Heart Quest (32 page)

He lifted shaking hands to wipe his face on his arm…the softleaf in his pocket was as soaked as his clothes. With a minute of determined thought about the murders, his body subsided enough for him to stand straight.

His gift was beautiful. He'd loved making it. Loved the wistful, futile dream of giving it to his HeartMate.

For a moment he just stared at it, a lacquered tray filled with sand raked in tiny patterns, particularly around the three smooth stones and two rough rocks.

The small zen meditation garden was of a tradition more ancient and of a different root religion than that of the colonists of Celta, but they'd brought many crafts and records of other cultures to their new world.

Just looking at it gave him hope. He smiled, then his optimism faded. Could Trif actually like this simple, serene piece of art? She tended to the overblown….

Stop.

Stop doubting himself. Was that the true reason he hadn't claimed her, because he didn't think he was good enough for her? Too rational, too staid, too old. Perhaps, though the very thought of her dying made his bowels go to water.

In any event, he'd decided to go to her, to apologize, to beg for another chance. He hoped giving her the HeartGift would show her how much he cared.

He picked the tray up carefully, though a spell held the sand and rocks in place until he gave it to his lady. Then
she
would find it pleasing, or make her own patterns—or they could create one together.

Perfect.

 

T
rif slept well, with no dreams of evil murderers ready to
slice her open during a bloodrite, and no tossing and turning from anxiety about her relationship with Ilex.

She'd gone to bed early, taking one of the luxurious guest suites that Mitchella had redecorated. Yet she woke at a commotion in the early hours of the morning.

Straif T'Blackthorn had returned.

She dressed and went down. Greyku accompanied her, and Trif was surprised to see that Vertic the fox sat in the parlor along with Straif and Mitchella. She was firmly ensconced on Straif's lap.

Frowning, Trif noticed that Mitchella still wore the robe she'd had on when she'd come to the HealingHall. She didn't look as if she'd slept. But whatever sadness and tension had been in her before was gone now she was in the arms of her beloved HeartMate.

“I've been awaiting Straif, and I didn't want to leave you, and I couldn't sleep, and the Residence said that there was a FirstFamilies Council meeting going on, so I participated by scry.” She waved an arm at a huge hologram that took up much of the parlor. “They're still at it.”

Trif matched her little shiver. No Clover family meeting had taken more than a couple of septhours.

“Greetyou, cuz Trif,” Straif said. His gaze was grim. “One member escaped besides Zinga.”

Trif flinched.

He raised a hand. “He's gone from Druida—and wasn't at your ritual.” Straif 's jaw flexed. “We traced him to an airship field, then lost him. The mind Healers we've consulted think he'll never come after you. As for Zinga, I'll rest for a few minutes, then start on the trail of this heinous bitch.” His mouth thinned. “I must work with Ilex Winterberry. He knows Druida better than I ever will.” Straif 's eyelids lowered briefly. “I understand you are his HeartMate, so you'll be able to locate him for me through your bond.”

Trif hesitated.

Time for Fams to take a paw in this matter,
Vertic projected.

Straif Blackthorn stared at the fox. “What matter?”

The mating matter.

Trif flushed, shifted from foot to foot, then said, “Very well, see what you can do. I'm not giving up on Ilex.”

Vertic laughed in short barks, eyes closed, tongue lolling.
We will hunt first, then you.

“Sounds good to me,” Mitchella said.

“I will strategize and wait for my prey,” Trif corrected.

“Right.” Straif rolled his shoulders, waved the Fams away. “Go.”

Greyku pranced over to Trif and stropped her ankles.
I love you.

Eyes stinging as she looked down at her Fam, Trif said, “I love you too.”

Straif squeezed Mitchella and made her laugh. “I love Mitchella and Trif. Mitchella loves everyone here, Trif loves everyone here. Now can we get on with the day? Let's wake up the cook.”

Vertic flowed to his feet, then cocked his head.
FamMan returns home.

Trif blinked. “Just now?”

“A guardsman's work is never done,” Straif murmured.

We go. See if you can keep up, kit.
Vertic sped from the room, and Greyku followed.

The Blackthorns were kissing deeply. Trif cleared her throat. She coughed. Finally, she said in a loud voice, “I'd like some answers here!”

Slowly, Straif ended the kiss and pulled away to look at her. His eyes were glazed. “You say something?”

“What has the FirstFamilies Council decided to do with the cult members?” asked Trif.

Mitchella scowled. “If Zinga Turmeric—she's the leader of the cult who's missing, Ilex discovered that—is smart, she'll take her own life too. There will be a trial in a couple of eightdays, but the Council is already preparing a special judgment ritual for when the culprits are found guilty.” Her eyes fired. “There's plenty of evidence to convict them.”

Straif toyed with his HeartMate's fingers. “There was a lot of discussion.” He looked up and his expression was feral. “Most of us just wanted to rip them to shreds. And Turmeric better pray I don't find her.”

Trif didn't think he was joking. Her knees felt weak and she took a chair.

“But the rule of law prevailed. Something to be said for civilization.” He shrugged. “Though I'll bet there will be a mob of Nobles and Commoners too who'd like to do the same.”

Not wanting to visualize that—she'd seen mobs in her visions of the past and they hadn't been pretty—Trif hurried into speech. “What sort of special punishment ritual?”

Mitchella lowered her voice. “They will be banished, of course, and not anywhere near civilization. Ruis Elder, the Captain of
Nuada's Sword,
will take them to an uninhabited, wild, and isolated island in the middle of Great Platte Ocean.”

Straif took up the explanation. “During the Ritual, a suppress Flair chain will be embedded under the skin around their necks. They won't be able to use any Flair to support themselves, and if they tinker with the chains their heads will blow off.”

“Yech,” said Trif. She thought of the night before and trembled. She'd have bad dreams for sure, and her visions might be more violent and disturbing too. No way around it, she'd have to visit a mind-Healer. It wasn't something Clovers did.

“They have sensors on them that report to
Nuada's Sword.
No one expects them to live very long,” Straif said.

Trif 's hands shook so, she twisted them together in her lap. “Terrible.”

“Better than letting the Families of those they killed punish them. They'd be tortured to death.”

Nodding, Trif said, “Yes. Deservedly so, but that is not our way.”

“No.” Mitchella studied her. Once Trif would have shifted under such an intense gaze, but not now. “You've matured. HeartMate love will do that. Have you talked to Ilex?”

Trif compressed her lips, then forced them into a wry smile. “He must come to me.”

“I agree.”

“Oh, I got you a present, Trif,” Straif said. “Catch!” With his Flair, he shot a crystal sphere straight at her chest.

She stopped it several inches away from her. Set it spinning. It was an orb of white quartz with striations that she knew would perfectly hold tunes for several generations.

Straif grinned. “That was a test. Your Flair is fully under your control. Congratulations, Trif. I think your last Passage will be quick and easy.”

Trif just blinked, still trembling with surprise. She closed unsteady fingers over the sphere. Instead of being cool, it was warm. “I suppose I should thank you.”

Waving a hand, Straif said, “Think nothing of it.” Then he bent to kiss his wife again, and Trif just couldn't take being anywhere but home anymore. She went upstairs to get her bag and panpipes—which had been taken with her by the cult, and returned to her in the HealingHall.

The past days had been outrageously shocking to her nerves. She wanted home. She wanted music.

She wanted Ilex. She ached with the need to play her flute. If she felt the cool silver in her hands, she'd know everything would turn out fine.

Straif T'Blackthorn caught her sneaking out one of the side doors. He smiled genially, rocking back on his heels and shaking his head. “You can't creep out of a Residence, or escape a tracker's notice.”

I
lex returned to his rooms to bathe and don his dress uni
form. He wanted to look his best when he proposed to Trif.

He'd also decided to drop by Trif 's apartment before he went to her. He knew her. Despite all warnings, she would want to return to her home, and he intended to ensure it was safe and as shielded with strong spells as he could make it.

After a short stint under the waterfall, and dressed in clean clothes that didn't stink of incense, he felt much better.

He picked up the HeartGift and went to check Trif 's place. The spell on the HeartGift was wearing off. Heated lust radiated from the zen garden, tempting him to think of Trif and bed.

Opening her door, he walked into the apartment to set the zen garden onto the table next to Trif 's scrybowl. Here he could renew the protective spells. He didn't want to present the HeartGift to her and have them both rolling on the floor, mating, in a parlor of the T'Blackthorn Residence.

Everything happened at once.

Fun sandbox!
shrieked someone inside his head. Greyku? Where had she come from?

NO!
roared Vertic.

Both animals whirled toward him, he jerked aside. There was a clang, a crash, and droplets of cold water hit him. Huge, spinning monstrous red eyes made him reel.

Greyku screeched again. Vertic barked loudly.

“How amusing,” Zinga Turmeric said, entering the apartment and closing the door. She smiled, and her beautiful features twisted until she was ugly.

In her hand she held a blazer. She sent a stream toward the animals, then ordered, “Halt!” Her spell was as strong as his own. The Fams fell to the ground.

Even with Flair, Ilex couldn't unsheathe his sword or blazer fast enough to save himself. He no longer wore the Flaired body armor.

“Why don't we wait. That child-bride of yours will be along soon, I'm sure. Then I'll take care of you both and be on my way to bigger and better rituals in one of the smaller cities.” She smiled, showing teeth that appeared to be bloody—an illusion of his own Flair, showing that she'd eaten human hearts.

“No. I won't let you.”

“You can't stop
me.
”

She sounded like an evil cat. He glanced down at Greyku, who was frozen in a pitiful huddle between him and Zinga. Vertic was sprawled near Zinga's side.

Vertic can you hear me?
whispered Ilex mentally.

Yes.

I think I can release you. When I do, attack!

Yes.

Ilex had nothing to lose. He cursed himself for delaying too long. He should have gone directly to T'Blackthorn's and given Trif his HeartGift, filthy, sweaty, and all.

“Sit down.” Zinga gestured with the blazer. It wobbled a little in her hand and Ilex realized it was too large for her—and she wasn't used to it.

Now he smiled. “No.”

Surprise flashed in her eyes.

“You can't understand,” he said. “You want power and great Flair. You steal life from others because you're afraid to die. I've lived with visions of my death all my life.”
Now!
He flung all his Flair to Vertic, formed it into a whirlwind shooting across room.

He lunged at her, but she pulled the trigger of the blazer, and the ray caught him in the left shoulder and he jerked backward. Pain seared him and he smelled the burning of his own flesh. He fumbled for his own blazer, couldn't reach it. His sword seemed to heavy for his hands.

Vertic attacked, biting into her calf. She screeched high and long and fell toward him, fire from the blazer flashing again and again.

Ilex dodged to miss the streams. She was within reach. He grabbed her blazer, twisted it, and sent the ray pulsing into her body, emptying the charge.

Her eyes went wide. She flinched, shuddered several times, then fell against him.

He staggered, slipped on the spilled scrybowl water, twisted, but his head cracked hard against the corner of the scrytable. The last thing he saw was a curve of brass—a new scrybowl—that had haunted his visions for so long.

 

T
rif was shakier on her feet than she'd anticipated,
though 'porting from T'Blackthorn's to MidClass Lodge had been easy. Straif had given her the courtesy of letting her 'port them.

She knew Ilex was here in the Lodge. Her steps dragged as she walked down the hall to her door.

They were halfway down the hallway when she heard screaming and barking and smashing sounds. A fearful mental shout from Greyku blew into Trif 's mind.

Evil one here! FamMan hurt! Come, come, come NOW!

Trif and Straif sped down the hallway.

Hideous pain snapped her head back. “Ilex!”

Straif jostled her aside and flung the door open with Flair, rushing in. Trif followed.

Zinga Turmeric lay on the floor, twitching in death throes, a blazer on her chest. Straif went to her.

Trif scanned the room for Ilex. He lay still, the side of his head was bloody—as was the corner of the iron scry table.

Her heart gave one great leap, then settled in her throat.

She ran to him, fell to her knees. The faint pulse in his throat fluttered and stopped.

“No!” she screamed. Leaning down, she hooked an arm around his waist, then grabbed her protective amulet. “Primary HealingHall!” She yanked at it and the chain cut the back of her neck, but they teleported.

And lit on the soft permamoss of Emergency Intake. “Lark!” Trif screamed at the top of her lungs.

Healers surrounded her. “His body has died. His soul is almost gone.”

“No!” Trif cried. Grabbing Ilex's hand, she
reached
mentally for him.
Ilex don't leave me. Stay. I love you! We're HEARTMATES!

GreatLord T'Heather himself, the best Healer in Celta, placed his hands around Ilex's skull. “Keep calling to him, Trif. Keep him here.”

Ilex, beloved, stay. Stay, stay, stay.
It became a chant, from her lips and her heart. She barely noticed when Lark came and put her hands on Ilex's chest.

Trif could barely sense his essence. She closed her eyes and followed the thinning thread of their link. For the first time, she realized that it had strengthened in the last hour or two; otherwise he would have been gone.

HeartMate,
she called into blackness to the twinkling light of him, and she didn't know if they were inside his mind or out in the vastness of space or on the way to reincarnation on the Wheel of Stars.

Stretching her limits, she brushed him, but still he sped away.
Stay!
But he wasn't listening to her mind-voice. She had to pull him back with something stronger. With HeartMate Flair.

With music.

Forcing back fear, she sought the melody that had once drawn him, the echoing, calling song that she'd first sent at the Maypole, and had since refined. The HeartMate call formed in her mind and she broadcast it far with her thoughts, and hummed it under her breath.

The whirling rainbow of sparkles that was Ilex paused in his flight away from her. She boosted the volume, more, she lured him with her own love, her own need of him. She recalled all the times she'd pushed the HeartBond at him, and instead of sending, she
summoned,
lured, tempted. She
offered
the HeartBond, a shining rope of pure gold issuing from the heart of her etheric body.
Come to me, bond with me.
She let her melody encompass her, draw him.

He too was shadowy, more the remembrance of a body than an actual form, but transparent gray fingers touched the HeartBond.

Trif quivered and all her love for him poured forth.

HeartMate
. It was the merest mental whisper.
Trif.

Yes! BLACK ILEX WINTERBERRY!

His love merged with hers, his strong emotion roared through her.
MINE!
His fingers gripped hers.

Then others were with her, adding their Flair to hold him tight, bond them all together, kitten and fox and woman and man. Love cycled through them in unbreakable links.

“Trif, it's all right. He's alive and will Heal.” The patient voice repeated the words over and over until Trif opened her eyes to find Lark beside her, wiping tears from her face with a softleaf. Trif found she was rocking and the melody she'd thought she'd been singing was a low, harsh moaning.

Lark smiled at her. “Ssshh. He'll be fine. But it would be best if we could move him now.”

Clearing her throat, Trif sniffed. “Yes, of course.”

“We'll put him in a private room. T'Holly insisted.”

Trif wet her lips. “Ilex is Healing?”

“Yes. The head wound was bad, I won't deny it.”

“Fatal.” Trif gulped back more tears.

“Yes. But you got him here within minutes after he ‘died,' and both T'Heather and I were here and able to Heal him—T'Heather his skull and I restarted his heart and kept it pumping. The blazer injury in his shoulder has been mended too.” She stood and offered a hand to Trif, nodding to where she'd intertwined her fingers with Ilex's. “And you called his soul back.” Lark smiled. “Good teamwork by all three of us.”

Trif really didn't want to let go of Ilex's hand.

“He'll be fine,” Lark assured her. “You're HeartBonded and you both have enough Flair and strength and energy to keep each other grounded here in the physical world. Now he only needs to sleep through the rest of the day and the night.”

“I won't release his hand. He's mine.”

Lark rolled her eyes, then gestured to several people surrounding the large permamoss sponge. “Lift that and Trif Winterberry will accompany her HeartMate.”

“Thank you.” Smile watery, Trif matched standing and moving with the others as they used Flair to float the pad from the floor and down a hallway. “Trif Winterberry,” she whispered, half to herself.

“It's pretty evident you are.” Lark's tones were back to businesslike. She gestured to a red-plumed tail in the corridor in front of them. “Follow the fox.”

“I want to stay with Ilex.”

“Of course you do.”

They reached a huge room and the pad Ilex rested on was settled on an equally large bed. “Patient NobleRoom One,” Lark said drily. The luxurious room was the equal of any in a FirstFamily Residence.

Not letting go of Ilex's hand, Trif pulled a chair next to the stacked bedsponges. When everyone else had left, she crawled onto the bed and drew an exquisite llamawoolweave cover over them. Then she threw an arm around him, clutched a handful of softleaves, and wept into the pillows.

Greyku jumped onto the bed.
Very tired. Much work to get him back and keep him safe.

Vertic grunted and settled himself on Ilex's other side.

 

L
ate that evening, she woke to gentle fingers stroking her
hair back from her face and met Ilex's gray-blue eyes. His expression was one of wonder.

“You called me back. I heard you playing and I came back.” He touched between her breasts. “We're HeartBonded.”

“Yes.” Her insides quivered. It was a big step, one she hadn't carefully considered. She'd always thrown him the HeartBond during sex, then offered it when he was dying.

His jaw firmed. “And my vision was true.”

“In general,” she said. “I didn't fall down dead. I came running to save
you.
”

“If we'd been HeartBonded then…”

She put her hands over his lips and gazed at him fiercely. “I'd have done the same. But that's
past.
Whatever our lives may bring, now we are together.”

Vertic barked.
And me.

And Me!
said Greyku.

Ilex rolled onto his back. “A happy Family.” He looked at Trif. “Did you like it?”

“Like what?”

“My HeartGift.”

She blinked rapidly. “What HeartGift?”

“You didn't see it? That's why I was there.” His smile turned rueful; he gestured like a fencer conceding a match. “You won our bout of hearts. I was delivering my HeartGift. Once you accepted that….”