Destiny (9 page)

Everyone agreed with that, so they trooped on back to the place they'd come from. Going back also let them reclaim their sleeping pads, and once they'd positioned the pads in pairs with a discreet distance between the pairs, the rest of them stood back while Rion stepped forward. Jovvi expected it to take Rion at least a short while to produce their privacy areas, but an instant after Rion stepped forward there were three dark oblongs blocking sight of the sleeping pads.

"Shouldn't we have been on the inside before you did that?" Vallant asked as he stared at the oblongs. "Gettin' in and out without your help might be a problem."

"I didn't harden the air, I merely made it opaque," Rion answered with a smile. "We all have blankets to protect us from the cool of the night air, and maintaining simple opacity will be easier for the others as well as for us. If for some reason any of us needs to leave the sleeping area for a brief time, leaving won't require the aid of someone with Air magic."

"Good thinking, Rion," Lorand told him with a smile, and then he turned to Jovvi. "Come on, love, let's get you bedded down."

Jovvi had no need to be asked that twice, so she went along with Lorand while Tamma went with Vallant and Naran with Rion. They were finally back to their original pairings, with Naran and Rion no longer separated by misunderstanding. The arrangement was a relief to Jovvi, but one other thing wasn't: Lorand and Vallant were still showing faint traces of jealousy, and Jovvi was very much afraid that those feelings would bring trouble at the very worst of times…

"Why are you just sitting there?" Lorand asked, and Jovvi came back to awareness to realize that they were in their privacy area and she was sitting on her sleeping pad. The fact that she didn't remember walking in and sitting down would have been upsetting under other circumstances, but with everything that had been going on it was a miracle that she even remembered her name.

"I was just appreciating how nicely dim and private it is in here," Jovvi temporized as she looked around, not in the mood to explain the truth. "We don't have as much room as we did in the tents, but we do have privacy enough for me to get out of these clothes. I'll enjoy sleeping a lot more without them."

"Yes, that's a good idea," Lorand agreed, and then he began to undress the way she was already doing. Jovvi merely folded her clothing in a pile near her sleeping pad, and once she put herself under her blanket she became aware that Lorand's shadowy face was turned in her direction.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, reaching out to touch the face that seemed to be studying her even though they were nothing but shadows to each other.

"No, it's nothing," Lorand replied, and Jovvi could almost feel the faint, humorless smile curving his lips. "I was just waiting for you to be ready so that I could put my arms around you before you fell asleep."

"Is that the only thing you have interest in doing?" Jovvi asked, moving closer to him. "Just holding me while we both sleep? We could have done that without a privacy area."

"Do you really think I'd take advantage of you when you're this tired?" Lorand countered, sounding slightly offended and torn both at the same time. "You nearly emptied yourself of strength trying to break through the conditioning on that invader Borvri Tonsun, and now you need to sleep to regain your strength. We can make love again when you're feeling up to it."

"Our associate Blending returned a good measure of my strength, and I think you're forgetting something," Jovvi said, making sure that a smile was clear behind her words. "I may not be able to touch you and the others, but I can still tell what you're feeling. You have no more interest in going straight to sleep than I do, my love. You don't intend to make me force myself on you, do you?"

"That would be impossible, my love," Lorand returned, and now there was clear amusement in
his
words as his arms went around her. "For you to be able to force yourself on me I would have to be unwilling, and unwillingness is the only thing I'll never be able to give you. As long as you're sure I won't be taking advantage…"

"You'd never take advantage, and I know that even if you don't," Jovvi assured him as she moved even closer. The feel of his body against hers was as marvelous as it always was, but there was something the least bit odd about the contact. Lorand lowered his face to begin a kiss, and Jovvi joined him so quickly that all oddness disappeared. Being held in Lorand's arms had always been a magical experience for her, and this time was no different from the others.

Jovvi's rising desire quickly enhanced Lorand's, and they kissed and touched as though for the first time. After a very short time it was Lorand's burning need that fed Jovvi's, which meant that she was more than ready for him when he rose to his knees and began to enter her. Having Lorand in her possession was pure delight for Jovvi, and she was just about to give herself over to nothing but bodily sensations when Lorand ended their current kiss and put his lips right next to her ear.

"I may be fond of our sisters, my love, but I'll never feel for them what I feel for you," he murmured, the words more unthought-about than deliberate. "I've waited forever to have you back in my arms, and when the time comes for you to be gone again, I don't know how I'll bear it."

Lorand went back to kissing her then, and Jovvi wasn't able to do anything but respond to what his body did to hers. They shared love for a very long time, and once they'd both found release Lorand fell asleep almost immediately. Jovvi lay in his arms, expecting to find sleep almost as quickly, but the words he'd spoken kept echoing in her head.

I may be fond of our sisters, but I'll never feel for them what I feel for you,
he'd said, and now that Jovvi could think again she also felt disturbed. Jovvi loved Lorand as much as she always had, but that oddness she'd felt when their bodies had first touched… She now knew the oddness stemmed from the fact that she felt just the same being held by Vallant or Rion. She still loved Lorand as much as she had, but somehow she'd started to feel the same about their Blending brothers.

But that wasn't the disturbing part. Jovvi felt Lorand's warmth where her hand lay on his arm, but an odd chill began inside her. For some reason
her
emotions seemed the proper ones, emotions she was meant to feel. But Lorand had said that he would never feel the same, and that idea kept her awake much longer than it should have. Something bad would happen because of it, somehow she
knew
something bad was going to happen…

Chapter Six

When Rion left the privacy area he'd created, the surrounding village struck him as odd. Even in the darkness he'd been aware of the presence of large numbers of people, many of whom were completely out of sight. Now…

"You feel it too, don't you, Rion?" Tamrissa's voice said, and he turned to see her approaching him. "We and all of our people are still here, but this village still feels empty and deserted."

"The evacuation seems to have been a complete success," Rion said after nodding his agreement. "But I did expect to see more Gracelians than just our four new Blendings. Weren't we going to get them link groups?"

"There weren't enough High talents to form link groups for even one of the new Blendings," Tamrissa said with a sigh. "Our associate Blending told me that Dinno and Reesh offered to round up High talents in Liandia and send them back to us, but until they get here we'll either have to share with the Gracelians or let them go it alone. Which we do will depend on what happens with the invaders."

"Has anyone checked on how close the invaders are now?" Rion asked as Naran left the privacy area to join them. "And is that breakfast I smell?"

"Yes, that's breakfast in spite of the fact that it's closer to lunchtime," Tamrissa answered with a smile. "And no, no one has checked on the invaders yet. That's
our
job, as soon as the rest of our Blending is up and about."

"I take it Jovvi and Lorand haven't yet made an appearance," Rion said after glancing around again. "I see Vallant over by the cooking fire, but they're not with him."

"Jovvi came close to draining herself, and Lorand did a lot of healing," Naran pointed out before Tamrissa was able to reply. "It's not much of a surprise that they're still asleep."

"And since the invaders aren't supposed to get here until sometime tomorrow, there's no reason to wake our sister and brother," Tamrissa added with a smile for Naran as well. "I'm currently enjoying this quiet time, but that's because I've already eaten. Once you've had your breakfast, you might be able to do the same kind of enjoying."

"At the very least, I need a cup of tea," Rion said as Tamrissa began to lead them over to the cooking fire. "I've discovered that I'm able to face quite a lot as long as a cup of tea is available to sustain me."

"If Rion ever becomes conditioned, we'll probably be able to break him out of it by offering him tea," Naran said, making Tamrissa chuckle. "I can't imagine anything being able to keep him away from the drink."

"Don't forget that he's not alone in that," Tamrissa pointed out to Naran while Rion took his turn at being amused. "The rest of us usually yearn after tea at least as much as Rion does, and the only thing that draws half our Blending more is the thought of a bath."

"The female half of our Blending," Rion said after joining in the general laughter. "We men enjoy being clean, but not nearly as much as you ladies do. We need to spend some time today giving ourselves clean clothes, so that tonight we can also enjoy Vallant's version of a bath."

"Yes, we do want to be clean when meetin' those invader leaders for the first time," Vallant said as they stopped near him, obviously having heard what Rion had said. "Or maybe we shouldn't be clean. If our Blendin' entity can't best theirs, maybe our body odor will overwhelm them."

"I'd like that idea more if it didn't mean passing up the chance to bathe," Tamrissa said while everyone else chuckled. "Rion, isn't there some way to … save the odor, so to speak, and use it as a weapon without having it used on us at the same time?"

"Using an odor as a weapon," Rion mused, taking the suggestion a lot more seriously than Tamrissa had meant it. "It just might be possible to do something like that, but there are better odors to use than the ones
we
produce. Once, when I rode through the woods with
that woman
in our carriage, we were forced to go past part of a deer carcass that had been … perfumed by a skunk. I never felt so ill in my life, and that woman actually threw up. Once we got home she also fired our carriage driver, as if driving through the woods had been his idea rather than hers."

"Well, I seriously doubt if she's doing any hiring or firing
these
days," Tamrissa said just as Rion's emotions came perilously close to depression - just as they always did when he thought of that woman. "The woman who claimed to be your mother was sent to Astinda along with the rest of her exalted noble friends, and all of them have been working to bring the land alive again for quite some time. She's probably become quite mellow by now, don't you think?"

"Hardly," Rion said with a sound of scorn that wasn't meant for Tamrissa. In his mind's eye Rion was almost able to see Hallina Mardimil, dressed in cheap and colorless clothing, her hair hanging tangled and sweat-soaked as she used what looked to be a hoe on a section of burned-out ground. The woman's mind was filled with growing fury, and after another moment she straightened and threw the hoe away from her.

"I am Lady Hallina Mardimil, and I refuse to be treated like this any longer," the woman announced in cold and haughty tones as she glared around. "One of you will run and
immediately
fetch me a cold drink, which I will sip while my carriage is brought around. I will then go home, and none of you peasants is ever to come near me again."

"I'm Vistern Lankers, who used to be a High Lord, and you're a fool," a nearby man said after wiping his brow on the back of his arm. "If you can't stay in touch with reality, woman, just keep your fantasies to yourself. And pick up that hoe and get back to work. The rest of us don't want to be late for supper because you still think you're too good to do your share."

"But my back hurts and my hands are covered in blisters," the woman answered, fighting not to sound as shaken as she felt. "I don't like this dream, and I want to wake up now."

"Waking up would be a good idea," another voice said, this time a female one. "Even I've been able to separate reality from fantasy by now, so
you
have no excuse. Pick up your hoe and get back to work."

The woman looked in the direction the female voice had come from, and found Eltrina Razas staring back at her. The two of them had hated each other almost forever, and that made it easy for the woman to hold her head up high.

"
You
are and always have been a nothing," the woman informed the Razas bit. "I, on the other hand, am the most important woman in the world. My father always told me that, and I've never been given any reason to doubt the truth of the claim. With that in mind - "

"You really do have to wake up," another, more kindly voice interrupted the woman, this time another man. "Your father told you what many fathers tell their daughters, and in their own hearts they aren't lying. You'll find all this easier to accept if you make yourself understand that your father simply failed to make himself clear. You were the most important woman in the world
to him
, but not to anyone else."