Shades of Gray (12 page)

“Zhalmo, I’ve got a job for you,” Kezule said to his daughter as she stood smartly at attention before him.

“You want me to look after our Emperor, don’t you?” she nodded. “Makes sense. He’ll need a bodyguard. Am I to do it alone, or can I choose my unit?”

Kezule didn’t twitch a muscle this time. He was getting used to the females around him being well aware of what he was thinking and about to do. “You’ll be working with Kusac, of course, but you can call on another two people to help you.”

“No need, sir. The ones I want are already on the Captain’s team.”

He nodded. “You’ll transfer to Kaid’s ship when we rendezvous, Zhalmo. Dismissed for now.”

“Yes, sir.”

He sighed as she left, wondering if there was any point in him wearing the psi damper when he was surrounded by people as good as his daughter. At least Kusac had promised to train them on the courtesies involved in having that ability—though he knew his daughter hadn’t been invading his privacy.

Kuushoi frowned in annoyance as she felt a warm breeze stir the blue-white draperies in her Viewing Hall.The distant sound of leaves soughing in a breeze gently filled the chamber.

“Lady, Vartra comes,” said her dzinae Nefae, coming over to join her and bowing low. “It’s time.”

“Ghyakulla’s Realm is close,” said Rojae, lounging against a pillar by the doorway.

“I’m aware of that,” she said testily, swinging away from the huge ice crystal set in the center of the viewing table where she watched the many mortal worlds to face him. “We have a few days left. Why are you lounging in here, Rojae? You still have work to do!”

Rojae flicked imaginary specks off his spotless white tunic before answering her. “The air is warming, Lady, as you can feel. There’s little I can do during daylight. I can only bring frost for you when dark falls.” His handsome face, with its soft gray pelt and pale blue eyes, was a study in polite boredom.

“Insolent dzinae!” Kuushoi hissed, clutching her robes as she took a step toward him. “You sprites are getting above yourselves!”

He straightened up, smiling provocatively. “Will you accompany me, tonight, Lady? Spreading frost over the land would help ease your loneliness tonight.”

His tone was soft and persuasive, and for a moment Kuushoi considered it, but only for a moment. “Don’t try to distract me,” she said petulantly, turning away from him to Nefae. She hated this time of year when her reign on Shola was over except for the high mountain ranges, where she ruled perpetually. She hated more that Ghyakulla was calling for Vartra.

“Are we ready, Nefae? Is Winter’s growth waiting for the first thaw?”

“It is, Lady,” said her dzinae respectfully. “Even in the desert where no snows can reach, only Rojae’s frost, all is waiting for your sister.”

Her lips thinned and her ears flicked sideways in anger. “There’s no need to remind me,” she snapped.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, and Vartra, dressed already in the subtle green robes of Spring, entered, followed by Gihaf.

“I’ve been called,” he said awkwardly, stopping just inside the chamber.

“I know you have! Do you think I’m deaf?”

He remained silent, watching her.

“One day, Vartra, you will have to choose between us,” she said, her voice brittle. “I know you’ll always have to serve your time with her, but you must choose which of us you love!”

“I can’t,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him. “It’s no easy choice to give one who was once a mere mortal, Kuushoi. How can I choose between you? You are both Goddesses.”

“Won’t, you mean,” she said spitefully.

“We have this same conversation every year, Kuushoi. Why can’t you be content when I’m with you? You have a husband . . .”

She laughed, her voice echoing off the ice walls. “L’Shoh? He’s a creature of reason and logic and rules! He has no fire in him!”

“You chose him, took him when he was promised to Ghyakulla,” he said quietly.

“I know what I did, thank you! Go to her, and be damned to you,” she said, turning her back on him angrily. “Ghyakulla, take him, but return him by morning!”

“As you wish,” he said.

She smelled the sweet scent of nung flowers as Ghyakulla’s realm opened up to let him walk through; then, as suddenly as they had come, the nung blossoms, warm breeze, and Vartra were gone.

Gihaf was coming closer, she could smell its scent as it approached, so it was no surprise when it touched her on the arm.

“Lady, you should rest,” it said in its soft voice. “Let me take you to your Spring rooms. I’ve made them ready for you.”

Its hand stroked her arm gently, urging her to leave the Viewing Hall, and before she realized it, she was accompanying Gihaf down the corridor.

“I know how tiring this day is for you,” it said, its voice gradually losing the softness and becoming deeper. “I have prepared some wine and a light meal for you.”

She glanced at it, marveling anew as she watched the soft, feminine features of her favorite dzinae gradually lose their curves and become harder as the masculine planes developed. It grew slightly taller, as if straightening up, but she knew that was only an illusion. When it topped her by half a head, it was fully male, but none of its beauty of face and form had been lost.

“Stay with me, Gihaf,” she said as he opened the door into her suite. “I could do with some honest company. Rojae is trying too hard to seduce me out of my mood, and Nefae is being overly subservient, as usual.”

“Of a certainty, Lady,” he smiled, deep blue eyes lighting with genuine humor. “Did I not just change for your benefit alone?”

“You did,” she acknowledged, letting him lead her to the table set with several interestingly scented dishes. “When we’ve eaten, weave pleasant, restful dreams for me, my Dzinae,” she said, reaching up to touch the soft gray pelt of his face. “I want to forget Vartra tonight.”

“As you wish it, Lady,” he said, catching her hand and, eyes never leaving her face, licking it languorously before releasing it. “What would you like to talk about as we eat?”

“Anything but the weather,” she said with a touch of her previous acerbity as he pulled out a chair and held it for her.

Lazily, feeling refreshed and almost reborn, Ghyakulla sat up and stretched from her toes to the tip of her tail. Trying not to wake the male deeply asleep at her side, she began to slide out of her bed. Now that the Spring Rites had been accomplished, she had matters to see to that couldn’t wait. As she rose, Vartra stirred, murmuring nothings as he turned his back to her before settling once more.

Her bower was an open trellis of living trees that formed a roof over the bed below. Sweet-smelling Spring blossoms of several kinds mingled with the omnipresent nung flowers of which she was so fond.

Picking up her discarded tunic, she reached forward to let her hand trail gently down Vartra’s spine. She enjoyed his company and was glad she’d had the excuse of Spring to call him to her Realm for the next few months.

Sighing, she turned away, and as she donned the short tunic, she sketched her hand in the air and stepped through the resultant shimmering portal into L’Shoh’s Realm.

As usual, he was sitting on his ebon black throne, elbow on the armrest and chin perched on his hand. He looked up at her as she stepped onto the dais beside him.

“Cousin, it’s good to see you,” he said, getting up to greet her.

Ghyakulla looked down into the Judgment Hall, taking in the somber crimson-edged, black-draped columns surrounding the restless gathering of souls. Her eye ridges creased in concern as she caught sight of his two dzinaes and turned back to look at him.

“I know you find my work distressing,” he said, his pleasant voice so low only she could hear him. “But the worthy must be rewarded and the unworthy judged. Let’s go somewhere more relaxing. Tallis, you and Vakaad continue without me.”

“Yes, Lord,” they said, bowing low in respect as L’Shoh held his hand out to Ghyakulla.

When she took it, he drew her behind the throne and into the corridor leading to his private rooms. He ushered her into his own study, a room as different as was possible from the hall they’d left. A warm fire crackled in the grate, and gentle lighting cast a glow on the comfortable furniture and thick carpets. Outside, she could hear the winds that perpetually howled around his castle.

Indicating a chair, he went to get drinks from the sideboard for them.

“This isn’t called Winter’s Hellmouth for nothing, Cousin,” he said wryly, catching her thoughts as he poured them both some mulled wine. “Kuushoi hasn’t been near me today, though I gather from the glow you seem to be wrapped in, Spring is now due.”

She smiled, taking the glass from him as he returned to her side, sipping daintily from its contents.

Sitting down, he nodded. “She usually comes to me, pouring out her wrath and venom for not remonstrating with you when you send for Vartra.” He swirled the contents of his glass before taking a sip. “This time, for some reason, I seem to have been spared.”

She sent images of Vartra returning later that day to Kuushoi for a week as Winter still ruled in most of the lowlands, the thaw being late this year.

“So she’s sulking for today. Is she continuing to hide our Hunter of Justice from the Camarilla? Ironic that he is a descendant of Vartra.”

Nodding, she put her drink on the table by her elbow and leaned forward to regard him seriously.

L’Shoh flicked his ears backward in denial. “Not just my Avatar of Justice, Ghyakulla—ours. You had more to do with creating him than I did. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, Cousin; enjoy this small victory. Despite what I do from now on, he could still bring it all to ruin around our ears.”

She smiled, letting him see she had no worries about his part in their venture.

“I know you have faith in me,” he said, his mouth twisting slightly as it opened in an ironic smile. “I wish your sister had, then we wouldn’t have had to resort to your subterfuge to get her to protect our Avatar.”

Frowning, she looked briefly away from him.

“I don’t like it either,” he said, putting his glass down abruptly and reaching out to take her hand in his. “If only it hadn’t been for Kuushoi’s treachery on our wedding night, you’d be my wife, not her. You know we work well together, Ghyakulla. Kuushoi barely speaks to me.”

Pulling her hand away, she looked at him intently. She could feel his genuine regret at the circumstances of his marriage to her sister, but she herself had none. The thought of being confined to the cold of Winter had appalled her, creature of sunlight, warm breezes and forests that she had always been.

Putting her hand up in a warning gesture, she watched his face resume its normal mask of neutrality as he lowered his hand and sat back in his chair.

Obviously following her thoughts, he smiled ruefully. “You’re right, you wouldn’t have made a good Winter Guardian, nor she a Summer one. I suppose it’s as well your sister’s devious nature showed itself when it did.”

“Events happened as they must,” she said slowly, as speech was not how she normally chose to communicate. “You acted nobly, even if she didn’t, believing that marriage to you would bring her greater power. You have come to love each other, though she’ll not admit it.”

Even as he looked at her in disbelief, she sent him images laced with gentle amusement and memories of how he indeed did love his sharp-tongued mate.

I’m no innocent,
she reminded him.

Hardly, when you conspire with me to make Kuushoi do our bidding,
he replied.