dancing! I start to sweat.
Her hands push my hips slightly to the left and then to the right and then back again. She mimics the motion with her own hips before letting me go and I swing in front of her like a pendulum.
“Ow owwww!” Someone behind me shrieks.
“Raingar, look at those moves!”
“Moves? I was looking at the pants. Essmira made those, you know?”
Taken to Lemora Page 17
