Minutes came and went while the two of them talked using only their lips, forsaking words entirely. Questions fluttered through Tyrion’s mind, but none of them stayed long enough to concern him. Pausing only long enough to shift his stance and slip one arm behind her legs, he lifted Lyralliantha and carried her back to the strange bed they had awoken in. He placed her there carefully and then he joined her.
And then he joined with her.
Some while later he lay watching her, trying to figure out what it had meant. Unable to frame the right question, he said instead, “I had no idea you were a virgin.”
She showed incomprehension, “I don’t think I’ve learned that word.”
It took a minute for him to explain the meaning in Erollith, but eventually she understood. “Oh,” she said, “That’s a concept that has little meaning for the She’Har. Does it increase the significance of sex for you?”
He shrugged, “Not really, but for some people it might. I was just surprised. From what I had learned of the She’Har, I thought you were already experienced.”
“It is an infrequent activity among the children of the Illeniel Grove, since we do not keep humans,” she answered.
“You wouldn’t necessarily need humans,” said Tyrion.
“The She’Har primarily do this only to produce baratti for the arena,” said Lyralliantha, as if that explained everything. “Few choose to engage in sex for pleasure alone.”
Uncertainty took hold as Tyrion wondered at her motivations. Why did Thillmarius save us? Was that the price? Keeping his voice steady he asked, “What was your motivation?”
“Something new,” she told him. “What is wrong?” She had seen the change in his aura.
“I don’t want my children to be used in the arena,” he said bluntly.
She laughed, “Fear not, I will not conceive. My people almost never bear human children. I am able to control the fertility of my flesh. Those who create children generally do so using human females to gestate the offspring.” She paused, looking at him more seriously. “Did you think I was planning to make a child? Such a thing runs against my grove’s decision regarding baratti.”
“Then what was your motivation?” Tyrion’s suspicions were easing, but he still didn’t understand. “Pleasure?”
“In part,” she nodded. “As I said before, it was something new. When I saw you in the arena, I knew something had changed, and when you destroyed your collar, I thought I would perish.”
“Thillmarius said you nearly did.”
“It no longer mattered to me. If I couldn’t save you, I didn’t mind dying.” The words were spoken with complete calm, but her aura was flickering with intense emotions, and her eyes were damp.
Of all the things she could have told him, that startled him more than anything else might have. “Are you…” The words trailed off. He didn’t know what to ask.
“Teach me love, Tyrion” she said.
“T—th—that’s not something you can teach,” he replied with a brief stutter.
“Then show me what you can. Show me what you wanted to show her.” Lyralliantha took his hand in her own, guiding it to her bosom.
Tyrion hadn’t thought to perform an encore so soon, but Lyralliantha’s insistent lips convinced him otherwise.
Chapter 51
Another day passed before they made ready to leave Thillmarius’ accommodations in Ellentrea and return to Lyralliantha’s home in the Illeniel Grove.
“When we return there will be many questions,” she said, as if to prepare him. “What you did in the arena was unprecedented. They will want to know how you did it.”
“Do you mean this?” he asked, indicating the tattoos along his arms.
“That is part of it, and if that had been all, it would still have created a stir, but the lightning will be of even greater interest to them,” she replied.
“Ahh…”
“Your aythar didn’t move. When the lightning came, it remained completely still. It was as if the sky itself came alive and chose to attack the Krytek. It destroyed the barrier and almost broke your opponent’s shield-weave. How did you do that?” she asked.
He shrugged, “I’m not even sure if it was me. It felt strange, almost like falling into a dream, or maybe like dying. I just couldn’t lose. More than anything I couldn’t let go of that, and when I got caught in the electrical trap, it rendered me almost entirely helpless. As I was lying there, all I could think was how badly I wanted to kill my enemy, and then it felt like I left my body.”
Tyrion frowned, “No, that’s not it either. It felt as though I expanded—sort of. The sky was there, the clouds and wind, and they were part of me.”
“Could you do it again?” she asked staring directly into his eyes.
Even as she asked, he could feel the sky above them, a great vault of air moving in the sun, speckled with clouds. Beneath his feet the earth beat with a steady rhythm, and even the walls of the living wooden building they were within sang to him.
I could do something, he thought, though I’m not sure what or how.
“I don’t really know,” he told her, “but I doubt it.” Something told him that a lie would be better than the truth. “Thillmarius wanted to know about it too.”
Lyralliantha smiled, “Of course. Whatever it was, it was something the She’Har have never seen before, something beyond our experience, and we have been manipulating aythar for eons beyond counting.”
“No one expected that from a simple baratt, eh?”
She reached up, placing her hand on his cheek and holding his face in line with her own. The gesture was tender while at the same time emphasizing her seriousness. “Listen to me, Tyrion. They will want that power, and they will get it. If you can explain it to them, do so, or they will never give you peace. If you cannot explain it, admit nothing, or they will expend every effort to understand the secret of it, up to and including dissecting you.”
He tilted his head, looking down at her, “But I already admitted to you that I had something to do with it, although I don’t understand exactly how I did it. Doesn’t that mean that they already know?”
Her eyes studied him, and then she answered, “No, it doesn’t. I have spoken to no one about this yet.”
“But you will,” insisted Tyrion. “You are a child of the grove, right?”
“I almost threw my life away to preserve yours,” she answered. “Would I undo that by telling them?”
“You would put my wellbeing above the interests of your people?”
“I would do as I please,” she said, “and you please me, but there is one thing we must do before we leave here.”
Tyrion was still processing her words. “What is that?”
“Your collar,” she said, pointing at his throat. “Without it, they will kill you.”
“Is one free human that big a concern for the She’Har?”
“We have not survived so long by being foolish,” she countered. “And in the arena the other day you gave them reason to fear you.”
He clenched his jaw, “I don’t want to be a slave again.”
“Did I treat you as one?”
“Someone having the power to kill you on even the slightest whim isn’t the sort of thing one can just forget about,” he told her.
“But you have the same power, don’t you?” she asked challengingly. “As you demonstrated a few weeks ago, every time I came within reach of you unshielded I was unwittingly giving you the opportunity to take my life.” She moved closer, running one finger along the tattoos on his arm. “And now even a shield-weave wouldn’t protect me, would it?” Her face was less than an inch from his own.
Her nearness was having an effect on him. “Is there a way to remove the collar later?”
“It can be removed in the same way it is put on, and only with consent of both parties,” she replied, deliberately brushing against him.
“And would you give such consent, if I asked you to?” he asked, her teasin
g was driving him to distraction.
“When you decide that you no longer wish to live with me, regardless of the consequences, I will remove it,” she told him. “If not, you can take my life.”
He growled into her ear, “I’ll accept your bargain, but I’ll take something now to seal it.” Grasping her shoulders with rough hands he turned her around.
“That I will gladly give,” she whispered.
Their leavetaking was delayed for a brief time, but fortunately, no one came to check on them.
***
The walk back to the tree where Lyralliantha made her home was nerve-wracking. Tyrion could feel the She’Har watching them during the entire journey. Most stayed out of direct sight, but he could feel their attention lingering on them as they traveled.
The necklace at his throat felt heavy. This time when she created it he had understood the words, and with his consent, the spellweave had been completed, but he still didn’t like it. Despite her sweet entreaties, he would never have accepted it if it hadn’t been for one simple fact.
There was nowhere else to go.
His recent trip had shown him quite clearly that home was no longer home. His parents still loved him, but he no longer belonged. It was time for him to make his own home in the world, and there was only one person in Colne that he wanted, or that wanted him for that matter, but Kate had already made her home. She had begun her family, and the last thing Tyrion wanted was to destroy her happiness, or to hurt Seth.
That left the Illeniel Grove, and the She’Har could not accept a free human.
Lyralliantha’s yoke was light, however. She promised him as much freedom as she could offer; and that, combined with her ample charms, was enough to convince him. Some might even consider it paradise.
Tyrion was not so minded, though. He still held a deeper anger, and his pride would never accept even such gentle slavery as his due.
I will learn and expand on what I have discovered, and eventually, I will teach them the error of their ways. It was statement of fact within his soul, but under it simmered a subtle threat.
That night he lay in a new bed, with Lyralliantha beside him, and after she had fallen asleep, he let his mind drift free. This time he listened to the deep beating of the earth and he felt his mind expand to encompass something much greater than the body he had grown up with.
Hidden beneath the thin veneer of stable land and living trees was a burning world of liquid rock and great pressures. It called to him, and as he listened, he understood. The beauty he found in it seemed to mirror his own quiet anger, hidden and buried. Just relax here a little and great things could happen.
He dreamed of fire and red rivers of molten rock.
When he awoke the next morning he felt strange, as though having arms and legs were unusual. Lyralliantha was gone, but his mind found her close by, returning with a hasty impatience in her step.
Her eyes were full of urgent meaning when she came into view.
“What?” he asked, sensing a strange fear in her.
“There was an earthquake last night. A great upheaval to the east of us. A new volcano has arisen, and the land is torn. Part of one of the great groves of Mordan has been destroyed and fires threaten much more,” she told him.
“Are we in danger here?” he asked.
She shook her head, “No. It is hundreds of miles to the east. But thousands of my people are dead.”
“Do you mean people like you, or…”
“The elders,” she corrected, “the great trees. We do not count the children, but many of them are gone as well.”
That’s right, he reminded himself. Even among their own kind they only count the trees as being of true value. Their children are almost as expendable as their human slaves.
“Oh,” he said noncommittally.
“They’re dead, Tyrion,” she said in a tone that rose slightly in harmony with the inner distress she was feeling. “Do you understand?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, Lyra, but I don’t feel quite the same about your people as you do,” he admitted. “I, and my people, have suffered much at their hands.”
Her eyes darkened for a moment and then grew slightly wider. “Lyra?”
“Your name is very long. If I’m going to be saying it twenty times a day, a shorter version will suffice. It’s called a ‘nick-name’.”
“Nick-name,” she said to herself.
“It’s something that close friends or family use to address one another,” he explained.
Her face twitched momentarily into something reminiscent of a smile, but it vanished quickly. “I will remember,” she answered. “For now, I must go; the lore-wardens are calling an assembly. Your meeting with the elders will be delayed, possibly for several weeks.”
“That’s fine,” he replied. “I wasn’t particularly excited about it.”
She started to leave.
“Wait,” he said suddenly. When she looked at him inquiringly he added, “Lovers don’t just pop in and then leave like that.”
“What do they do?” she asked.
“This,” he told her, and then demonstrated by giving her a brief but meaningful kiss. “Now you can go.”
Her lips quirked into a definite smile after that. “Do we have to do that every time we meet and part again?”
“Not always, but often—yes,” he said.
“Your customs are strange, but I find them intriguing,” she said, before leaning in for another kiss.
“You learn quickly,” he replied.
She nodded. “I must go,” and with that she did leave.
Once she was gone he sat and reflected on his dreams. He remembered trying to do something similar to what had happened in the arena, only with the earth instead, but he had fallen asleep, or at least he thought he had. His dreams had been full of much that sounded like what had happened to the Mordan Grove.
“Surely the two things are unrelated,” he said quietly. That was hundreds of miles from here.
After he ate breakfast, he ascended the tree, finding the highest vantage point. In fact the tree had grown a small platform there, to accommodate others who had sought such a view. Looking to the east, he saw a dark smudge across the horizon, probably smoke from the fires raging there.
It was too far to see much else, but somehow he knew, mountains were being born.
Epilogue
“So he was an archmage?” said Matthew. “Like you?”
I nodded.
“I could have done without hearing about some of the kissing and stuff,” he added.
I grinned at him, “I tried to gloss over most of it for you.”
Moira disagreed, “Some of it wasn’t too bad. I think Lyra is in love with Daniel.”
Her reaction didn’t surprise me. My daughter appreciated the idea of romance a bit more than my son did, though that realization unsettled me. I didn’t like the thought of her growing up, though I had no way to stop it. “She was, but he wasn’t the same man who first entered that forest,” I told her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well his name change was symbolic, but it represented something deeper, and darker. Daniel was kind, if misguided, but Tyrion was guided by a different light,” I said.
“What light?” said Matthew.
“Anger, and retribution,” I answered. “Tyrion’s heart was more distant, and love was no longer his primary motivation. From that point on, he did find peace at times, but it was always temporary, a fragile stability covering the anger and resentment he held within him.”
Moira kept to the point, “But he still loved her back, right?”
“His anger made it difficult for him to see her as she was, and he still had feelings for Kate,” I began.
My daughter didn’t like that answer, she frowned at me. “I don’t understand that either. If he was still in love with Kate, how did he fall in love with Amarah?”
“People can love more than one person,” I said simply. br />
“You can love lots of friends, and your family,” clarified Moira, “but you can only love one person like ‘that’.”
I shook my head, “If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, you are wrong, though if things did work that way it would prevent a lot of problems. People can, and frequently do love more than one person in the romantic sense.”
“That’s just wrong,” she replied.
“I still don’t understand it at all,” stated Lynarralla.
Matthew stepped in then, “But if he was still in love with Kate, why did he—umm—you know, with Lyra?”
“At this point in the story you should be well aware that sex and love are not the same thing,” I told him. Just wait until one of them brings this up with Penny and she asks me what I’ve been telling them, I thought inwardly. That will be an interesting conversation.
Remembering Penny brought me to my senses. It was getting late, and we needed to dress for dinner. Not that we weren’t dressed already, but being a nobleman had its disadvantages. While I could wear what I wanted while we were in our mountain cottage, when I emerged for dinner I had to be suitably attired. That meant a change of clothing. “We need to get ready for dinner,” I told them.
“Can’t we eat here?” said Matthew with a long sigh.
“No, neither I nor your mother is planning to cook today, and besides, we need to make ourselves more visible in the castle.”
“I don’t like wearing a doublet,” he complained.
“You’ll like being hungry even less,” I countered. Parenthood comes with a number of useful tools, and control of the food supply was frequently a handy one, especially as they entered the teenage years.
“You’re a cruel man, Dad,” said Matthew.
He smirked at me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Just be glad I’m your father and not Tyrion. Starvation would be the least of your worries then.”
All three of them were confused. Matthew spoke first, “But he didn’t even know his children. Except for meeting those two girls, they were complete strangers to him… right?”