by Cara Bristol
“The Sharona are…a distraction, not the threat. If seismic tremors diverted our underground rivers, they may have disrupted water sources for other tribes. I could encounter others who might seek to usurp what is not theirs.” He could have a fight on his hands.
“Like we’re doing?”
“We must survive.”
“The Sharona won’t see it that way.”
“I hope to convince Queen Ellynna it is in her best interests to share her bounty.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then we’ll be forced to drive the Sharona from their land.” Which made him uncomfortably aware the Lahon differed little from the others. We must do what it takes to survive.
“Provided you stay focused.” Kor looked doubtful. “You’re betting a lot on that unguent.”
“The ester is insurance. I’m confident of my willpower.” Of the fact he was dead inside, hadn’t felt a stirring since…
Kor snorted. “Good luck. Few can resist the Sharona when they are in mating fever. The pheromones are too powerful.” Like many other Lahon, including Garat himself, once, Kor had succumbed to seduction. After his enrapture, Kor had stumbled back to the Lahon settlement paler, disoriented, and at least a stone lighter. Garat wondered if his brother had bothered to eat at all—or if he’d spent an entire fortnight fucking. Ten months later, a squalling babe, swaddled in a basket, had been delivered to the edge of camp. Jerak, son of Kor, the enclosed note had said.
“For you, perhaps,” Garat replied. He could not confide in his brother, younger than he by ten years, that numbness offered his true protection. No blanket, no basket, no name had been attached to his son’s body, dumped in the woods on the darkest day of winter. There’d been a note. Son of Garat. The Sharona woman who’d birthed the infant had even bothered to name him. He had buried his son and his tears under a resolve to never succumb again. And he hadn’t. Nor had he told anyone other than Kor of his loss, his reasons for resisting further enrapture.
He praised the Goddess for her wisdom in keeping the Sharona separate from the Lahon. She’d recognized her people could not function if overcome by carnality. Mostly he was thankful because he feared what rage might compel him to do if he encountered one particular Sharona.
He’d been weak once, undermined by youth and inexperience. Older and wiser now, he didn’t accept men were powerless. He had a hunch the men wanted to submit to the hedonism of the flesh, so their desires played against them. Asceticism built strength. He would prove it. Breeches on, he would march into the royal palace of the Sharona, and march out with dignity and pantaloons intact.
“Beware that arrogance does not trip you, for it will be a hard fall.” Kor folded his arms. “And what if Shara does agree? What then?”
“We’ll have water channeled to us, and we can continue to keep our distance.”
“And if she says no?”
“Then I will call up a regiment, and we will take what we need.”
“And how will you keep the men from succumbing to their charms? Instead of an invasion, you could end up with an orgy.”
“Some of them will fall,” Garat admitted. “However, the women who are in fever will be too busy fucking to fight. I’ll send our most seasoned warriors and ensure our contingent outnumbers theirs.”
“That’s your plan?”
That and the mating fever antidote, which would help the Lahon resist enrapture. Garat patted his pocket. Meloni, their healer, swore it worked. His venture into the palace would prove it.
Chapter Three
Being dead wasn’t supposed to hurt.
Gravity funneled to a point and pressed on Reena’s chest. Hard. She struggled against the weight. Even her head was immobilized. She tried to scream, but something covered her mouth and nose. A gust of air whooshed into her lungs. And out. Rhythmic pressure on her chest again.
“Reeeenaaaa.” A keening cry penetrated the inky fog.
Harsh light pierced her eyelids.
Her throat spasmed, and then she was choking, coughing. “Oh thank Goddess!” someone cried.
Reena vomited.
Hands gripped her body, rolled her. From her stomach, from her lungs, through her mouth and nose, she spewed volumes of liquid. Water. Noxious herb mixture. She retched and coughed until her exhausted body couldn’t heave anymore.
She ached. Chest. Stomach. Ribs.
Reena opened her eyes.
Carinda crouched over her. Behind her, Honna wrung her hands and sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought I heard intruders in the woods. I feared it was the Lahon. Then I saw you drowning, and I panicked. I froze. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I’m not dead,” Reena said in amazement. She’d lived with illness for so long, she’d assumed she’d able to embrace the darkness when it came for her. But she hadn’t been ready. Giddy relief settled over her. Not today.
“No.” A smile trembled on Carinda’s lips. Water dripped from her hair and drenched her gray robe. She was wetter than before she’d left.
Disoriented, Reena focused on the mundane. “I told you to get some dry clothing.”
“I did, Princess. I rushed to the palace, changed, and raced back to find you drowning. I jumped in and pulled you out.”
“You pulled me out? How? You can’t swim.”
“I do not like the water, and I don’t swim well.” She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them. “By the time I could get to you, you were not moving and were turning blue.” A tear trickled to merge with the water droplets on her face. “I feared you were dead, but I initiated emergency breathing procedures.”
“Thank Goddess you did. You saved my life.” For another day, anyway. She struggled to a sitting position.
Carinda looked at Honna. “What happened?”
Honna hung her head. “I thought she was splashing around, having fun at first. Then, I panicked and froze,” she said. “I will never forgive myself.”
Reena squeezed her cousin’s hand to comfort her. The amulet in her wrist felt oddly warm. “You did the best you could. Anyone could have panicked under the circumstances.”
“You are generous, but the queen will be disappointed in me.” Honna eased her hand out of Reena’s hold and rubbed her wrist. The blue had darkened even more.
“We won’t tell my mother about this incident. This will be our secret.”
“Is that wise? The queen should be informed—” the bodyguard protested.
“My illness has given her too much grief as it is. With the palace seer warning of an invasion and so many afflicted with mating fever, she has enough to worry about.”
“The queen has much on her mind,” Honna agreed.
Carinda compressed her lips. “I don’t like it.”
“With all due respect—” Honna’s face tightened, and Reena held up her hand. Her cousin intended to pull rank and not in a tactful way. For some reason, an inappropriate rivalry seemed to exist between the two women. As the niece of the queen and a royal, Honna should have been able to rise above petty emotion.
She touched the guard’s forearm, “Please? Thanks to you, no harm befell me.”
The facts did not seem to reassure the guard, who glowered. “Because I had a bad premonition and rushed back.”
“Look, I’m fine!” Reena scrambled to her feet. “See!” She strode to where her robe lay in the sand, trying to cover how weak and wobbly her legs felt. She slipped into the garment and knotted it.
“It does not appear you suffered any additional damage, however, you are still ill.” Carinda folded her arms.
As everyone keeps reminding me! “All the more reason not to upset my mother. Let her believe the day passed uneventfully. That will make her happiest.”
“It is you I am worried about,” Carinda argued, but a flicker in her eyes revealed she was weakening.
“Then for me, please. I haven’t been out of my sickbed in weeks. Near drowning aside, I had a wonderful day. If you report this, the quee
n will never let me out of her sight, and she’ll have me poked and prodded by every healer from every land again. Nothing can be done for me.”
“I am not convinced nothing can be done for you,” Carinda said.
“Oh, you’re a healer now, too?” Honna cut in.
“No—”
Reena raised her hands. “Stop it! Both of you.”
Carinda’s shoulders lifted and fell on a heavy sigh. “All right. I don’t wish to spoil your day.”
Honna huffed and nodded.
Victory! A small one, but she’d take it. “Thank you,” she said.
* * * *
“You are next in line to the throne,” Honna muttered as they trod to the palace. She glowered at Carinda who headed the procession with weapon drawn as if invaders would leap from the brush. “You do not need to request anything of a commoner.”
“I will not live long enough to rule.”
“You are still the princess. Carinda exists to do your bidding, not the other way around.”
“Her heart is in the right place.” Reena sighed. “So is her sense of duty. She is correct that the queen would want to know what had happened.”
“She exceeds her station.”
“Out of concern.”
“She is disrespectful.”
“Why don’t you like her?” Reena stepped over an overgrown root stretched across the path.
“I do not dislike her. Watch out!”
“Thank you,” Reena replied as graciously as she could, stifling a retort that she was ill, not lame, and if the root had posed a problem, perhaps Honna should have called attention to it before they stepped over it rather than after. “Carinda saved my life today.”
“I’m grateful, but isn’t protecting you her job?”
Carinda had saved her life. Reena would not allow her to be maligned. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“As you wish. How are you feeling?”
The weakness in her legs had subsided. Queasiness churned her stomach, but nothing like what she suffered most days. “Pretty good.”
“When we return to the palace I’ll fix you another dose of the medicinal herbs.”
Reena braced for battle. “That won’t be necessary.”
“It is. You expelled most of the dose when you vomited.”
“I’m not going to take the herb anymore.”
“What? You have to! It’s the only thing—”
Reena held up her hand. “No. I hated to disappoint you, so I fibbed. The herb isn’t helping. Most days I’m so fatigued I can’t get out of bed, and I can’t keep food down.” She plucked at her robe. “Look at me. I’m skin and bones.”
“That’s why you need the herb!”
“The herb unsettles my stomach. I want to feel good during my remaining days.”
“Don’t talk like that! Look, I know the cure seems worse than the disease—”
“There is no cure for what I have.” Everyone pretended she would get well, but if a remedy existed, wouldn’t it have been found by now?
“There are more medicines to try. I haven’t given up, and you shouldn’t either!”
Reena shook her head. “No herb.”
“As the palace healer, I must insist for your own good…”
Since she’d become ill, everyone assumed they had the right to tell her what to do. Well, not today. “As the daughter of the queen and heiress apparent to royal house of Sharona, I insist.”
Honna compressed her lips. “Very well.”
Reena halted to smell the blossoms of an illianna plant. While the small silvery-green leaves were unremarkable, the plant produced huge white flowers with the sweetest fragrance. She lifted a flower and inhaled, filling her lungs with perfume. A vase of illiannas beside her bed did not compare to walking through the garden.
She took another whiff and closed her eyes in pleasure. I do not want to spend my last days in bed, but to enjoy the time I have left. Even if living involved nothing more than smelling a blossom. Reena opened her eyes and caressed a delicate petal with her finger. Tomorrow she would use the hidden passage and take another swim—but would remain in the shallows.
Something snapped, and Carinda barreled through the brush, worry etched on her face. “I assumed you were behind me. When I turned around, you had disappeared.”
Reena sighed. The hypervigilant guard spied danger around every corner. “I stopped to smell the flowers. Come. Let’s go.”
* * * *
Crystal shimmered, casting ever-changing hues of pink, violet, and cyan. Knowledge of how long the palace had stood or who had constructed it was lost to history. What remained were the blocks themselves, bricks chiseled from chyros, a beautiful, resilient material fitted to form a glittering hexagonal palace with a sylvan glade at its center.
Outside the walls of the royal residence, Sharona people, women and their daughters, lived in small hamlets. A tall stone barricade patrolled by armed guards and sensates protected the villages.
Reena sometimes questioned the necessity for such security. Supposedly the Lajon, a barbarian race of men, posed a grave danger to the Sharona, but when had a threat ever materialized? She’d heard it was prophesied in The Goddess’s Tome that one day the Lajon would overthrow the Sharona. However, some scholars questioned the translation. Assimilate, the ancient text said. Did it mean overthrow? Or could it mean unify?
The phenomenon of fever caused her to question what she’d heard. When the gem darkened to a deep cyan, women sought out the same barbarians they feared. Why would the Goddess endanger her daughters? And if the Lahon posed such a threat, how was it the women returned unscathed?
Well, most of them. There were always a few who disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Despite the possible perils, she wished she could see the Lahon for herself so she could judge and make up her own mind. Were they as fierce as everyone said? She and her cousin shared confidences, hopes, and dreams. On the subject of the Lahon, Honna had been taciturn. What little she had said had been negative. Could the Lahon be that uncivilized? That brutal? To believe so, one would have to doubt the Goddess’s wisdom, and it was far less heretical to question Honna’s.
Ellynna, her white robe sweeping the floor, met them in the great hall. She strode to Reena and grasped her shoulders. Her eyes, as sharp as faceted jewels, scanned her face. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“I am well, Mother.”
Honna made a noise in her throat, and Reena rushed on. “I went for a swim in the garden pool.”
Ellynna released her. She smiled and eyed the guard, her wet clothing and hair dripping onto the marble floor. “From the looks of things, I’d say Carinda went for a swim.”
Reena shuffled her feet. “She was assisting me…and she fell in.”
“You must be more careful.” Her mother’s smile evaporated. “How are you to protect my daughter if you do not demonstrate caution?”
A tinge of color tinted the guard’s cheeks, and she stared straight ahead. “Yes, Shara.”
“It was not her fault,” Reena said. “I pushed her in.”
Her mother arched her eyebrows. “Why?”
Reena lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “A joke.”
“Carinda, you are dismissed. You may change your clothing and carry on with your duties.”
“Yes, Shara.” She bowed and fled.
Ellynna turned to Reena. “While I’m gladdened you felt well enough to play a prank, it is not appropriate behavior for a princess.”
“No, Mother, you’re right. I apologize.”
“You are looking better today.” Her mother brushed a finger over Reena’s cheek. “Your color appears much improved.” She’d never lost hope a cure would be found and viewed every sign, no matter how insignificant, with optimism.
“Perhaps the new treatments are working?” Ellynna’s voice rose and she glanced at Honna.
“I think they are, Aunt Ellynna, she only needs more—”
<
br /> Reena fired off a warning glance.
Honna compressed her lips. She did not like being overruled or having her authority as a healer questioned.
Well, she would have to live with it. If that was the worst she had to bear, her burden was light indeed. Reena refused to drink any more of the nasty herb concoction. It would be best to avoid the topic altogether since she couldn’t be sure Honna would hold her counsel. “Was there something in particular you wanted to say to me, Mother?” she asked.
“Actually, Daughter, I came to speak with Honna.”
Her cousin’s eyebrows arched. “Me? Why?”
“I have noticed the transformation of your crystal.”
Honna pulled her arm deeper into the sleeve of her robe. “It has taken on a slight hue.”
“Slight?” Ellynna arched her brows. “I think, Niece, you must prepare yourself for the hunt.”
“I am fine.” She crossed her arms.
“Can you in all honesty say you are not suffering the effects of mating fever? The mental distraction? The physical preoccupation? How many times do you engage in self-abuse each day?”
“Aunt!” Spots of color bloomed on Honna’s cheeks.
“You should not be embarrassed. We’ve all experienced what you are going through.”
Except for me. Reena’s crystal was as translucent as it had been the day she was born. Puberty had come; fever had not. While her cousin rued the warrior’s curse, as she called it, perhaps because she’d never experienced it, Reena was fascinated by it. She’d heard whispers of increased tingling and sensation in one’s womanhood and breasts, of a physical and emotional yearning that would not cease until one engaged in violent debasement with a barbarian. Could the savages be as crude, brutal, and dirty as they were reported to be? As Honna had said? Surely the Goddess would have devised another way to populate Shalondia. Why create the Lahon at all?
“I do not like feeling this way,” Honna said.
“There is a remedy,” Ellynna pointed out.
Honna glanced at Reena. “I cannot leave.”
“Juliah can fill in.”
“She is only an apprentice healer.”
“You trained her, did you not?”
