Shana Abe - The Time Weaver

The arched connecting door to the next chamber swung open, the flat china painted panels a sudden glare in a shaft of sun. "Honor's not coming."

They both turned their heads. Rez glided forward into the jelly-sun room, her eyes swift to his, then focused back on Lia. She seemed to have no trouble walking, not as he did, and the jelly was beginning to affect his vision as well; impressions of her came to him in quick, brilliant relief: December curls pinned up, a scintillating frock of robin's-egg blue. Pale cheeks, pale neck, pale chest. The puckered gauze that ended her sleeves matched the open petticoat of her skirts.

Her gaze, holding their deep rivers of emotion.

Apprehension, he thought now, so attuned to her. She was worried to see Amalia, even though her face was as smooth as a mask.

"I'm sorry to hear it," Lady Amalia was saying.

"Don't be. Rez is a far happier person than Honor was." She paused. "I'm happier, Lia."

"For now."

"Is that Draumr ? There in that valise?" "Yes."

"I thought you said you'd lost it."

Lia shrugged, watching Rez circle warily around her. "I lied."

Rez reached him, took his hand. Perhaps the dread had sunken into her as well; her skin felt like ice, chilling his bones.

"You won't separate us," she said. "If you came here to try, it's fruitless. Despite the diamond, there's nothing you can say or do. I swear to you, I won't go back."

Lady Lia smiled, a poignant smile, and with it Alexandru abruptly remembered the first moment he'd laid eyes on her, here in this very room, back when he'd been just a child and she a young stranger to his land, come to save the life of the human man she'd loved. How he'd been introduced to her but was too bashful to lift his gaze, until she'd knelt before him and took his hand, pressed a kiss to the back of it, something no one ,no one , had ever done before. How the boy Sandu had looked up, astonished, and been struck dumb by just the smiling shape of her lips and the perfect lie of shadows on her face.

"No filla ," Amalia said gently, older, but perfect and shadowed still. "That's not what I want. There was never any going back."

She had the prince show Honor the letter from her people, signed by Lia's brother and all the members of the Darkfrith Council, those gnarled, frightened old men. It shamed her that they would resort to this, shamed but did not amaze her. Lia'd always known the rulers of her tribe would place their own survival above all. A measure of bloodshed had never stopped them before.

It was her fault, some of it or maybe even all of it, and so she had to do what she could to mend these two families. Had she never come here with Zane so long ago, had she never fled the shire as a girl, had she never stumbled upon Zaharen Yce and written that very first letter to her parents, breaking the news of this unanticipated and undomesticated clan of dragons....

Perhaps it would have mattered. Perhaps not. It seemed unlikely the two groups could have continued to exist for much longer in utter ignorance of each other. The world was a shrinking place.

Honor held the proclamation between her fingertips, pinkies extended, as if the page might fold over and bite her. She had that drowsy, cat-eyed look she sometimes wore first thing in the morning, indicative of a long Weave or a restless night.

Or not precisely restless, Lia amended to herself, her gaze shifting to the prince standing beside her, his arm curved about her shoulders.

It had been many years since Amalia had been around males of her own species. She'd never flown with the dragons of her shire; her Gift had come too late for that. She recalled being enamored of the village boys as a maiden, their shining skin and brilliant eyes. The way they'd work the fields in their shirtsleeves, plowing, sowing, reaping, sweat darkening the cloth just enough to cling, to show off the unbearably sensual concurrence of muscle and bone.

The same boys at her mother's social balls, dancing with their eerie grace, everyone fair, everyone gleaming, and the scent of lust in the air a near tangible mist.

Young or old, it seemed that drakon males seethed with the instinct to seduce, not merely sexually but intellectually, emotionally; without even trying, they could hit every pitch-perfect note. Unsuspecting females tumbled like skittles in their paths.

Poor Honor, because this male would be no different. Ebony hair, which didn't happen in her tribe, but the same sinuous elegance, the same instinctive sensuality that lured the eye and kept it there, appreciating every last detail.

The same lust too, she thought. Prince Alexandru and her daughter clung to each other like wool in winter static. If they pulled apart, Lia was sure she'd see sparks.

Useless to ask if they were already lovers. She knew that they were, but even if she hadn't, she would have guessed by the intimacy of their postures, how they leaned into each other, how even shaken, he hovered over her, and even drowsy, she accepted it.

Honor, the timorous child who'd never relaxed enough to fully welcome physical touch, not even a buss on the cheek.

Oh, Lia thought, watching them, aching,let this be true. Let what they have be real and true .

Honor looked so vulnerable. She wore no paint, and her hair had been pinned into an uneven pile that tumbled down her back, and the style of the gown she wore was both too old for her and too young. A wedge of lace from her shift showed past the edge of her bodice, as if she'd had no maids to help her dress.

When she lifted her eyes to Lia's again, some of the sleep had vanished from her gaze. "What does it mean?" she asked. "Wait," said Lia. "There's more."

Then she gave them both the second letter, the one that sealed their fates.

Lia,

You don't know me. My name is Rez. I used to be Honor Carlisle.

My Natural Time now is well ahead of yours. I'm older than you, than I ever knew you to be. I live in what you would call the former Colonies.

I'm trapped. My life has dwindled to a pinprick. I survive in individual moments. I eat, I sleep. Every third day I walk to the village market to wander the stalls and the chitter-chatter colonists stare at me, five hundred forty-seven steps there. Five hundred forty-seven steps back. I count the alien insects that creep across my floor. I sleep.

I sleep.

Even awake, I'm so tired I don't have the power to lift the carving knife I keep ready on the kitchen table, right there in front of me, such a friendly shape. I can't even lift it to finish this misery. Everything is gray and mud.

I cannot remember the precise day my life ended. I've tried so hard my head aches and my entire body trembles, but my mind is in tatters. So much about those years elude me now. But in the sum spring of 1792 1791 the English are going to attack Zaharen Yce . They are going to kill everyone.

It's been decades since the assault on the castle, and as I've said, my life has dwindled. Details drift away from me. I'll tell you, though, I'll tell you what I remember most are the screams. Even as I pen this, I still hear them how they

The weight of my daughter in my arms just before she was torn from me. Her head beneath my chin. Her hands around my neck.

I had a daughter.

I Wove away that day. I did not mean to I swear to God I never meant to i would never have but it happened and i couldn't stop

They're all dead. I cannot Weave back. Every time I try, I'm thrown here again. The best I may hope is to Weave sometime near you before it happens and post this letter. I'm enclosing something else, a declaration I stole from Darkfrith, the one time I was able to Weave there before they stopped me. I found it in the desk of the Alpha. I don't know when that was, but I know I never saw it before that day.