“Where are you going?” Teaser asked.
“Don’t know.” Not far, since he had no intention of straying off the path that ran between his cottage and Nadia’s house.
“Why are you going?”
“Because I got my heart bruised just now, and I don’t want to face Zhahar and her mothers while I sit at my mother’s table. I’m not feeling that polite.”
“Ah.” They walked in silence for a minute. Then Teaser asked, “What about Sholeh and Zeela? You could ask one of them to come into view during the meal if you don’t want to deal with Zhahar. They like you.”
“I like them too, but I don’t want to have sex with them.”
“Well, daylight, Lee. I wasn’t talking about having sex with them—or anyone else—in front of everyone. Especially at your mother’s table. Or on the table. Because it’s Nadia’s, and that wouldn’t be proper.” A pause. “Would it be proper? Do you think she and—”
“No,” Lee snapped, refusing to think about Nadia and Jeb doing anything that intimate. “I wasn’t talking about having sex in front of anyone. But I was interested in having sex with Zhahar, until she made it clear just now that her interest in me never ran that deep.” Couldn’t run that deep, which wasn’t the same thing. What kind of penalties was she talking about?
“So you want to have sex with Zhahar but not with Sholeh and Zeela.”
“That’s right.” Or was last night.
“Can you have sex with one of them and not the others?” Teaser asked thoughtfully.
Lee stopped walking. It figured that an incubus would be too curious about Tryad sexuality not to keep circling around the question. “I don’t know. Maybe not. I had the impression they can give each other some measure of privacy, but since they share a physical core…” The idea of finding himself in bed with Zeela didn’t have any appeal, but waking up and finding himself beside Sholeh? That would feel too much like finding himself with Caitlin Marie, who was Michael’s younger sister and family now. “Maybe it is a case of all or none. But if that’s true, Zhahar should have told me.”
Teaser cocked his head. “Could she? We had the impression her being Tryad was a big secret.”
“It was,” Lee conceded. “Talking about the details of intimacy would be hard enough under any circumstances, and it isn’t something she would have done when she was still trying to hide what she was. But after I knew she was Tryad, she should have told me if we couldn’t be lovers instead of letting me believe it was possible. Somehow. I would have been disappointed, but I would have respected her choice.”
“Even if she wasn’t the one making the choice?”
Lee sighed. “You’re spending too much time with Yoshani. Or Danyal. Or both.”
Teaser grinned. “Or maybe, since we’re talking about sex, I’m the best-qualified person to talk to.”
A rather terrifying thought—which made it oddly comforting.
“How would you feel about going back to the house and slipping a plate of food out to me?” Lee asked.
“Where are you going to be?”
He turned and started walking back to Nadia’s house. “In the garden. It’s a good place to brood.”
Carrying a full plate and two mugs, Danyal walked to the bench in the garden. Lee looked up, then huffed out a breath and smiled.
“I wondered who would bring the plate,” Lee said. “Didn’t expect it to be you.”
“You don’t think I would have that much compassion?” Danyal asked as he handed over the plate.
“I figured you were the only man in the house besides Teaser who wouldn’t be looking for an excuse to come out here and yell at me.”
“Ah.” Danyal sat down and put one mug on the bench between them. “Well, you’re half right. I welcomed the excuse to come out here. But I didn’t come to yell; I came to listen.”
Lee ate some scrambled eggs and swore mildly when the bacon crumbled.
“Problem?” Danyal asked.
“Mother saved the overcooked bacon for me because I don’t like it this way. She’s a firm believer in letting people live with the consequences of their actions as a way of learning life’s lessons.” He was hungry, so he ate the bacon anyway. “You heard about this morning?”
“You, Sebastian, and the bird? I saw the second half of that drama—and have an itching regret that I missed the first half, which is not an appropriate feeling for a Shaman to have.”
“I stirred things up. I can claim I didn’t know what would happen, but I grew up in my mother’s house. I knew what would happen. I just don’t know why I did it.”
“You know,” Danyal replied, smiling.
“Shaman, I’m not sure I know much of anything right now.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” Danyal said. “The bird and the toast are symbols of the new life Sebastian is building. In order to have those things, he had to see the world differently, and that changed his life. So he values the bird, the toast, and the morning ritual. For you, they are symbols of what you left behind. Because you have a warm, generous family, it would be easy to go back to the life you had, fall back into the patterns and routines. You need something different, and you’re afraid you’ll go back to those patterns. So you pushed away the symbols and caused disruption so that you don’t fit quite so easily into the life you left behind.”
More than a spat with his cousin about a bird was causing the storm building in Lee’s heart-core. Wondering if the turbulence he felt in Zhahar had the same root, Danyal decided to probe gently.
Before he could shape his question, Lee set his fork on the plate, then lifted the mug of koffee.
“What about you?” Lee asked. “Will you fit back into the life you had in Vision before you crossed the bridge that brought you here?”
“No, I won’t.” Danyal saw Lee’s concern and smiled. “I don’t regret that. I hope there is a way to return to Vision and help the other Shamans deal with the wizards and the Dark Guide, but I have much to learn from the people I’ve met here, and, in learning it, I hope to discover the new shape of my own life.”
Lee set down the mug and resumed eating.
Danyal looked out at the garden, since it seemed rude to watch Lee eat. He regretted the darkness that now touched Vision, and he regretted the wounds on his shoulder and hip that were still healing, but he didn’t regret stumbling over that bridge and finding himself among these people. He was a Shaman, would always be a Shaman, but he had looked at Yoshani and the choices that holy man had made and had seen a truth about himself: he no longer wanted to be the kind of Shaman he had been. He wasn’t certain he could be the kind of Shaman he had been, even if he’d wanted to stay within those boundaries. His heart had been ready for change, had craved it. And here it was. Now he had to figure out how to make the most of it.
“By the way, the Apothecary thinks he’ll be able to make another mixture that will improve your sight more than the eyedrops you have now,” Danyal said.
Lee’s hand trembled, shaking the scrambled eggs off the fork. “I’m glad to hear it, but I thought there was a limit to what could be restored.”
“Before going up to the house, Glorianna had the world bring the sandbox to Nadia’s garden.”
“Ah.” Lee nodded. “I saw the gathering and wondered, but I was embroiled in my own concerns.”
“The Apothecary had found one of the plants last night in the Den. All the ingredients for this healing mixture are brought into the city by ships from other places, and many of the plants lose much of their potency by the time they are sold in the bazaar.”
Lee smiled. “The plants are here, aren’t they?”
“Nadia recognized some; Glorianna recognized others. I thought the Apothecary was going to weep when Caitlin Marie, pointing out a plant whose dried leaves are so expensive several shadowmen buy a bundle and split it, said the plant grew wild in the field behind her house. He thinks brewing the potion for the eyedrops from fresh-picked plants will double the healing power. If
this potion does what he thinks it will, you might regain most of your sight.”
Lee set the plate on the bench. “May your heart travel lightly, because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.” He paused. “Why did I end up being blinded in a city called Vision, Danyal? Why did you end up in the Den of Iniquity? As Sebastian is fond of saying, no one comes to the Den by mistake. By accident, yes, but not by mistake.”
He’d been wondering the same thing. “Isn’t it our task to find out?” He sighed. “Along with finding a way of returning to Vision.”
Lee straightened up slowly. “Heart music.”
Danyal frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Sorrow and joy.” Lee stood up. “I have to talk to Glorianna.”
No hesitation in Lee’s movements as he skirted the end of the bench and strode toward the house. No indication that anything interfered with his sight.
What interferes with my sight? Danyal wondered. And what has changed Zhahar from a calm summer lake to swift rapids?
Gathering the plate and mugs, he returned to the house.
“Glorianna,” Medusah said. “We need to speak with you about a potential danger.”
Glorianna led the a Zephyra Tryad into Nadia’s parlor. “A danger to the Den? From Tryadnea?” The darkness that was Belladonna pushed at her. Who better to deal with danger than the monster that Evil feared? But she held on to the Light in order to listen.
“Not a danger to your people,” Medusah said. “But a potential danger to Zhahar, and a reason for your people to think ill of us.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s possible that someone else from my homeland slipped across the border. Zhahar thought she’d seen Allone in the Den last night.”
A jagged song, Michael had said. She had sensed it as a heart that held too much darkness. A corrupt heart linked to a strong mind—a presence strong enough that even Sebastian had felt its sourness in the Den’s Dark currents.
“Allone is an aspect of a Tryad?” Glorianna asked.
Medusah shook her head. “She is what is left of a Tryad after the three were merged into one.”
Everything in Glorianna went still. “What exactly does that mean?”
“She chose the man who claimed to love her over her sisters, and by our customs, her sisters’ lives were the payment for that love.”
Glorianna held Michael’s hand as they followed Lee and Sebastian to the stable in the Den, where they had left the Apothecary’s wagon. At first Lee had insisted that he needed to talk to her; then he changed his mind and said there was something he had to show her.
Medusah hadn’t told her much about this merging that was the punishment for breaking Tryad taboos, but the woman had said enough for her to listen very carefully to the hearts around her—especially Lee’s and Zhahar’s.
“There are some grating notes in his music now,” Michael said quietly, lifting his chin to indicate Lee.
That wasn’t surprising. “Do you know why?” she asked.
The music Michael heard in people’s hearts was the way he recognized when someone didn’t fit into a place anymore. Whatever he could tell her would add to her own sense of what was building around them since last night.
“The music doesn’t tell me the why, but Lee puts me in mind of a man who’s pulling both ends of a rope. No matter which side wins, he still loses.”
He studied her, but she doubted he saw much. There wasn’t much moonlight, and Sebastian and Lee had the lanterns.
“What’s on your mind, darling?” Michael finally asked.
“The Wish River and what it looks like in the places where heart wishes are in conflict.” Wild. Raging. Water smashing against itself and breaking anything that it could pound against the rocks. Early last night—before the appearance of Allone?—several heart wishes had been flowing in the same direction. This morning? Wild, raging water with fierce undercurrents.
Glorianna stopped as soon as they drew even with the Den’s cobblestone main street.
Heart wishes in conflict, smashing against each other. Ephemera’s currents of power swirling around her. Enough fury to glut the Dark currents in the Den.
hurry hurry hurry
And a suspicion about the bloodlines of a Tryad who was no longer three.
“I need to check the border between the Den and Tryadnea, and I need Sebastian to go with me,” she said. “Can you stay here with Lee and find out what he wanted to show me?”
“I can. But shouldn’t I go with you?”
She shook her head. “I need you with Lee, and I need the wizard with me.”
Michael stared at her. Then he whistled sharply. Sebastian turned and headed back to them. Lee walked on a few more steps before he stopped and, after a noticeable pause, turned back to join them.
His heart is more sensitive to the Dark currents than it used to be, she thought. More sensitive—and more responsive to the darkness in other hearts. Like mine is.
When she explained that she needed to check the border, Lee said testily, “Can’t it wait a few minutes? Can’t you even give me that much time?”
They looked at him, and even he seemed confused by the words.
“Glorianna,” Lee began.
“You need to get away from the Den,” she said with the quiet conviction he had never questioned. “You need to get back to Aurora now.”
“Is someone whispering to you, Lee?” Sebastian asked.
Lee swayed. Michael grabbed his arm.
“Guardians and Guides,” Lee whispered.
“Nothing that invasive,” Glorianna said firmly. “But definitely something that doesn’t belong here.” She felt herself start to slide toward Belladonna’s darker state of mind. “Lee, please.”
She walked away from all of them. Had to.
Thorn trees with the succulent fruit of rotting bodies. Death rollers hiding in the only fresh water available. Trapspiders as big as dogs, waiting for the unwary. Vines that took root under the skin, spreading fast to anchor around bone so that they couldn’t be torn out. Growing out of the skin and spreading until they covered their prey—until their weight was too much to carry, and even a grown man finally buckled while the vines fed on him.
She would not bring those things to the Den. She wouldn’t. But there were times when she struggled from one minute to the next to make a choice that belonged to the Light.
Love, not sex, was the taboo between a Tryad and a one-faced man. If a Tryad could have an aspect that was a Bridge, there could be some among them who were sired by a wizard—or even a Dark Guide. Someone who fed the Dark currents and had some of the wizards’ ability to persuade others into making a truth out of lies could drain hope from a people—especially if there was another explanation for her bitterness and anger.
Everything is in motion, she thought. But I—and Belladonna—can help Zhahar choose which darkness is her fate.
When Glorianna paid attention to her surroundings again, she was almost to the other end of the Den’s main street, and Sebastian was walking beside her.
“You want to tell me what we’re walking toward?” he asked when they stepped from the cobblestone street to the dirt lane that led to the Merry Makers’ landscape as well as Tryadnea.
“A possible confrontation with a wizard’s offspring.”
He swore. “Does this person have the lightning?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. I think at least one aspect of the Morragen Medusah a Zephyra Tryad would have died by now if their enemy could command wizards’ lightning.”
“Guardians and Guides,” he muttered.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to check that border.”
They broke into a run, slowing down when they reached the stone markers. Those stones were unchanged, and, Glorianna noted with relief, the large triangles of stone that marked the actual border were in place. But the border itself didn’t feel quite right.
Sebastian caught her arm and pulled h
er back before she stepped between the stone triangles.
“Let me cross over,” he said. “Just in case there’s trouble in Tryadnea.”
“I’m not sure the trouble is in Tryadnea,” she replied. “But I do know that border doesn’t feel right. If you cross over, you may not be able to get back.”
“I have a one-shot bridge that will take me back to the Den, so I’ll get back here one way or another.”
“All right.” She didn’t like watching him walk up to that border, didn’t like watching him cross over to Tryadnea.
Except Sebastian didn’t cross over. He should have disappeared from sight, should have been standing in Tryadnea the moment he passed between the stones. But she could still see him, and that proved something wasn’t right.
Resonances. Tryadnea had wanted to belong to her, but now it was pulling away, resisting the connection. Why? Because the Den was a dark landscape? Or because the Den wasn’t dark enough? All right, the carnal carnival wasn’t the most convenient connection, but it was a connection to other parts of Ephemera. And what other people would be so accepting of a three-faced bitch who looked down at her brother and cousin?
The Tryad thought the Den wasn’t dark enough? She knew a place that would welcome the Tryad. That landscape was still within reach, was always within reach. It would be so easy to add Tryadnea to the landscapes in the Eater of the World’s domain. Bonelovers and trapspiders wouldn’t care how many faces the prey wore as long as the flesh was juicy. And the Eater would welcome the diversion of taking a few Tryad apart to learn how to become one and use their own shape to hunt them.
They didn’t want this little piece of her darkness? Then they could have…
Sebastian.
The cousin whose heart had saved her stood between the border stones, and even though he was little more than a dark shape, she knew he waited for her to decide if she was going to struggle back to the Light. He understood that struggle, which is why he didn’t take a sunrise for granted. And because he understood, she made the exhausting effort to be Glorianna instead of Belladonna.
She was about to tell him she was in control of herself when he pressed a finger to his lips, warning her to be quiet. He took a few steps away from the border, then moved off to his right. She followed him on her side. He moved cautiously, and she wondered what he sensed that she couldn’t.