Jeanne G'Fellers - Sisters Flight (4 page)

"I'm
fine." I shed my uniform and drew into the bed beside Myrla, extending my
arm to draw her to me. She nuzzled into my breast, breathed deep as if inhaling
my presence, then looked sleepily up.

"What'd
Easton want?"

"Just
talk." I turned down the lantern on the bedside table.

"I
guess it had been a while since you'd last spoken." Myrla closed her eyes,
opening them to me again as a soft rumble spread across the Tekkroon lands.
"That thunder?"

"Yeah,
but it's cold out." I kissed her forehead. "Might snow instead of
rain. Good weather to sleep to."

"And
other things." Myrla ran her hand up my side. I knew she no longer paid
attention to the scars covering my body, but I was always aware of them,
especially after a visit with Easton. Right then I was aware of every one, and
they all throbbed in the same dull manner as my head.

"It's
late." I took Myrla's hand and touched it to my lips. "And I'm
tired." I placed her hand on my chest, where it usually lay as we slept.
"And we both have an early day tomorrow."

"I
suppose," Myrla said then extended her mind to me, sampling my mental
state before I could shield myself.
You seem unsettled. You sure you're
okay?

Just
tired is all.
I gently pushed Myrla's
mind back enough to do my own sample.
And so are you.
I offered a brief
mental caress that Myrla embraced and returned in kind.
You shouldn't have
waited up.

I
was worried.

I
know.
I laid my cheek against her
forehead.
But I'm back safe now, snuggled with you and ready to sleep.

Still,
there's a lot going through your head.
Thankfully,
Myrla didn't probe further.
You need help tonight?

Please.
I accepted her phasing nudge toward
sleep.
Thank you.

Shhhh.
Myrla laid her face to my neck and
stayed there, feeling my breaths extend and slow until her own did as well. She
often mistook me for asleep when I wasn't, and when she did, I could separate
my mind from hers and lay in the meditation Garrziko had taught me to relax into
when I was troubled. Garrziko had said I shouldn't lie to Myrla, that I should
be truthful with her about my sleeplessness, but I'd ignored the advice and had
developed a pattern where Myrla generally fell asleep first.

How
could I be honest with her? How could I ever reveal the ugliness I hid so deep?

She
knew I'd lied about my visit with Easton, but I'd kept her at bay with the idea
that it had been chitchat. I simply couldn't share the reality with my life
mate. Myrla wasn't jealous of my connection with Easton. If anything, she was
frightened by it. With good reason. There was too much anger in it, too much
fear and pain. Easton and I shared things—emotions, rages, pasts—anything we
couldn't share with others. But it wasn't as if we were phasing. No, that
didn't cover things, and Myrla knew it. She knew Easton's binder kept us from
linking mentally at all. I tried to describe the connection once but had failed
miserably, finally saying that it was an ugliness that I kept locked inside
except with Easton and one Easton couldn't hide at all. I know it made no sense
to Myrla, but she hadn't pursued the subject further. However, I had prodded
her mind enough to know she thought about it often, especially after my visits
with Easton.

"I'm
two different people," I whispered into Myrla's hair. "One who loves
you with every fiber of her being, and another who is so frightened of herself
that she won't allow you the smallest glimpse of her ugliness." Thunder
rolled closer, gently shaking the walls of our grotto as rain began to pelt the
front room window, taps echoing into the bedroom. I fell into a restless sleep,
drifting into a bad dream where Myrla and I were caught in a narrow, circular
tunnel, trying to escape something frightening, pale and ugly. We didn't want
to face it, and it didn't want to face us, so we would run in opposite
directions, but always come face to face with it again no matter which way we
ran.

Chapter
Three

The
Yauld

Master:
Are you listening, child?

Apprentice:
Yes, Master, but there is silence.

Master:
Listen closer. What do you hear?

Apprentice:
The rustle of sisters' minds, but that's always there.

Master:
But this time they whisper of change. It is the initiation of great things
to come. Hear the future's approach, and you shall be ready for its arrival.

Myrla

How
beautifully Rankil called my name when I drew her into my mouth this morning.
She'd had no time to tense, no time to remember what so often kills her desire.
Before she could object, she was under my tongue—awake and gasping and
clutching the blanket as she arched her back and pulled me closer. No one else has
ever physically tasted her, no one else will. She's too plagued by the fear of
anyone else having this part of her, too frightened of losing control, of
forgetting who and where she is, and that delights me even as I shame myself
for feeling such delight. I can be greedy with her—long and luxurious like when
we first became life mates, or fast and reckless like this morning. Rankil
doesn't care as long as it's me. All she insists on is a phase with whatever we
do. She says my phase keeps her in the present. With me. In love.

After
a quick breakfast of each other, we dressed and rushed out the door so I could
meet Isabella outside the isolation caverns. Rankil had left me with one of her
seldom-seen smiles and a kiss I'd not soon forget. Bella smirked at my
disheveled appearance and told me I should pull my hair back neater so I
wouldn't look so much like how I started the morning. "These sisters are
just keen enough to pick up such a subtlety in a stranger," she said with
a blush. "I found that out during their initial examinations."

The
unusual sisters called themselves the Yauld. Twelve in number, they were all
drawling in their speech, all of excellent build, and all had refused to be
separated for bathing or their physical exams. They had seen the worst of each
other, one of them had declared as she dropped her stained robes for her exam.
They would stay together.

"How
far have you traveled?" I sat beside their leader, a gentlewoman named
Evangeline.

"Across
the ocean in search of freedom," Evangeline said in Old Tongue as she
observed the Catching Spots medicine being mixed for her. "We had heard of
a group of sisters living halfway to the stars and above the Autlachs'
grasp." A woman of sixty passes, her face was lean and cunning with round,
washed-blue, seeking eyes that observed and absorbed everything around her.
However, at the same time she possessed a genteel manner, regal and proper in
her movements, but all the while wielding an unspoken power, which demanded the
respect of those around her.

"I'm
sorry you couldn't find these people or their land." I spoke in Old Tongue
as well. "It would be the ideal place for the Taelach."

"We
are closer than we ever imagined." Evangeline made a sweeping motion with
her hand that ended with a touch to my face. In that instant she broke Tekkroon
custom, planting a phase that extracted my morning's preoccupation.

How
delightful.
Evangeline traced a line
from my tensed jaw, across my flushed cheek to my hairline, duplicating the
path of Rankil's most obvious scar.
You seem compelled to limit your
cerebral conversing to an audience of one. You believe I am invading your
privacy. I will withdraw.
And Evangeline did, softening her voice to
placate me.

"Your
lover needed what you gave her this morning." Evangeline traced Rankil's
scar line across her own face then rose for her exam. "And if her early
suffering is any indication, Autlach prejudices plague this side of the ocean
as well." She dropped her robe, revealing a back latticed by brown scars.
"The Yauld have endured." Isabella noted her scars and her current
shoulder injury and recorded her general physical well-being. Then Bella
medicated her, Evangeline showing no reaction to the insufferably bitter mix of
herbs and tree fungi spooned into her mouth.

"Do
your people have medicine for Catching Spots?" Bella held up a second
spoonful.

"No,
such preventatives are not part of Yauld medicine." Evangeline gulped down
the mouthful as she retrieved her robe. "It seems that most Tekkroon
realities are but Yauld dreams. I've observed but one way in which our ways
seem superior." The other Old Tongue speaking Yauld voiced their agreement
then translated for their companions who added their approval.

"Your
children," Evangeline continued. "I have been told that there are at
most two per family and that there are few infants. Are you lacking in
Kimshees?"

"Kimshees?"
Isabella turned to me. "Is it an Aut word I'm not familiar with?"

"Not
any I know." Though I spoke calmly enough, my gaze throttled Evangeline.
"What's a Kimshee?"

"Your
lover is not Kimshee?" asked Evangeline in a surprised voice. "I saw
her escort you here. Her hair and walk speak of Kimshee." Rankil had grown
her hair long to cover the burn scars on her scalp. Except for the battle and
life braids, she greased it back into a leather wrap, not a Tekkroon fashion,
but a style some of the lesser clans wore and exclusive, I now noted, to all
the Yauld present.

One
of the Yauld murmured something in her native tongue as she clenched her fists
against the medication's taste.

Evangeline
then turned to me. "We Kimshees seem more alone in this new land than we
were in the last." Her mouth puckered with curiosity. "Who do the
Tekkroon send to retrieve their newborns?"

"We
send teams to retrieve the mother when she is near birthing," I said.
"One of my raisers was a birther for my clan. I helped her more than
once."

"You
bring the birth mother into your midst?" Evangeline exchanged startled
looks with the other Yauld who understood my language then translated for the
others. "This is typical among the Taelachs of this land?"

"Of
course, but as you are aware, it has been difficult to get in and out as of
late." Isabella's expression swept into confusion. "How do the Yauld
do it?"

"With
Kimshees," said the youngest of the Yauld, a small-boned teen with her
left arm in a sling. "To be chosen as Kimshee is an honor for my people.
We are few but effective. Kimshee means 'to take' in our language, and that is
what we do, take sister babes from their horrid beginnings and bring them to their
raisers."

"And
we rarely come back empty-handed," boasted another as she drew her eyes up
and down me appraisingly. Such brazen ogling was considered bad manners among
the Tekkroon, however, I generally found it flattering, but not from this
woman. Something about her screamed of self-centeredness. She was
striking—thick shock of silver-white hair pulled back in a gold clip at the
base of her neck, matching gold bracelets coiling her slender arms, hands fast
and insistent as she waved them in a beckoning fashion in my direction. She was
attractive, she knew it, and I found myself repulsed even as part of me
wondered what it'd be like to be alone with her. "We're hard to
stop," she continued with a wink to me before turning a hardened glare on
Laszlo. "Isn't that right, apprentice Laszlo?"

"Yes,
Kimshee Norlynn." Laszlo dropped her gaze. "I did not mean to speak
out of turn. I apologize."

"Do
not antagonize my apprentice." Evangeline turned to Norlynn with such a
cold, uncensored gaze that I knew she felt as I did. "Laszlo, unlike your
unfortunate students, is allowed to speak her mind."

"I—"
Norlynn began, but she stopped, shrinking back when she saw Evangeline raise
one eyebrow. "Yes, Master Evangeline. I do apologize."

"And
it is accepted." Evangeline waved away any thought of retribution.
"This new environment has us all questioning our roles. It is most
unsettling, though not as much as the disappearance of our people." She
turned back to me. "Their trail becomes so confused that it suggests
flight, then it splits in so many directions we cannot follow them all. I am
afraid, my sisters." Evangeline looked despondently at her underlings. "I
am afraid we may be the last of our kind."

"The
Yauld shall persevere, Master Evangeline. We always do." Norlynn's
expression turned bawdy when she stood. She fixed a level gaze on me and
dropped her robes for her exam, exposing every inch of her curvaceous ivory
flesh. "Say, where does one go to release tensions around here?"

Despite
my awe, I looked away, letting Norlynn know I wasn't interested enough to be
pursued. "There are some exercise paths near the Gretchencliff barrier
barracks. I could show—" I stopped when Laszlo giggled.

"Not
an obstacle course," Laszlo laughed, ignoring Norlynn's glare.
"Kimshees are perpetually unchaste."

"Kimshee
Norlynn more than most," said another Yauld, a translucently pale but
well-built woman who nursed a broken ankle. "Just direct her toward your
compensated women and she will be content."