Heart Duel (28 page)

Lark circled around her brother and nephew and opened the door. “Good evening, Cratag.”

“Is it?” replied the scarred man in a tone gentler than she recalled. “I don't think many believe so.”

He wore formal clothes. Lark cocked her head.

He half-smiled. “I came straight from the ball.”

The charity ball for T'Ash's Downwind Centers. The ball, and the consequences of being seen there with Holm, that had loomed so importantly a few septhours before.

Lark's smile came easier than expected. “You look very debonair.”

He stared at her.

“I wouldn't have thought you the type to attend a ball.”

“I like to dance,” he said mildly. “It was for a good cause.”

That was it. He supported the Downwind Centers. Lark nodded.

“Is this witty dialogue done?” asked Huathe. “It's past time to go.”

Cratag stepped back into the corridor and Lark followed. “At your service, HawthornHeir.” Cratag bowed his head.

Huathe didn't spare him a glance. “Laev is here with me. He's fine.”

“How could he be otherwise, in the hands of a FirstLevel Healer?” Cratag asked, and Lark believed it was actually an indirect compliment.

Huathe gestured for Laev to precede him, then stalked into the hallway and to the nearest exit.

Cratag dipped a nod to Lark. “Merry meet, Lark.”

Lark shut her eyes briefly. She could
not
follow with the words “merry part,” and hear his “merry meet again.” Not when she was a Healer and he a fighter. “Blessed be, Cratag. Go with the Lady and Lord.”

“And you, Lark.” He cast one glance down the hall and lowered his voice. “This has been an ill day for all. D'Holly, the boy—” He shook his head.

“I gave Laev some herbs. Garis Heather is at T'Hawthorn Residence if either you or Laev need him. Laev and I have a bond. If you need me, tell him, or scry or viz and I will come.” She'd brave her father for Laev.

“A very generous offer.” With another nod, he strode away, easily catching up with her brother. As she watched him move, she knew that Holm moved in much the same way, with a fencer's grace. Fighters would make excellent dancers.

 
The night in his Mamá's Intake room stretched eternally,
with new Healers and PerSuns every three hours. Holm had teleported Meserv home to his bedsponge, but neither Holm nor Tinne were capable of leaving, and T'Holly seemed permanently installed in a seat at his HeartMate's bedside. Now and again an ashen T'Holly ordered his sons home. Then the three would have a heated, whispered disagreement that only ended when a Healer stated D'Holly turned restless at their voices. Finally, when it was obvious there'd be no immediate improvement in their Mamá's condition, Holm and Tinne agreed that they, too, would take watches. Tinne left at midnight, to return during the late morning hours, and Holm accepted the afternoon shift.

He dragged himself to T'Holly Residence an hour before dawn. Though lights were on, he avoided everyone in the household who still kept vigil. He embraced the exhaustion that continued to mute his feelings, particularly the pain of two heart blows. His steps lagged as he went to his suite. After the benediction of sleep, he'd wake and memory would crash upon him and the pain would be fresh and new and unbearable.

Eventually he reached the sanctuary of his rooms, stripped and let his clothes fall to the floor of his sitting room. In the bedroom he carefully put his dagger and blaser on the table next to his bedsponge. On his way to the bathroom and waterfall he passed the open doorway of his den and something lying on his desk caught his eye. He went to his desk.

Bélla's wreath sat to one side, as beautiful and fresh now as it had been when she'd made it. It hurt to look at it and know everything,
everything
had changed.

Next to the wreath was a large, rolled parchment tied with a green and gray ribbon and a stack of flexistrips. Music from his mother. His trembling fingers knocked them askew. Through blurred vision he saw the titles: “Holm's Courting Melody,” “Meditation for Spellwork,” “Joy for the HollyHeir,” and the last one, simply: “My Son.”

Somehow he found his chair. He buried his face in his hands, and shudders ripped from deep within his chest.

His Mamá was dying and the men of her house were alone. He yearned for Bélla.

 
 
During the next four days, Holm felt as if he lived within
a nightmare, populated by irrational and desperate people, including himself. All effort of T'Holly Household centered around D'Holly lying still and deathlike in Primary HealingHall, all schedules revolved around Healing shifts. Despair and an edge of panic infused the atmosphere.

Holm could not say what he ate or when, and the only reason he ate at all was to fuel himself so he could send energy and strength and
life
to his Mamá. He lived in a half-world of men, communicating with grunts, avoiding eye contact so they would not see any horrible truth in another's gaze. Even Meserv drooped, starting at shadows or burrowing into Holm for companionship. The Fam was unusually quiet, the hush of the Residence burdening him, too, and he lost some baby fat. Now and again Holm would wake to the kitten's retching. He mastered the clean-up spell so he could do it in two seconds flat and half-asleep.

T'Holly's rage and weariness hurt Holm on several levels. He hated seeing his father, the strength of his childhood, helpless and suffering and alone, without the always-present love and support of his mother. T'Holly appeared gaunter and more desolate with each passing moment.

The thought of his Mamá dying tore at Holm, shredding him, and, he feared, the fabric of the Holly Family.

Tinne's cheeks hollowed, his eyes sank deep into his head. Tab's brusque manner became taciturn.

And Holm had no peace or comfort from the sight of his HeartMate. Somehow Mayblossom Larkspur Bélla Hawthorn Collinson had always just finished her long hours at the HealingHall and left before Holm arrived for his heartbreaking duty of keeping his Mamá alive. He'd have welcomed the most impersonal Healing link with his love.

Unrelieved desire, now worse because he knew how wonderful fulfillment with Bélla could be, tormented him physically. Since T'Holly men released anxiety by fighting, there was never a lack of a sparring partner. Family members from distant branches trickled in and were assigned to train with Tab or Tinne or Holm.

Holm heard that some of the men, even the T'Holly cook, prowled the streets, scouting for T'Hawthorn colors. T'Hawthorns moved through the city warily and in large well-guarded groups. Skirmishes between the two clans erupted daily.

Rumor said one wing of T'Hawthorn Residence had been converted into HealingHall, with an attached courtyard as the essential Healing Grove.

With every gram of Flair needed to sustain D'Holly, Holm, Tinne, and T'Holly used gliders to go to and from Primary HealingHall.

Holm survived the days like an automaton, suppressing the agony of his two wounds—losing his Mamá and Bélla's rejection. The only time he felt truly alive was at his Mamá's bedside, holding her hand and channeling her strength.

She did not improve. She barely stayed alive.

If she died, the Hollys would become a Household of men. If she died, T'Holly would, also.

That scared Holm. To be bonded with another, to feel such a wrenching loss that it literally ripped an integral part of you away so you couldn't survive, was something he didn't want to contemplate.

Why would he wish to have a love so deep and encompassing that he'd die without it? Yet his feelings for Lark became more intense and compelling each day. He lusted after her soft and full body. He yearned for the sweet energy she mixed with his. He craved the closeness of his heart and emotions to hers, those that complemented and completed his own.

But putting his heart and his life in the hands of another seemed madness. Could he draw back, this close to her? How strong was their connection?

Should he draw back? Live his life alone, perhaps barely contented with a wife and an alliance when he could have the deep soul-sharing experience of a HeartMate?

His thoughts scrambled time and again at the questions, most particularly when he took his shift in the dim, luxurious room at Primary HealingHall, holding his Mamá's limp hand and seeing her lovely face devoid of all animation.

However he resolved his inner turmoil, he'd soon be pressured to take a mate. T'Holly, with the future of the GreatHouse in question, would turn his thoughts to his Heir, and the fact there was no third generation yet on the way to ensure the line. His father wouldn't be patient and casual regarding Holm's wooing now. T'Holly would order Holm to proceed with his duty immediately and demand a daughter-in-law be installed in the Residence and impregnated at the earliest possible moment. Holm winced at the cold words that would come from his father and strip Holm's marriage of any passion or love.

Holm practiced his calligraphy to make a gift for Lark and dreamed of creating a HeartGift to win her as he struggled with his decision.

What of his own Bélla, as he called her in his heart and when they were alone? She'd been shocked and horrified at the twist the feud had taken. He'd felt her disbelief, and angry guilt that such an injury had been done by her Family to his. She'd withdrawn from him. Used all her skill and strength and Flair powers to Heal his mother until Bélla herself was drained, but she had still withdrawn as if this horrible event had raised an impenetrable wall between them. He'd been furious at her nephew, her father, her House, but not at her. Never at her, not that kind of vengeful, plotting, destructive anger for her.

He squiggled a line, made it into an acceptable glyph. He still wanted her. When his emotions were on the pendulum side of taking his HeartMate, other feelings boiled through him at the thought of her. Anger that she'd think her walls would keep him away, keep him from steeping himself in her when he needed her so, keep him from seeing her. Never.

A determination infused him—a refusal to let her turn from him, become less than lover, friend, companion—turn into an acquaintance, a woman with whom he'd had one afternoon of passion. Those septhours of passion that he had never equaled in the past and would never match in the future without her.

Dread of the future if he let her go. He could see her fade, turning into a Healer and nothing more, moving to Gael City and out of his reach. She might even avoid everything else life had to offer—love, children, family, home. Two ugly blots fell from his brush. He crumpled the ink-darkened papyrus and threw it to join others littering the carpet beside his desk.

The rumor that he'd overheard in the HealingHall tugged at his mind. Bélla had been the subject of a report—and the conclusion was that a Heather woman had never lived longer than three years without a mate. The Healers had discussed it as if it were an interesting tidbit to divert them from the awful gloom of D'Holly and the feud that raged outside their walls.

Bélla wed to another, in the arms of another, moving under another man than he. The idea made him wild, savage. Never. Never!
Never!

The brush fell from his fingers and rolled across clean papyrus and blotter, ruining them all.

He thrust down the stupid images of Bélla with some other man, banished and flung them far away into the ether, beyond Bel and the stars, not to torment him again.

She was his. His HeartMate. He would not let her go, even if the bond scared him, even if she wished it.

For a moment he found some peace. He'd decided: make her his. His mouth twisted in a wry smile, and he sponged up the ink mess with softleaves. He could still use the sheets for practice. He'd need a lot more to make a gift for Bélla.

The problems in courting her mounted, piling one atop another. Her feelings for him and the feud; the emotions the feud would engender in his own Family for her and hers; the pressure for him to marry.

T'Holly would insist Holm claim his HeartMate, yet what would his father say when she turned out to be a Hawthorn? Would T'Holly command Holm put aside all love for a HeartMate and woo and wed a wife? Even at the same time T'Holly loved and feared for his own HeartMate? Holm would not submit to such an order. In defying his father, how would that affect their relationship, Holm's with Tinne, and Tab, and Eryngi?

Too many questions. Too much brooding over vaporous might-bes, and not concentrating in the now—evident as more blotches dribbled over his papyrus. He steadied his hand. His strategy of wooing would have to be adjusted, again.

At least now he knew. His feelings for Bélla were acknowledged and sure. He was too far along this tightrope stretched over a chasm to turn back. He must negotiate it as best he could.

A knock came on his door in Tinne's pattern. Holm raised his voice, “Come.”

Tinne opened the door and shoved his head in. He looked a little red-faced, a bead of sweat on his brow. “I've requested a discussion with T'Holly in quarter-septhour in the Green Room. I'd like you to be there, too.”

Surprise and wariness shot through Holm. This sounded serious. His brother appeared tense. “Of course.”

A muscle flexed in Tinne's cheek. “I'd like your support.”

Holm nodded. “You have it.”

Tinne's brows rose. “You're not going to ask for what, or why?”

Holm set his calligraphic brush down. “You're my brother. We stick together.”

“Against our father?” Tinne muttered, then said under his breath, “I did it for the Family. It was the right thing to do.”

Holm didn't question him, but addressed his obvious anxiety. “I doubt you could do anything that would earn you disinheritance.” Not like Holm loving a T'Hawthorn woman, choosing her over his Family. He continued. “We're brothers and we're close. Our journey made sure of that.”