Heart Duel (31 page)

“She's wed!”
Tinne burst out. “My HeartMate's Family married her off before she experienced her third Passage and knew for sure she had a HeartMate. I was waiting for her to grow up a little more. I didn't know her marriage was planned. A quiet ceremony took place four days ago.”

Just after their Mamá had been struck down. When Tinne had been distracted.

“So you thought to help me—” Holm started.

“I guessed Healer Lark was your HeartMate. Father is desperate for a grandchild. You couldn't marry. I could.” Tinne cut the air with his hand. “My HeartMate's wed and now so am I. I don't want to talk about it.” His stormy gaze nailed Holm. “I don't ever want to discuss this again. Understood?”

Holm staggered under the blow fate had struck his brother. And he, Holm, thought he'd had romantic problems! His lover wasn't married—she struggled against their bond, but she wasn't completely lost to him. And he hadn't managed to get himself married before he'd found her; something in him had always demanded he wait and wait and wait.

He released his grip on the chair and bowed deeply toward his brother.

“Please, go,” Tinne said, his stare fixed on the waterfall cascading over the rocks. “You were right to build the conservatory. It's a good place. The water is soothing.” He smiled crookedly. “I'd rather live here with Genista, instead of setting up an estate of my own now, and after I inherit The Green Knight. Do I have your permission?”

Holm nodded and crossed over to his brother, who had returned to contemplating the waterfall. “Yes, T'Holly Residence is your home, always.”

Holm gripped Tinne's shoulder. “Don't give up. Don't tempt your luck in fights. For the Lord and Lady's sake, and my own, don't get yourself killed. There is always hope.”

A corner of Tinne's mouth lifted, but he didn't look up. “The Hollys usually believe that. I used to think so, too.”

 
The night was as long and restless as all the others. Meserv
whined at Holm's tossing and slept as far as he could from the DepressFlair bracelet. T'Holly spent the darkest reaches of the night with his HeartMate, knowing that most people slipped away from life in those septhours. Holm could feel his father's mind-numbing grief, his hope draining millisecond by millisecond.

In the morning T'Holly summoned Holm to the ResidenceDen.

He took a seat in the loathed wingchair before his father's desk. T'Holly appeared to have lost twenty pounds, and his skin was tight over a drawn face.

He looked old.

“My HeartMate, your mother, is dying.” T'Holly laced his fingers together, but they trembled. “The Healers cannot halt the spell. It is only a matter of time.” His facial muscles crumpled for a moment, then firmed into iron rigidity. “I have revised my will. The lifespan of a widowed HeartMate has never exceeded the circle of the year.”

His lips trembled. “That fatality rate includes my sister, Leea, who died with her husband T'Blackthorn when he succumbed to that damned Blackthorn disease.”

T'Holly drew a harsh breath and went on. “The only HeartMate who ever lasted a full year was engaged in a bloodfeud—as we will be. You, as the FirstSon and strongest Flaired Holly, will become T'Holly as we've expected all your life. But before I embark on the Wheel of Stars of rebirth, I will see those Hawthorns in the Cave of the Dark Goddess.” His eyes blazed with mad fervor, and he bared his teeth in a wolflike grin. “We will fight and we will win! I want your HeartOath that the Hawthorn Family will be destroyed, every last one of them.”

“No!” Holm jumped to his feet. His father's words freed Holm's roiling emotions. He leaned over the desk and used his own fury backed by fear to combat his father's will. Only tenacity from the bedrock of his being could deflect T'Holly in this. “Not the women.”

“Everyone! Women! Babes newborn! All!” His father rose and roared his grief.

Holm sucked in a breath and refused to let his own despair tip him over into the same madness. “Not. The. Women. We are not Hawthorns who fight women. We are Hollys
who cherish them
. No child under sixteen. The children to be fostered with T'Ash.”

“All!”

Holm did something he'd never done before, never even considered. He struck his father open-handed on the cheek.

T'Holly rocked back. His mouth opened.

Holm beat him to speech. “Don't spew what you feel. Stop. Think. Our Family would be destroyed by the FirstFamilies Council, all of us sterilized and the line and name to die if we followed your vengeance stalk. It's the oldest rule on the books, and the reason the Rue family is no more. That happened in your lifetime, don't you recall? One son, one, attempted to destroy the T'Ash line, and all the Rues were held accountable, and forfeit. There are no Rues now, and never will be again. Do you want to take my future from me, and from Tinne? From Tab, Eryngi, Ruscus, the rest of this House? You've always acted in the Family's good, only a fligger like Bucus Elder—”

A thought struck Holm. A dizzying thought, a memory of the young prophet—Vinni's—words. A sickening thought because it brought bright hope. His mouth dried, but he managed to mutter words anyhow. “Ruis. Ruis Elder.
The Ship.
”

T'Holly turned white and gripped the desk, but his whole body shook. “What?” His whisper rasped. “What are you thinking?”

Holm shouted at the top of his lungs. “Tinne, Lark Collinson, meet me at Primary HealingHall!” He knew the anguish, and wrath, and hope that propelled his telepathic thought would reach the two anywhere. “ResidenceLibrary,” Holm snapped. “Is the starship,
Nuada's Sword,
and Captain Elder aware of our situation?”

“Captain'sLady, Supreme Judge of Druida, Ailim Elder, has of course been informed of a feud that could lead to bloodfeud and serious municipal tumult. She held a private session with the Hawthorns. T'Holly refused to see her,” the Residence said.

“Inform Ruis Elder and
Nuada's Sword
we'll be there with D'Holly within half a septhour.”

“What are you thinking?” T'Holly whispered again. The hope lighting his face tore at Holm.

“Ruis Elder is a
Null
. He can stop spells. Be glad you didn't execute him two and a half years ago.”

T'Holly sank to the desk with his head in his hands. Tears slipped down his face.

Holm 'ported to Primary HealingHall and found Tinne in abstracted conversation with Lark. Holm wanted to grab her, squeeze her, hold her until he felt better. But an image came of the hourglass of his Mamá's life, sand plummeting. So little time. Too little time. “Good, you're here. You're both coming with me. Now.” He pushed past to his mother's room, and without looking at her—he couldn't afford to break—pulled the silkeen covers around her and lifted her in his arms. He tried not to notice how little she weighed.

“You can't take her. Stop!” Lark cried.

“Take over her life support,” Holm ordered coolly.

“I won't.”

Holm moved away from the permamoss bed, away from the three gray-faced SecondLevel Healers and PerSun who strove to keep D'Holly alive. “I'm taking her to Ruis Elder at
Nuada's Sword.
”

A heartbeat passed before Tinne grasped their Mamá's hands. “I can do life support. The Null, Lady and Lord, the Null.”

“Let me,” Lark said, elbowing Tinne aside. “You are too clumsy. A fighter will never be a Healer.”

Holm said, “The Null stopped one spell-driven deathplague, he can do it again. Hold on to me. I have the coordinates and am 'porting in three seconds. Countdown. One fantastic Holm Holly. Two fantastic Tinne Hollys. Three—we go!”

They materialized a few yards from the starship, and Holm felt a touch of vertigo as the huge Ship loomed over them. The surrounding park rustled with birds and avians, whirring insects, and held the scents of high summer grasses and flowers. His Mother felt smaller than ever in his arms.

He looked at Lark. “She's well?”

“She lives.”

“Good.” Holm led his little party up to the northeast portal of
Nuada's Sword.
“Announce us,” he asked Tinne.

Tinne's voice sliced through the lethargic summer air. “GreatLady Passiflora D'Holly, FirstLevel Healer Mayblossom Collinson, HollyHeir Holm, GreatSir Tinne Holly requesting entrance to the Ship and an interview with Captain Elder,” Tinne shouted.

The shining metal door rose and showed two people, Ruis and Ailim Elder. “Greetyou,” Ruis said. “Sick bay's been notified. This is the closest entry. Let me take her. I understand she suffers from a propulsion poison spell.”

Holm shuddered as the Null, a man who could stop any Flair, gently accepted the light weight of D'Holly. The Captain aimed a lopsided smile at Lark. “No need for you to try and keep her stable, GreatMistrys, your Flair has no effect around me.”

Tinne, Lark, and Holm all faded back a couple of meters from Ruis for mere comfort. Captain Elder strode through the hallways of
Nuada's Sword
.

They came to a door marked “Sick Bay” in old Earth writing and followed Elder through. He placed D'Holly on a strange-looking bed.

“Diagnostic bed. Results, Ship?” commanded Elder.

A female voice sounding uncannily like Primary HealingHall answered. “As with most things on Celta, the poison-spell is a mixture of the psi power called Flair and technology, or in this case, organic chemistry. The propelling spell already shows signs of slowing, due to your Nullness. You can halt its spread by 100 percent. The poison, however—”

“Analyze the poison, please,” Elder said, and climbed up onto the bed to lie next to D'Holly and encircle her with his arms. Reflexively Holm and Tinne lunged.

“Stop them!” Ailim Elder cried, grabbing Tinne.

Lark's arms went around Holm's waist from behind, tight. Nothing in the world could have stopped him but that. Tremors swept through him at the press of her body against his.

“Can't you see, he's enveloping her in his Null field. It's the only way to stop the poison. Look at her color—it's better already,” Lark said.

Holm took a step toward the bed, and Lark's arms dropped. He clamped one of his own arms around her waist and drew her to his side. If she offered comfort, by the Lord and Lady he'd take it. He'd take anything he could get from her at any time. Let her explain his touches to herself as grief or need or anything else, as long as she let him hold her. “Yes, she looks better.”

“As if she's sleeping,” Tinne said.

Before their eyes, a tentacle from the bed attached to D'Holly's arm, pressed, then wiggled away.

“T'Holly comes,” Ship said.

The door opened and T'Holly shouted and plunged to the bed. Tinne and the women jumped on T'Holly, carrying him to the floor.

“Always distrusted. Never appreciated. I am damn sick of this Society,” Ruis Elder muttered.

“What would you do, if you found a man lying with your HeartMate?” Holm asked.

Ruis turned his head to smile at Holm. “Kill him.”

“And if he was Healing her?” Lark shouted in T'Holly's ear, then boxed it. “There's been too much violence already.”

T'Holly groaned. Sitting up, he dislodged his attackers. He rose and shook himself. When he glanced over at the bed, his face darkened.

“Ship, report on D'Holly's condition,” Ruis Elder ordered.

“The spread of poison has stopped, but the effects linger.”

“Prognosis?” Lark snapped.

“The poison has been verified as Colchicum Autumnale, in Earth words, autumn crocus. Since colchicine retards cell-division, a propulsion spell was used to ensure its efficacy. Ship estimates a very strong dosage, probably created in FirstGrove by Nightshade three years ago.”

“A poison Hawthorn blade,” Tinne raised a fist. “I'll settle with them.”

“Young Laev found the blade in the street. He's just thirteen. He didn't know it was poisoned,” Ailim Elder said.

“Debate that later,” Lark said. “Silence! Ship, please continue with the prognosis. Can D'Holly be Healed?”

“Ship believes her condition and the nature of the poison makes it unlikely that native psi talent, Flair, can Heal this patient at this time.”

“The tubes,” T'Holly ground out. “The suspended animation tubes that brought the colonists here. Can you use those?”

Holm stared at his father.

“I toured the Ship as a child, before we closed everything but the museum rooms,” T'Holly said.

Again Ship politely waited until all speech ended. “The tubes would keep the Lady just as she is now. However, there is a 90 percent chance of total recovery under certain conditions.”

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