Wild Blood (Book 7) (17 page)

She was interrupted as Cyril, no longer laughing, leaned forward and kissed her gently. Ria was so startled that it was over before she clearly realized what had happened.

“I’m sorry,” Cyril said sincerely. “I won’t laugh at you anymore. It was just—-the way you clenched up your face—” A chuckle made its way out of his throat despite his efforts, but he quickly choked it back down. “So how did you like it?”

Ria scowled at that one brief chuckle.

“What’s to like? It wasn’t anything much.”

“Well, it’s generally nicer if the woman isn’t trying to talk at the same time,” Cyril said, grinning, his voice perilously unsteady.

“Oh?” Ria raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you’ve kissed a lot of women, so you know all about it?”

Cyril flushed crimson and took a good swig of wine to cover his mistake.

“Well, if you’ll shut up for just a moment—”

This time Ria was anticipating Cyril’s action, but made no effort to move toward him as he leaned over the bed. His lips were warm and gentle on hers, and Ria thought it wasn’t as disagreeable and awkward as she’d supposed it would be; when Cyril tilted his head slightly to one side, everything pretty well matched up all right. Still, she couldn’t imagine what the appeal was. Maybe it was something only humans enjoyed, something unnatural to elves.

“Well?” Cyril demanded at last.

“Well what?” Ria retorted. Somehow she was vaguely embarrassed and self-conscious, much as if she’d stepped unaware into a pile of dung and everyone knew it but her.

“Well, wasn’t it nice?” Cyril asked insistently. “Didn’t it make you feel—well, anything?”

“Of course it did,” Ria said defensively, bristling again slightly. She
did
feel something, not what Cyril expected, but
something,
mostly annoyance at Cyril for putting her in such a position.

“Does it make you feel like you’d want to do it again?” Cyril suggested.

Ria thought about it.

“No,” she said at last. “It makes me feel like my food’s getting cold and I’d rather be eating it than playing silly games with our mouths.”

Cyril sighed and sat back, poking at his food irritably. Ria sighed, too. Somehow she’d said something wrong, although she’d told him nothing but the truth.

“Look, whatever makes people want to kiss,” Ria said awkwardly, “I doubt if it’s an aching leg and an empty stomach. I mean, maybe we can try again some other time. All right?”

Cyril looked up, and Ria was relieved when he grinned again.

“All right,” he said. “That’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“Maybe tomorrow I can go with you to the library,” Ria said, suddenly daring.

This time Cyril’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“You? In the library? I thought books and scrolls bored you.”

“They do.” Ria sighed. “But this room is even more boring. And I can’t
do
anything if I can’t walk. In the library, at least you’ll be there for company. Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah were always wanting me to look at the city plans and so on anyway, and it’s a
different room.”

Cyril grinned and shrugged.

“I don’t see why Mother and Father would refuse,” he said. “You can hardly run away from the library, and you might as well be sitting there as here. I’ll talk to Mother so she won’t just think this is some kind of scheme of yours.” He hesitated. “Is it?”

Ria sighed again.

“Cyril, I just
told
you. I’m bored. Is that odd? I don’t like sitting here with nothing to do but think about how much my leg hurts. Is that a scheme? Where am I going to go from the library, hobbling on one leg and a crutch? Your parents can put guards outside the doorway if they think I’m going to run away. I’m not going to jump out of a window four or five man-heights above the ground, or fly away, am I?”

“All right, all right,” Cyril said mildly. “I’ll talk to Mother about it this evening and then come for you in the morning.”

Despite Cyril’s accommodating attitude, Ria was glad when he was gone. His behavior was just too puzzling. For years he’d ignored her, if not avoided her, and now she couldn’t seem to be rid of him. Was this a male thing, a human thing, or just a Cyril thing? There was just no understanding him.

It would have been nice, too, if she could talk to someone about it. But there was no one. The servants loved her, but they thought
she
was the strange one. Once Ria had been able to talk to Lady Rivkah or Lord Sharl when life puzzled her, although they rarely seemed to understand her, but since the announcement of the wedding she couldn’t imagine confiding in them. Besides, they were both angry with her now, anyway. When she was very young she and Cyril shared secrets as they played games and pranks and filched tidbits from the kitchen, but that time was long past, and besides, they’d never talked about anything too—well, too serious.

Her brother Valann would have understood her. He’d had the upbringing she should have had, among the elves. He’d understand what she felt—and what she didn’t feel, too. He’d understand
her.
She wouldn’t be some strange oddity, a usually annoying, at best amusing “savage little beast” of no use to anyone except for the alliances she might bring and the children she might bear. Lady Rivkah had told her that human magical lore held that twins shared a special bond of the souls, and hadn’t Ria seen him many times in her dreams? To Ria’s brother, whose heart had beat in rhythm with her own in their mother’s womb for months, she might have some value simply as herself.

Jenji thrummed his humming purr and burrowed under Ria’s hair to nuzzle at her neck comfortingly, as if sensing her thoughts.
Mage’s familiar.
Perhaps he had. Ria’s mother had been a beast-speaker; perhaps Jenji was an elf-speaker?

Ria pulled Jenji down into her arms so she could trace the tufted tips of his ears with her fingertip and gaze into the dark eyes that seemed so uncannily intelligent. Jenji
was
more intelligent than any animal she’d known; he’d taken on his own to perching on the windowsill, his long, fluffy tail curled up over his head for balance, to let his droppings fall out the window. Bored, Ria had quickly found that “training” Jenji was more a simple matter of showing him once what she wanted.

Mage’s familiar.

Was her don’t-see-me magic? Could Jenji help her use it as he might be able to help a mage? But how could he? Ria couldn’t cast the spell Cyril had mentioned to link the familiar to her; in fact, Ria couldn’t cast any spell at all. Even when she made herself unseen she cast no spell—or did she? Lady Rivkah no longer needed incantations, braziers, and the like. Perhaps Ria was in fact using magic—elven magic, magic of a different kind. But there was no way to tell Jenji what she wanted.

Ria placed Jenji on the covers, blocking him with her hand when he tried to scamper back toward her. “Stay.”

Jenji chittered unhappily, but stayed where he was when she took her hand away.

Ria closed her eyes and concentrated hard on making herself small, insignificant, unseen, just another wrinkle in the covers in the middle of the bed. She opened her eyes and saw Jenji crouching where she’d put him, gazing directly into her eyes, thrumming excitedly, shifting eagerly from paw to paw. Obviously she wasn’t invisible to
him.
Either that, or he was indeed a magic-spotter and could sense her in some way that was not precisely ordinary sight. If only Ria shared her mother’s ability to speak to the minds of beasts. Better yet, if only Ria could speak to the mind of her brother!

Frustrated, Ria let her concentration slip away, scooped up Jenji, and curled herself into a small ball under the covers. Her leg throbbed painfully, and Ria sat up again, growling to herself as she reached for the bell cord. To her relief, the maid who answered the bell was Lizette, Ria’s favorite among the servants, a kind-hearted matron who had traveled to Allanmere with them.

“My leg hurts,” Ria told Lizette. “Would you ask Lady Rivkah if I could have a sleeping potion?” She sighed plaintively. “Although she’ll probably say no.”

“Poor little creetur,” Lizette sighed, patting Ria’s cheek with a soap-roughened hand. “She might indeed, she’s that angry.” Her eyes twinkled. “Say you so, I’ll just ask Yvarden instead? The High Lady’s that busy, she shouldn’t be fretted, eh?” She hurried away, returning quickly with a tray.

“Oh, Lizette, thank you,” Ria said relievedly, gulping down the potion and then sipping more slowly the hot broth Lizette had thoughtfully brought to take away the bitter flavor of the potion. Yvarden, like Lizette, had been a kindly, if secret, champion of Ria’s almost since her birth. Ria was as tired of sleeping as she was of lying in bed and staring at the walls of her room, but at least this way the time would pass more quickly.

“Not a word, pet, not a word,” Lizette said, chuckling. “Sleep ‘ee sound and mend fast.”

The hot broth in her belly and the sleeping potion conspired to carry Ria away in warm arms. Ria welcomed sleep, thinking again about her brother. How nice it would be if she could talk to him, tell him all her troubles. And what would he have to tell her? What secrets had he learned in his sixteen years among the elves? He’d have so much to teach her, if only she could—if only—

Ria drifted on the surface of a warm wave of drowsiness as she’d often floated in the pond near Emaril’s keep, neither entirely awake or asleep. It seemed that somehow she was not alone, that a comforting, familiar presence was nearby, almost close enough to touch. Instinctively Ria tried to reach out to that presence as she might have lazily stroked her way across that same pond, felt the desired presence even closer, closer, but never quite close enough.

Valann!
she tried to call, fighting the potion now as it pulled her down into deep sleep, away from the familiar presence.

Come to the forest. Come home. Come soon.

Another wave of sleep, too strong to fight. For some indefinable time she surrendered weakly, then again half woke, struggling to recall that brief moment of contact, fighting until she was —

—folded in warm arms, small hands stroking boldly over skin that shivered with pleasure, lips opening under lips, fire that raced along nerves that sang with delight, the exquisite friction of warm skin on warm skin—

Ria stretched and moaned as unfamiliar sensations coursed through her body, sighing as—

—thighs parted only to clasp muscled hips, hesitant hands explored more feverishly, muscles tensed in pleasure almost too great to bear—

Ria bolted upright in her bed, suddenly wide awake, arms wrapped around her slender body as though to hold something in. Great gods, she’d had odd dreams from time to time, but nothing the likes of
that!
Her cheeks were inexplicably flaming, her skin still stippled with gooseflesh, her body filled with a strange sort of hunger. Was this an effect of the sleeping potion, or could this be something caused by Cyril’s kiss? For a moment Ria considered calling a maid to fetch Cyril, but a sudden reluctance seized her. If one kiss had put such odd feelings in her head, what might that kiss have done to Cyril? What if it made him want to kiss her again, or do something else, something like—well, like she’d dreamed of?

Ria shivered again.

Would that be so bad?

Ria shook her head and curled back down into the covers. Those feelings she had dreamed seemed somehow too big for her. Sex was for women with breasts and rounded hips, women who bled every month, not for skinny younglings like her—

Unless,
a nagging thought whispered,
elves are different. Maybe elves don’t grow like human women. Maybe elves just stay like this forever.
Lady Rivkah had often marveled at how small and childlike Chyrie and her mate Valann had seemed.

How was Ria to know? Who was she to ask?

The elves, of course.

Ria set her mouth firmly and carried that thought down into thankfully dreamless sleep.

Chapter Eight—Valann

Dusk shook his head again, touching Lahti’s belly as if he could not believe what his healing sense felt there. Lahti smiled and clasped Valann’s hand. It would be moon cycles before her belly began to swell, but she had assured Valann that she could feel the first faint changes in her body that indicated that new life was growing there, and by the time they’d made their way back to Inner Heart, Val could detect the slight change in her scent as her time of ripeness ended.

“That the two of you could be so foolish shames everyone who has taught you,” Rowan scolded. “I can’t imagine what inspired the two of you to act so irresponsibly.”

Valann laid his arm comfortingly around Lahti’s shoulders, pulling her close.

“It was Lahti’s choice,” he said stoutly. “It was my choice. I could no more have refused her than I could have forced her against her wish.”

“And you,” Rowan said, turning to Lahti, “did you spare any thought to what the clan would say when they learned what you’d done? To couple when you have not yet been judged and accepted by the Mother Forest is strictly forbidden, and to conceive a child doubly so, and for very good reason indeed. And now you cannot take your passage, not with a child in your womb who might be harmed by the passage trials and potions. If you’d danced the High Circle and one of the Hawk’s Eyes had been the man to sow the seed, he couldn’t be blamed for his part in your foolishness—he’d have no way to know you hadn’t yet taken your passage. But Valann knew better.”

“I wanted a child of Valann’s seed,” Lahti said staunchly, although there was a slight quaver in her voice. “I couldn’t bear to waste my time of ripeness. I might never have had another. And I didn’t want my first coupling to be with a stranger. It’s not Valann’s fault. He tried to dissuade me despite his desire. I’ll bear the consequences of my decision.”

“And did you spare any thought for the consequences to your child?” Rowan persisted. “Do you know why such a mating is forbidden? It’s said that a child born to a mother or father not judged spirit-whole by the Mother Forest will be born awry. Was that, too, a chance you didn’t hesitate to take?”

“It’s possible that our child might be born awry,” Valann said adamantly. “It’s possible that any child might be born awry. Many women who have long since made their passage into adulthood have suffered such misfortune. Every elf who bears a child or fathers one faces such a chance.”

“I’m to blame,” Dusk said suddenly, laying his hand on Rowan’s arm. “If I hadn’t helped Lahti pursue Valann, she’d have been here when she began to ripen. If I had thought to examine her, I might have sensed the change in her body. Those failures are mine, not Lahti’s. What woman would miss her chance to bear a child when such a chance might never come again, and what man would refuse her? Words—even laws—are small beside that desire.” He turned to Lahti. “I have taught you. I have touched your spirit many times. There’s no doubt in my heart that the Mother Forest will accept you. I’ll speak to the clan as your teacher and its Gifted One.”

“And I’ll speak to them as well,” Rowan relented, sighing. “But, Lahti, you know that each member of our clan will make his or her own judgment, and you know full well how some of them will react. It would have been easier, perhaps, if you’d chosen another instead of—” She hesitated, glancing at Val.

“Instead of Chyrie’s half-human whelp whom many of our women would never choose for their High Circles,” Val finished bitterly. “Many of the elders fear what would happen if I sired children of my mixed blood. Would my offspring be strange creatures like me, no true elf, gifted in ways not of our kind, or even born awry because of the mixing of the bloods? That’s what they think, even if they don’t say it aloud.”

Rowan shook her head, but not in denial.

“What you say is true,” she said regretfully. “Unfortunately those fears will only add, Lahti, to the clan’s displeasure at your choice. Until your child is born and shown to be born whole, it may likely be that—” She stopped, gesturing awkwardly.

“That I will be shunned by my clan and my kin,” Lahti said quietly. “Valann and I spoke of it on our journey home from the Hawk’s Eye’s lands.”

“Lahti will share my hut, even though we’re not mated,” Val said quietly. The thought of their own people treating Lahti in such a way infuriated him. He’d been subtly set apart by some of his clan all his life, but no matter how he’d hated it, it was understandable: He was different, undeniably so. But Lahti was one of their own in every way. “My hut is already at the farthest edge of the village. I’m a good hunter, as is Lahti. If the other hunters will no longer hunt with me, we’ll still not lack for meat.”

Rowan made a dismissive gesture.

“Valann, you’re being foolish. No elf in this clan, no matter how great her anger, would allow a mother with child to want for food or any other comfort, nor fail to protect them from danger. I spoke only of unkind words.”

“She won’t have to hear them for now at least,” Valann said quickly. “We came only to tell you what happened at the west edge of the forest and to learn if Lahti had conceived. I’m prepared to start west again immediately, and Lahti with me. She’ll be safe enough in the Hawk’s Eyes’ care.”

“Valann, I’ve considered your suggestions since you returned,” Rowan said slowly. “I don’t agree that we should send you as an envoy to the city, not now. After the Blue-eyes attacked your sister, the humans’ anger will be great and their guards will be more than ready to shoot their arrows at anyone who comes near the city, especially if they’re seen coming out of the forest. I doubt you could safely come close enough to the city for the guards to even notice your human appearance, and who could fault them for that? With regard to the attack on your sister and her companion, you acted properly, and I’m more grateful than I can say for the message of friendship you bring from the Hawk’s Eyes, but there’s nothing more to be done for now.”

“How can you say that?” Lahti protested. “We saw Ria injured, perhaps badly, by a Blue-eyes arrow. How can we not send envoys to the city to show our concern and learn how she’s fared?”

“You are both so young,” Dusk murmured, his eyes fastened on some distant spot. “Before the invasion, the humans of the city were as much enemies to us as we were to them. Even when we made our peace with the lord of the city, even when we showed ourselves their friends, their allies in battle, there were those in the city who bore us nothing but ill will. Now that the lord’s daughter-by-love has been injured by elves, we dare expect no friendship from them. Now we must wait for the humans to come to us in their own time. And in any wise Lahti, with child, could not risk such a dangerous journey through other territories; you both know that.”

Valann started to protest that no elf in the forest, not even Blue-eyes, would ever harm a woman with child, but Dusk anticipated his thought and silenced him with a raised hand.

“Look at Lahti and you can’t see that she’s with child,” he said gently. “Smell her and the scent of ripeness is gone, and the scent of a childbearing woman hasn’t yet developed. She could wear the green band of fertility and the blue band of pregnancy, but one hasty arrow fired before the elf saw those bands might end her life and her child’s. It’s one thing to take that risk with a child who might one day be a fertile woman, but another entirely to risk the life of a fertile woman carrying a child.”

Rowan nodded sternly in agreement.

“There’s no more to be said,” she said. “Valann, I’ve been lenient with you on this matter. I encouraged you to walk into danger because of Dusk’s vision, and it’s well that you were able to save your sister from harm and perhaps death, but there’s nothing more to be gained by endangering yourself and Lahti further, not now. I am your Eldest and I have spoken.”

Val glowered, but Lahti shook her head at him, and he bit back his protest.

“Thank you, Grandmother,” Lahti said quietly, but Val was too angry for the customary pleasantries, and he rose to follow Lahti from the hut.

“Valann. Wait.” Rowan’s voice was sympathetic, but Val could hear that it was still the Eldest of Inner Heart speaking to him, and, grinding his teeth, he turned around.

“Dusk and I will speak now to the adults of the clan on Lahti’s behalf,” Rowan said gently. “Please, Valann, it’s your right to be present, as it is Lahti’s despite her childhood, but for Lahti’s sake, I’d ask that you both stay away.”

Hot anger flared—how could Rowan expect Lahti not to speak for herself, or him to stand by her side and support her?—immediately subsiding into confusion. Rowan was his mother in all but blood. Dusk had been Lahti’s mentor for years. They had no reason to want Lahti to suffer, and Rowan, as Eldest, had every reason to want harmony and goodwill within the clan. They’d argue as fiercely in Lahti’s behalf as Val and Lahti themselves could. And in the end, what would Lahti’s presence gain but to force her to listen to angry words that would hurt her? And what would Val’s presence do but make everyone even angrier if Val lost his temper, which he was bound to do?

“All right,” Val said quietly. “We’ll move Lahti’s belongings to my hut.”

Val conveyed Rowan’s words to Lahti, and Lahti was no happier than he expected she would be; to his surprise, however, unlike Val, she was only tiredly grateful that she would not have to stand before the adults of the clan and face their anger—or worse, their disgust.

“Why should I speak to them?” Lahti said, shrugging. “There’s nothing more to be said. I knew the consequences when I made my decision, and I’d choose the same again.” She smiled at Val, her eyes regaining some of their sparkle. “Would you?”

Val chuckled, sweeping Lahti into his arms and tickling her neck with the short growth of his beard until she laughed helplessly.

“I swear by the Mother Forest I would, and in my hut, I’ll gladly prove it again and again,” he murmured into her ear.

“Stop, Val,” Lahti gasped when she regained her breath. “You should be thinking of your sister, or have you forgotten her, when only a short time ago her safety was your greatest worry?”

That sobered Val; he’d all but forgotten her indeed in his concern for Lahti. This time he could not help but doubt Rowan’s wisdom, and said as much. Inner Heart had waited sixteen years and no one had come to them; what was to be gained by more waiting? The humans did not have Dusk’s vision to urge them to action. They would never allow Ria near the forest now, not after she’d been hurt. And even if Ria was to come to them, how could she make her way past the border clans, especially the fierce Blue-eyes, and find her way safely to Inner Heart when she’d never been in the forest? No, she’d need help, help that Rowan had forbidden him to give.

It was a simple matter to claim Lahti’s few belongings from the small woven switch bower Lahti had been using since Val had left the child-pack, preferring the treetops to the hide tents Val had used. By the time they finished this errand and reached the edge of the village, although Lahti had said nothing while Val spoke, her twinkling eyes and serene face made Val realize that while she hadn’t argued with Rowan’s pronouncement, she probably had no thought of obeying it.

When they reached Val’s hut, however, Val realized that Rowan and Dusk had already anticipated their rebellion; a small owl, one that Dusk worked with frequently, was perched above the door flap of the hut and eyeing them sternly. Val scowled, but followed Lahti into the hut without speaking.

“It’s no matter,” Lahti murmured when Val had lowered the door flap and tied it securely closed. “We’re both weary and need time to rest after our journey.”

“What of my sister?” Val demanded. “You were the one to remind me of her. How does she rest? I’ve heard that Blue-eyes often poison their arrows.”

“It’s taken us three days to return from the western edge of the forest on the deer Silence summoned for us,” Lahti said patiently. “Even if we set out to return this moment, without Dusk to summon deer for us, we’d have to go on foot, and it would take days more. Even if we walked directly to the city and were accepted in without trouble, by the time we arrived we would be too late to do your sister any good. The Blue-eyes’ poison is simple and slow. The human healers will be able to help your sister.”

“Then she may be dead already,” Val said softly. The thought made him feel suddenly cold inside, terribly alone. By the Mother Forest, how close he’d come to her! Only a few dozen paces more and he’d have been bringing her home to Inner Heart. He sighed bitterly. Yes, only a few dozen paces had stood between him and his sister—that, and a dozen angry Blue-eyes and their weapons.

“If your spirit is close enough to your sister’s to feel her presence, you would have felt her death,” Lahti said with certainty. “We’ll find a way to go to her. Dusk said that you would meet, did he not?”

“No,” Val said with a sigh. “He said that I was walking to meet her with a gift, not that I
would
meet her. But I had no gift for her.”

“Then there’s a second journey that we must make,” Lahti said patiently. “And you can give her no gift unless you meet, and she cannot accept your gift if she’s dead.”

“What makes you believe I’d feel her death?” Val asked warily. “I felt her presence, but only then. I’ve never known what’s befallen her before.”

“Dusk’s often told me what he learned of the other clans,” Lahti told him. “He said some of the clans had a silent speech, the gift of hearing another’s thoughts as a beast-speaker can hear the thoughts of a beast. Your mother’s people, the Wilding Clan, had that silent speech. As her children, you and Ria may share that gift.”

“Then why can’t I feel her now, know what’s happened to her?” Val asked, shaking his head.

“There could be many reasons,” Lahti reassured him. “Your gift and Ria’s may be weaker because your blood isn’t pure. You’ve never trained your gift, and any of our gifts are weak until they’re trained and practiced, just as your bow arm was weak and clumsy at first. And especially, she’s likely much too far away. I can’t heal without touching, and you can’t make fire from far away, either. Likely you need to be closer to her, as you were in the Blue-eyes’ territory, before your spirits can touch, especially when your gift is unused and weak as it likely is now.”