Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

“They—the Healers did something else, didn't they, Daav?”

“The gloan-roses are doing well, don't you think?” he said, pausing to call her attention to a mound of glossy green leaves and flowers the color of heart's blood.

“They're very pretty,” she said, but he was gone, angling across the short plush grass, to a wooden bench set within the embrace of the rosebushes.

Daav sat, one knee folded on the seat, his arm on the back of the bench, chin on his arm as he regarded the roses. The perfect study, Aelliana thought, of a man who very much did not want to answer the question that had just been put to him.

A step out from the bench, she paused, and asked herself, very earnestly, if she truly wished to know what the Healers had wrought. If it were enough to give Daav pause, perhaps she did not. And yet—

“I scarcely know myself.” Daav's words rose unbidden, a whisper no louder than the soft brush of the breeze over rose petals.

“Daav.” She sat on the bench, folding her hands tightly onto her lap. “What else have the Healers done?”

He closed his eyes. “Aelliana, have mercy.”

Mercy? Her stomach knotted painfully, familiarly.

“Have I escaped brain-burn only so the Healers might discover a greater flaw?” And yet, what? What might be so terrible that he wished to hide it from her, when copilot's care—

And if the copilot's best care of his pilot was to conceal an unpleasant truth?

“I am an oaf.” His voice was cold.

He straightened and turned 'round on the bench, his feet flat on the ground. Leaning forward, he put his hand over hers where it was fisted on her knee.

“Aelliana, it is nothing dire—I had only wished you to have some days to become accustomed, and to know yourself again before hearing the rest of what confronts you.”

Anguish swept through her, and self-loathing, tenderness, avarice, and pain.

“I think,” she said unsteadily, “you had better tell me.”

“Yes, I suppose I had better.” He sighed, and took his hand away, settling back into the corner of the bench. It took a ridiculous amount of willpower, not to snatch his hand back to her, but she managed to sit seemly, fingers folded tightly together.

“The other thing that the Healers did is that they 'pruned away,' as Master Kestra styles it, a layer of scar tissue—again, an approximation—from the old trauma. She felt that you might be . . . 'easier,' van'chela, though there was no healing it entirely.”

“It had happened too long ago,” Aelliana said.

“And compensations had been built. Yes, exactly so.” He took a breath, and exhaled, carefully, she thought.

“What they found, when the thing had been done, was—a hint, Aelliana—that you and I are the two halves of a natural lifemating.” He raised his hand, as if to forestall the question she could not think to ask.

“Master Kestra warned me, most plainly, that the seed which ought to have blossomed into a full joining, had been . . . stunted; oppressed by the scarring. She did not—she would not—say that we should ever become what we were intended to be.”

Ran Eld, Aelliana thought bitterly, had been a genius, indeed. Always, it had been given him, to know precisely how best to harm her. Yet, she had loved Daav, now that she was not too craven to call it by its proper name—had loved him perhaps from the first . . .

“You understand that my brother whom you met, is linked to his lady, heart and mind. He—they—speak of their bonding as . . . the greatest joy of their lives.” Daav cleared his throat. “In our circumstance, with the link stunted, or dead—”

“It may not have had room to grow, but it is not dead!” she cried, and stood up, one knee braced on the bench as she put her hands on his shoulders.

“Can you not feel it?” she demanded.

Silence was her answer; or perhaps the shiver of wonder, leavened with fear, was her answer.

She looked down into his face, angular and beloved, his lips just parted, black eyes watching her with such care. Her blood heated, and a longing so fierce that her eyes teared tore at her, even as she bent and put her lips against his.

Deeply, she kissed him, feeling his answer in every cell of her body.

* * *

Her mouth was sweet, and unexpectedly cunning. Desire stiffened him all in an instant, and he ran his hands into her hair, sweeping it free of the silver ring, returning her kiss wholly, as her fingers stroked deliciously down his throat. With him wedged into the corner of the bench, it was she who had the upper hand, and it seemed she wished to exploit her advantage, as she explored him, each touch an agony of pleasure, as if her desires and his were one. Never had a lover known him so well; nor played him with such surety. He was molten, all but beyond thought.

But not quite.

“Aelliana—” Her name was scarcely more than a moan; the question: “How do you know these things?” incinerated as her mouth found him.

Too fast, too fast. A laborious thought, but thought nonetheless. He reached for her, but she eluded his hands, focused entirely upon his pleasure, and in such manner . . . Aelliana did not know these things.

He moved, not in passion now, but in horror, his blood going from molten to ice. Loud as he was, he had overtaken her, who could access his inmost feelings through a touch! She started back with a strangled cry, lost her balance, and crumpled to the grass.

“Aelliana!” He threw himself after her—and froze as her hands came up, warding him, green eyes dazzled, panting with mingled horror and lust.

“Help me,” she gasped, and closed her eyes.

Help her, when her danger was all from him? And, yet, who better then her copilot—her lifemate?

He took a deep breath, reached through the turmoil of emotion and spun himself into a circle of quiet peacefulness. For the space of three heartbeats, he only breathed, letting calmness inform his mind. When he was certain of his control, he opened his eyes, and settled himself comfortably on the grass beside her.

She was panting yet, and shivering where she lay, her hands fisted at her side, muscles hard with anguish.

“Aelliana,” he said, softly. “Look at me.”

She whimpered, her brows drawing together, but she did not open her eyes.

“Look at me!” The command mode, flicked with precision against abused nerves.

Her eyes snapped wide, and met his.

“Copilot's duty, Aelliana,” he murmured, willing the sense of his words to reach beyond her disorientation and fear. “I will help you. Can you trust me so much? And do exactly as I say?”

“Ye-e-s . . . ”

“Good. I am going to teach you the Scout's Rainbow. You saw it, this morning, and thought it useful, eh? And so it is, useful. It is the first tool we learn, and the one we reach for most often. There is nothing to fear in the Rainbow. However, if at any step you should begin to feel anxious or afraid, only open your eyes. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Close your eyes, now, and visualize the color red. Let it fill your head to the exclusion of all else. Tell me, when you have it firm.”

Three heartbeats, no more, which was better than most hopeful Scoutlings achieved.

“Now,” she whispered.

“Good. Allow your thoughts to flutter away, unconsidered. Focus on the color red, warm, comforting red. Let it flow through your body, beginning at the top of your head, warm and relaxing—down your face, your throat, your shoulders . . . ” His voice was soft, softer, the rhythm of the words timed precisely to aid the student in achieving trance.

Watching, he saw her muscles lose some tension and felt a flutter of relief.

“Visualize the color orange. Let it fill your head, to the exclusion of all else. Tell me, when you have it firm.”