by R. K. Hart
He eyed her warily.
She dug her nails into her palms. ‘How could you?’ she shrieked, before she could stop herself. Sacred startled and stepped away, snorting. ‘You might have died! How could you be so stupid?’ Tears started down her cheeks; she wasn’t sure whether they were from fury or relief. She wiped them on her sleeve, but more came immediately. She turned away, her chest heaving as she gasped in huge, ugly sobs.
‘N’couse pas, Lida,’ he murmured, and stepped before her, and her face was pressed to his chest and his arms were warm around her before she realised what had happened. She could not stop her own arms linking behind his back, the tightest she’d ever held anything; his chin came to rest lightly on her hair as she cried unreservedly. He was murmuring under his breath as he had with Sacred, but she did not think the language was Brinnican; she couldn’t hear it well enough over her sobbing to tell for sure. Every now and then he pressed a kiss to her head, but it only made her cry harder.
‘Most people would say thank you,’ he said, when she had finally caught her breath and stood, quiescent, listening to his heart beat as she occasionally sniffed. ‘Is that not something Eilins say?’
‘I’m not going to thank you for being stupid,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’
He rubbed his cheek on her hair; when he spoke, she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Perhaps you should stay away from water, then. Give me your hand.’
Lida held it up, and he slipped Siva’s ring over her pointer finger where it rested snugly. For a moment, she felt a gladness so complete that she almost started to cry again; instead, a glowing spread through her chest and slid through her limbs as Lorcan lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, his eyes locked on hers. Though the kiss was gentle, almost reverent, what was in his eyes was not: Lida could see a world in there, and it was wild as a tempest and as fierce as the sea. The air between them sharpened, and she felt it like the touch of steel on her cheekbones and along her jaw; she shivered as illae began to skip over her skin.
‘Have you forgiven me yet?’ he said huskily.
It took Lida some time to find her tongue. ‘If you ever command me again,’ she said, as evenly as she could manage, and trying not to tremble, ‘I will get into your dreams and I will drive you mad.’
He grinned. ‘You already do.’
She barely had time to frown before he pressed another kiss to her hand, this one placating.
‘I mean it. I have not slept soundly since you came. Every night, I am either waiting for you or dreaming of you. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of you, and I spend the night searching, pulling my dream to pieces, trying to find you. Sometimes I realise that it is not you, not really, and when I wake I wonder if you are real, or whether I took the things I wanted and dreamed you up. Sometimes I wonder if I am awake or still asleep, and I worry that I do not know how to tell. I wonder if I am real, and whether you are dreaming me; perhaps I do not exist, but for you willing it so. If that is not madness, I do not know what is.’
Lida flushed and looked away, pushing back slightly from his hold. ‘I was trying to leave you alone.’
He pulled her closer. ‘I do not wish you to.’
She blinked up at him, her eyes very heavy, as he pushed a stray curl from her cheek and ran his hand down her braid. His eyes went wide when he saw her ribbon; he twined it through his fingers.
‘Gods, Ava,’ he murmured.
‘Ava?’ Lida said tartly.
He chuckled. ‘Ava,’ he agreed. ‘She cannot help herself. The pattern. It is -’ he stopped abruptly as something over Lida’s shoulder caught his attention. ‘Parlen d’rosa,’ he said, and his face lit up in a smile that made Lida’s breath catch.
The look wasn’t for her. There was a swish of rushed footsteps through the grass behind her and Lida stepped aside in surprise as a dark-haired young woman dashed past and threw her arms around Lorcan’s neck, laughing. She covered his cheeks in kisses.
‘Ma bi-aime! T’es maison! T’ma manc.’
Lorcan embraced her tightly, then placed her gently back on the ground, pushing her dark hair away from her face. ‘Salu, peti fleur! T’es so belle!’
Lida translated slowly in her head, frowning, as the young woman laughed. Lorcan wasn’t exaggerating: she was beautiful, with dark hair and creamy skin and small, full lips of flushed pink. There was a sling across her back, which she tugged gently around her body to rest on her chest. Reaching inside, she pulled out a sleepy child, no more than a year old.
‘Regare!’ she demanded. ‘I’est cher, non? Il tu ressembe, tu n’cri pas?’
Lida ran through her words. Look at/pay attention to this! He is fair/pretty/lovely/handsome, no? He looks like/mimics/resembles you, do you not think?
She went cold. The child was chubby and lovely, blinking languidly, with a shock of thick, dark curls and golden skin. No, Lida thought, but as the young woman turned, Lida saw her sons’ bow-shaped lips, and Lorcan reached out to gently touch his cheek, his fierce eyes soft.
Lida’s back went soldier-straight and she turned and walked away. She heard Lorcan call after her, but she pretended not to hear.
***
She didn’t know where she was going; she just walked aimlessly between tenats. There were people everywhere, cooking and talking and doing chores, but none of them stopped her and she took no further notice of them. She walked and walked until there were no more circles and she realised she had reached the edge of the city. The mountains were before her; the freezing flurries of snow kissed her face.
She stared at the jagged summit, half-hidden in cloud, her mind curiously numb. She hadn’t dressed for the chill that was blowing down from the peaks, and despite her inner stillness her body began to shake. The mountains loomed over her; the sight seemed her make her colder.
He looks like you, do you not think?
She clasped her gloveless hands together, and calmly weighed up whether or not she wanted to scream.
‘Sivasdotter? What are you doing?’
Aaron emerged from the snow, frowning. He held a nasty-looking spear in one hand, its tip red with blood. His horse, laden with a deer carcass, followed him sedately, saddled but not reined. Aaron studied Lida closely; she started as she felt a gentle brush over her mindshield.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A strong family resemblance, no? He is a handsome boy.’
‘You’re gifted,’ Lida said.
‘Yah.’
‘Then why aren’t you at the Illarum?’
‘Avae l’gri hom?’ His eyes flickered and turned feral. ‘Non.’
‘Tiernan?’
He nodded curtly and stripped his coat from his shoulders. Before Lida could protest, he swirled it around her, bundling her up like a child.
‘Why do you hate Tiernan?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You ask too many questions.’
Lida shivered and pulled her hands inside the too-long sleeves of his coat. ‘Can I ask another?’
He laughed. ‘Could I stop you?’
‘How did you throw me from your dream?’
‘Ah,’ he said again. He didn’t offer anything further, but walked away, back towards the city of tenats. Lida was forced to stumble after him, clutching at his coat to keep it wrapped around her. Her teeth chattered.
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Fine. What do you remember of my mother?’
He didn’t turn around. ‘I remember that she was beautiful. She left with your father when I was only five summers old, but I remember her. I called her ma joli. She would sing to me, all the time, songs from Eilan and further, I think. When I was sick, she would speak to me in a language I still don’t recognise.’ He shook his head and threw a look over his shoulder, his fair brows raised in question. ‘Can you sing?’
‘Not well.’
‘A pity. She had such a lovely voice, deep and sad and true. Her laugh was like a bell r
inging.’ He wove between tenats and Lida hurried to keep pace with him.
‘What else?’ she demanded.
He chuckled. ‘So many things, cheri, that I would need days and nights to tell you.’ Lida glared at the suggestion in his tone, and he laughed again. ‘She wore a ring on her right hand, an emerald like a tear drop. I never saw her without it.’ He glanced back at her hands and gave a slight smile. Lida swallowed.
‘When ma mather went away, ma joli would sleep in our tenat, and she would rock me to sleep. In spring she would weave garlands of wildflowers for the young cilas and tell us of a place where it was always summer. She would tell us stories of the Eilin gods, but never of Eianna or Amivere, though we would ask for those stories. She would smile and tell us something different. Her stories were always different. Yoss was not a cruel god of ice, but a man who made a mistake. Andastra was not a warrior goddess, but a woman driven by rage and blood and grief. Kaia did not rise up to the stars when she jumped from the greystone cliffs; her body washed up on the beach instead, broken and bloated from the sea.’
Lida shivered. These were not stories for children. ‘How can you remember so much? You were so small.’
‘Ma joli loved me and taught me many things.’
Jealousy stirred in Lida’s stomach and she stared at his back resentfully. He felt it and looked back.
‘You have her face, you know.’
Lida laughed derisively, remembering the memory she’d found of Siva staring down at her newborn self, a smear of blood on her cheek. Her mother’s loveliness had shone even through the sweat and tears. ‘No.’
He strode between two tenats and stopped abruptly, turning to seize her chin as he had that morning. He ran his fingertips over her cheekbones and around her jaw, then brushed them lightly over her lips. ‘All your mother’s,’ he said roughly. He pushed back the hood of his coat and took a stray curl from the nape of her neck, twining it through his fingers. ‘She always wore hers in the Myrae style, did you know? But it was just this colour, and curled just like this. He ran a hand down her plait, just as Lorcan had done, and paused to re-tie Ava’s ribbon, which had come loose.
Lida realised that she’d been holding her breath. He gave a savage smile, baring straight white teeth, and took the coat from her shoulders, tossing it over one of his own. He turned and walked away, throwing a last comment back at her, not bothering to lower his voice.
‘I will answer your questions, ma peti oisu. Tonight. I will wait for you.’
He had brought her back to his family’s circle, and he disappeared inside what Lida assumed was his own tenat. She shook her head to clear it, one hand moving to touch Ava’s ribbon.
Alys and Lorcan were sitting at the cuer fe. Alys stared at Lida, open-mouthed, but Lorcan looked very deliberately down at the child on his lap, bouncing the little Erbidan boy up and down gently. The child burbled happily.
Lida turned her face away.
Chapter Nineteen: Gifts
‘If there was time before the star people first landed in Eilan on the backs of giant birds with silver wings, we do not know of it. Our history and our stories begin with that step from star to land, from the inky black of the forever sky to the green solidness of Eilin earth. Our ancestors left the place of their births and their heartlands and they felt great sorrow, but the warm and bountiful earth they found was a balm to their hearts and they grew to love the rolling hills and gentle rivers and the long summers of plenty. Their long journey had left them few in number, and so they begged their old gods to bless them with children to fill their new green land.
‘The old gods answered their prayers, and a special child was born, a girl with a star mother and an old-god father. She was like nothing they had seen before: her skin glowed with golden light and her eyes shone like emeralds. The stars had blessed her with a gift, and she had their power flowing through her veins in place of blood. Her mother named her Eianna, which meant a dream of earth.
‘Eianna was more than her star mother or old-god father. She could speak to the earth beneath her feet and was one with the sky above her head. She loved the stars and she sang to them every night, and when she was ready, she rose to join them, taking her place amongst her shining family. She watched over the country she loved, and she helped the crops to grow and the rivers to run clean and the summers to stretch long, so that her people might prosper.
‘Before she left for her eternity in the sky, she had two daughters from her body, to two different fathers. The eldest daughter, Amivere, was the daughter of a star man, and she was the most beautiful woman in Eilan, smooth-skinned and green-eyed with a head of shining auburn hair. She was an able strategist, intelligent and quick-witted with an aptitude for languages and a love of the sea. The younger daughter was of a man born on the ground, a great warrior. She was golden-skinned and fair-haired; her name was Andastra.’
Bethan’s voice was low. She didn’t have to speak loudly; every person around the cuer fe leaned forward, waiting for her next words. Lida was breathing shallowly, unwilling to miss a single syllable that Alys translated softly into her ear.
‘Andastra followed in her father’s footsteps, becoming a great hunter and warrior. There was no one stronger, no one faster. She rose to become the leader of her people, and, for a time, all as well.
‘One day, she looked up to see a giant bird float gently down from the sky to land in a meadow by her home. From the mouth of the bird came people she had never seen before: another tribe of star people. They spoke a form of Eilin that she could almost recognise, and within a handful of days they could communicate. They said that they were travellers; they said that they had come from farther away than she could imagine.
‘They were courteous and friendly, and so Andastra welcomed them, providing food and shelter and company. For a while, they lived in accord, the new star people grateful for the help they had been given, and mindful of host-right.
‘But in time, the newcomers became greedy for lands of their own, and they coveted the fertile soil of Eilan. They tried at first to buy land, showering Andastra and her people in precious metal and stones. When that did not work, they tried to take land by force, and many of Andastra’s people were killed by the weapons the newcomers used, sticks that spat fire and steel.
‘Andastra fought against them, and fought bravely, killing a great number. In the end, though, there were too many, and the newcomers’ weapons were too strong. They captured Andastra but did not kill her, women being too valuable and children too few.
‘Her half-brother, Arlyn, led a party to rescue her. Those left of the first star people fled north, where they were sheltered from their enemies by the harshness of the climate and protected by the barrier of the mountain range. Many died during their first season in the north, but the ones who lived were strong and adaptable, and in their children lived all the resilience of the first star people.
‘Andastra had a daughter by the ice-god, Yoss, whom she named Kali. As Andastra lay on the birthing bed, bleeding near to death, she named Kali her heir. Before Andastra could die, Eianna reached down to her, and pulled her up into the sky to live forever among the stars.
‘Kali grew up without a mother, but with many parents. Her tribe raised her, and when she stepped up to lead, after making her first kills and showing her first blood, she served the people who loved her. She smoothed disputes and she fought challengers; she enforced her mother’s laws with compassion and wisdom. She knew her people, and she loved them; they loved her back.
‘Before she died, she decreed that the best young woman of the land would lead the united tribes forevermore, regardless of blood or birth, and so it is that the tradition continues to this day. Each Kali is the best woman of her generation, and she serves her people selflessly and fully, with wisdom and justice, compassion and strength.’
Lida glanced at Katrin, who stared serenely into the fire. Lida imagined that she had heard this story many times, and wondered why Bethan had chosen
to tell it tonight. Did she think to remind Katrin of her duty? Or, Lida thought, remembering Mikal’s words at the Illarum, was it to remind the Kali’s family and guests of the fitness of Bethan’s own daughter, Bronwyn, to lead?
Lida shook her head slightly. She found it hard to stay still; the description of Andastra lying bleeding on the birthing bed was too similar to the circumstances of her own birth. Siva’s face floated in her mind as it had all day, the smear of blood on her mother’s cheek glowing scarlet. She looked up at Aaron and found him staring back at her across the fire, frowning; she subtly reinforced her mindshield, and went to check on Sacred one last time before she sought her bed.
When she got back to the cosy tenat, warmed by the flickering foye fe, she interrupted Dylan and Alys speaking worriedly in frantic Brinnican. They fell silent the moment she walked in.
‘What?’ she said warily.
‘Nothing,’ Alys answered, too brightly.
Lida frowned at them, twisting Siva’s ring around her finger. As she walked to her bed, something caught her eye.
On the foot of Lorcan’s neatly-made bed were two large posies of flowers. One was lovely, made of wildflowers and lush green sprigs of leaves, tied with twine; the other was almost forbidding, made entirely of perfect blood-red roses, their stems de-thorned and wrapped tightly with a white silk ribbon.
‘What are they?’
Dylan and Alys exchanged a glance.
‘L’peti mor,’ Dylan answered eventually.
Lida blinked, wondering if she’d heard correctly. ‘The little death?’ she said, confused, thinking she must have mistranslated.
‘That’s the literal translation. To us it means more … my heart has stopped, or my heart has skipped.’
‘And?’ she said, more warily.
Dylan sighed. ‘It’s an invitation, Lida.’
‘An invitation? To what?’
‘To bed,’ he said bluntly. Alys twisted her tunic in both hands. ‘We don’t have handfasting. We have courtship and marriage and bedding. A woman gifts l’peti mor to the man she desires. He returns it if he feels the same. It’s not permission; it’s the first step in negotiation. Sometimes it turns into marriage. Sometimes it lasts no longer than a night. Sometimes it never happens at all.’ He gestured to the bed. ‘We didn’t think … we didn’t think they would come so quickly.’
