Althor laid his cheek against the top of Shannon’s head. “You aren’t repulsive.”
“Stay with me tonight.” It would heal so much.
“Good gods, Shani.”
What had he said wrong? “I would like to stay.”
Althor let him go, gently but firmly. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
Shannon closed his eyes. The loneliness saturated him.
“Shani—” When Shannon opened his eyes, Althor spoke with tenderness, though he seemed to ache inside. “You won’t always be lonely. Someday you will love a woman, marry, have children.”
Shannon wondered at Althor’s sadness. He felt it now. Loneliness also wrenched his brother, and Althor believed he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.
“You will find someone, too,” Shannon said.
“No. I won’t.” Althor seemed to wrestle with his answer. “I’ve tried to be what Father wants. I’ve taken women as lovers, tried to consider marriage. But it isn’t going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He spoke quietly. “I am deeply sorry that it hurt you when I left. I never meant for you to feel rejected. But I have to do what is right.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“Shannon—”
“Listen.” He splayed his palm on Althor’s chest. “You’re going away tomorrow. I will only see you every few years, if that often. You are an empath like me. A Rhon empath. It tears me apart when you leave.” Softly he said, “Give me this night to remember you by.”
Lines of strain creased Althor’s face. “I’m sorry. But no.”
“Why?”
“Things might happen that—that shouldn’t.”
“I don’t care.” Shannon’s feelings swirled. How could Althor love him but not love him? “Is it the tall woman who came with you?”
“Colonel Tahota?”
“Why is she here?”
“She just told me an hour ago. Kurj has chosen his heirs.” Althor sounded stunned. In shock. “Soz. Me.”
Kurj? Althor must mean their half brother. The Imperator. Shannon had little interest in offworld affairs. “Is that good, that he chose you and Soz?”
“Yes. I think.” Doubts about his suitability for the title infused Althor’s mood.
“You can do it.” Shannon had no doubt.
“I hope so.”
“But it changes nothing with us.”
Althor brushed Shannon’s hair back from his face. “I can’t bend and blend my feelings the way you do.”
Shannon had no idea what he meant. “I won’t try to make you stay here. It would be wrong for me to try.” He wished more than anything that Althor would, but he would no more try to force it than he would try to pull a moon out of the sky. Perhaps Althor believed his offer fickle or insincere. “I would neither ask nor wish such company from anyone else.”
His brother’s face gentled. “I know.”
“But you will not let me stay?”
“I can’t.” Althor’s voice softened. “But know always that I love you, above and beyond all others. Will that be enough?”
It wasn’t enough. But it seemed to be the most they could have. Shannon answered in a low voice. “Know it for me, too.”
“Take care, my brother.”
“I will.” He didn’t see how. Althor had rejected him in yet a new way. Shannon reeled inside. But he knew now that Althor did it for him, not as a rejection. He had also absorbed the truth; if he stayed tonight, it would hurt his brother, and the reason was because Althor did love him. In his own confusing way Althor would always act on sense of honor. Shannon loved in too many ways for Althor, who needed to put what he felt into compartments. His brother couldn’t let his emotions run in a river while he went to wherever they would take him.
“Do you want me to go?” Shannon asked.
“No.” Althor’s voice caught. “But perhaps it is better that you do.”
“Be well,” Shannon said softly.
“And you.”
After Shannon left, he returned to the stable and sat with Moonglaze. He was beginning to wonder if he, Shannon, was fully human. The emotions of people, even his own family, made so little sense to him. He felt painfully out of place here, until at times he thought he would die from a lack of air, or not air, but something more vital. He was suffocating and he didn’t know how to make it stop. He wanted to saddle Moonglaze and ride away, fly across the world until he escaped the hurt he never understood.
Eldrinson stood in the window of his room on the third story of the house and looked toward the starport. Copious light from the Blue and Lavender Moons poured across the plains, their ghostly radiance silvering the Jag that crouched on the tarmac.
“It is so strange,” he said.
Roca came up behind him and put her arms around his waist, her front to his back as she looked over his shoulder. “What is?”
“That my son should come out of the sky with flames and thunder.” He leaned his head against hers. “A war god, eh?”
“Well, a fighter pilot, anyway.”
“I wish he didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”
Roca sighed. “I also. Part of me wants to keep them with us all the time. But we have to let them go, Eldri. They grow up and live their own lives.”
“Vyrl stayed.” Eldrinson smiled. “All those fine grandchildren he and Lily have given us.”
Her voice warmed. “They are beautiful indeed.”
“Do you think Althor has a girl?” He had noticed his son’s silence on the subject.
Roca turned him around so he was facing her, the two of them standing with their arms around each other’s waist. “Would it bother you if he didn’t?”
“I suppose he has much to occupy his time.”
“Yes. He does.” Roca hesitated. “What I don’t understand is why Colonel Tahota came with him. She isn’t an instructor at DMA.”
Eldrinson didn’t know what to think of this female warrior. She showed impeccable courtesy, but she made him uneasy. “Women shouldn’t fight wars, Roca.”
His wife frowned at him. “And what will you do next year when your daughter insists on enrolling at DMA, hmm?”
He rubbed his eyes, feeling his more than five octets of age despite all the “nanomeds” the Skolian doctors gave him to keep his body young. “I don’t know, love. I’m hoping she will change her mind.”
“Eldri.” Roca cupped her palms around his cheeks. “She isn’t going to change her mind.”
“She cannot go.” The thought alarmed him even more than when Soz had challenged him to sword practice a few years ago—and bested him. That was the last time he had parried with her. “Lord Rillia plans to ask for a marriage with her.”
“Our children don’t take well to arranged marriages. Look what happened with Vyrl.”
“But, Roca, this is different. We wanted Vyrl to marry an offworlder. It’s no wonder he ran off with Lily. Besides, they’ve been in love practically since they were born. Soz has no young man, unless you count that scoundrel, Ari, who ought to have his backside paddled. Lord Rillia is a mature man of Lyshriol, a leader of our people. He will be good for her.”
His wife had that look he dreaded, the one that meant he would never get her agreement. Roca said, “She won’t do it. Soz wants to go. We can’t hold her here. She will only hate us for it.”
Panic at losing his daughter to an interstellar war swept over him. He covered it with anger. “She will do as I say. And I say she will stay here and marry Lord Rillia.”
“Eldri—”
“No!” He couldn’t bear to think that another of his children would leave for the stars, especially not Soz, his beautiful, brilliant, headstrong daughter. Gods only knew what would happen if she became a warrior. “My decision is final. I will hear no more.”
Roca didn’t look the least bit cowed by his statement. “If I know Soz, I suspect that when the time comes, you will hear a lot more.
”
He winced. “She is rather formidable.”
“That she is.”
“We have time. She hasn’t applied anywhere yet.” He moved his hands up Roca’s back, a smile coming to his face. “It occurs to me that we might occupy ourselves with other concerns tonight.”
Roca laughed. “What, you want more children? Ten isn’t enough?”
“Twelve.” In octal, of course. Eldrinson drew her into an embrace. “I can’t help myself, with such a beautiful wife.”
“Flatterer.”
He hefted her up in his arms, with one arm under her knees and the other around her back. Then he grunted. “Wife, you are not the lightest person in the world.” She was beautiful, yes, curved and statuesque, but she was no slip of a girl.
“I could walk.” She sounded miffed.
Eldrinson pressed his lips against her cheek. Then he carried her over to the bed on the other side of the room. With a grin, he dropped her onto the quilt, making all the pillows bounce. “See?” He folded his arms, doing it the way he knew made his muscles flex. “I am not so old that I can’t carry my wife.”
Roca laughed, pulling her hair out of her eyes. “Come here.” She grabbed his hand and yanked. He sprawled next to her on the bed, laughing, his hair flying. Then he pulled her into his arms, savoring her body against his. Even after three octets of years he loved to touch her, perhaps even more now than when they had first met. They nestled together in the quilts, kissing, her mouth soft against his, her lips parting for him.
Sometime later, after the oil lamps had burned down, he and Roca drowsed in the blue moonlight. Their clothes lay somewhere on the floor. Contentment filled him. Today had been good. His children often bewildered him, especially Althor and Soz, but he loved them all, those lights Roca had given him. He wished they would stay near home, as Vyrl had done. But Roca was right. When the time came, he had to let them go. That included Soz. But not offworld. Kurj would destroy her. Imperator. Eldrinson could never leave his daughter in a universe overseen by a man who had murdered his grandfather and hated his mother’s husband. It was bad enough Althor chose ISC. He couldn’t let it happen to Soz.
Eldrinson had a plan. He would spend this coming year getting Soz accustomed to the idea of marriage with Lord Rillia. This daughter of his was formidable, yes; as Rillia’s wife, she would be well suited to help the Rillian Bard lead the people of Rillia and Dalvador.
He just needed time to make her agree.
4
The Decision
Soz paced Althor’s room. “I don’t know how to tell him. He will explode through the roof.”
Althor was stuffing clothes into his duffel. “Just don’t lose your temper.”
Soz stopped and glared at him. “I never lose my temper.”
Althor laughed. “Right. Never.” Sunlight slanted through the window and made his gold skin shimmer. He was perfect in every way, physically, mentally, intellectually.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being a hero?” Soz grumbled.
“What hero? Why does everyone say that?” He lifted his hands, then dropped them. “I’ve never done a damn thing except pass my exams at the academy. Real heroic.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. You look and act the part so well.” She resumed pacing. “Father will never accept my going to DMA. He wants me to marry Lord Rillia and have lots of yelling, crapping babies.”
Althor went back to packing. “Gods help Lord Rillia.”
Soz glowered at him. “Why does everyone say, ‘Gods help Lord Rillia’ when the topic of our purportedly incipient nuptials comes up? Why doesn’t anyone say, ‘Gods help Soz’?”
Althor laughed good-naturedly. “Purportedly incipient nuptials? Soz, no one talks that way.”
“I do. And you’re changing the subject.”
“All right.” He crossed to the window and motioned at the view. “See that?”
She went to peer out. The plains outside rippled in swells, as on an ocean. “What about it?”
“You’re the wind, Soz. Or a storm. You rush across the land and leave everyone hanging on to their hats.”
“Are you getting poetic on me?” Although she admired artists, she herself had the artistry of a stone block. Not that Althor had shown any particular interest in poetry before. Rocket engineering was more his style.
He leaned against the window frame. “You have to talk to Father.”
“Perhaps I should tell him first, rather than Mother.”
“Do you want me to be there?”
“No. I have to do this myself.” She hesitated, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Then she said, “If Tahota hadn’t come and I had asked you to take me with you when you left here, without Father’s permission, would you have done it?”
“Ah, Soz, that’s a hell of a question.” For a moment he regarded her. “Yes, I think so. But you don’t know how grateful I am that I don’t have to make that decision.”
Her face eased into a smile. “You know, you’re all right.”
His grin flashed. “From you, that is a towering compliment.”
Soz laughed, relieved, and glanced out at the plains. A youth was running through the reeds, his head thrown back, his blond hair streaming. “Look. There’s Shani.”
Althor went unusually still. “So it is.”
“I’m sorry about last night. I don’t know why he wouldn’t come inside for dinner.” Soz couldn’t believe the way Shannon had refused to greet his own brother. “He gets odder all the time.”
“It’s all right. He came to talk to me later.” Althor turned back to her. “He’s changed so much. I didn’t even recognize him at first.”
“He’s lonely. He can’t seem to connect with anyone.”
Althor hesitated. “For an instant I thought he was someone else.”
Something in the way he spoke gave her pause. “Someone who hurt you.” She didn’t need to make it a question.
He leaned his back against the wall, his arms folded as he stared across the large room. “Have you ever given up something you wanted so intensely it hurt? You knew you had to do it, that it was the only choice, but you also knew you would regret it for the rest of your life?”
Soz wondered what brought on this pensive mood. “Not yet. I would feel that way if I married Lord Rillia.”
“Don’t give up your dreams.” He looked at her. “You have a gift. It deserves a chance to develop.”
She grimaced. “A gift for what? Annoying people?”
“For military strategy.”
She finally asked the question that filled her thoughts now. “Do you think we’re going to war?”
“Gods only know. From what I’ve heard, the Traders have been preying on our ships lately even more than usual. They either kill the crew and passengers or sell them as slaves.”
“How can they get away with that?”
“They claim our ships go into their territory.”
“Do they?”
“No.”
Soz felt cold. “Can we prove it?”
“No. They keep or destroy the stolen ships, with all their records.” His gaze darkened. “They get more and more daring, baiting us, trying to goad us into attacking first. That would make us the aggressors and help them win allies.”
Her anger sparked. “They are the ones that sell and torture people. They’ve already ‘attacked.’”
“Slavery is legal for them.” He regarded her intently. “None of this has to do with heroics, Soz. Never forget that. Being a Jag pilot is one of the worst jobs in ISC.”
She could barely hold still. “I know.”
“It’s why the academies are so tough on their cadets.”
“An academy is a place. It’s people who are tough on other people.” She put her fists on her hips. “You going to give me a hard time at DMA, you being a senior when I’m a novice?”
His cocky grin came back. “Upperclassmen get to train the new cadets.”
She sn
orted. “Right. Make our lives hell.”
“You’ll do fine.”
“What time are you and Tahota leaving today?”
“Probably this evening.”
“You going to fly that Jag?”
His gaze smoldered. “Hell, yes.”
Soz made a show of looking dubious. “Is it safe for me to ride with you? What if something happens? Maybe I need to know more about the ship. Just in case.”
Althor laughed. “I’m not going to let you fly my Jag, Soz.”
Oh, well. Althor knew her better than she wanted to admit. “I’ll sit in the copilot’s seat.”
He answered amiably. “Give yourself a few months before you take DMA by storm. You don’t have to do everything the first day.”
“I know that.” In truth, Soz was impatient to get on with matters. She wanted to fly a Jag so much, it felt tangible in her life. “Ah, hell, Althor. Just let me sit in the pilot’s seat for a few minutes.”
His smile crinkled his eyes. “All right.”
“Hey.” Soz beamed at him. “You’re all right, you know.”
But first she had business to take care of here.
Shannon ran for over an hour. He fell into a trance, his feet beating a rhythm on the plains, reeds brushing his thighs, clouds of filmy spheres in his wake. He wished he could ride Moonglaze through these plains, never stopping, never feeling. It hurt too much to feel.
Lately the girls in the village giggled at him all the time, playing flirting games he couldn’t fathom. Maybe he wouldn’t fathom Blue Dale girls, either, but at least he wouldn’t feel so out of place. Except the Archers no longer existed. They had all vanished in the high northern mountains. The youths his age were always going off to hunt, sneak around alehouses at night, or generally get into trouble. His brother Denric used to understand, before books took him away. Now all Denric thought about was literature and going to college. No one else just wanted to run in the wind.
After a while Shannon slowed down. Finally he stopped and flopped on his back, reeds bowing over him, their stems supple and translucent, silvery green. They resembled the glasswood columns of the trees in the Stained Glass Forest, except these were much thinner and more flexible. Bubbles drifted off their tips and popped, showering him with glitter. Soon more reeds would grow from that sparkling dust.