Heart Fate (48 page)

Holm buffeted him on his shoulder as he went by.

“Welcome home, Tinne,” said the Residence.

“Thank you, Residence. May I say that I missed you and will never take you for granted again? The Turquoise House is a good place, but exhausting, and BalmHeal...”

“Thank you, Tinne. The rest of us Residences are working with BalmHeal. Despite what you humans do, BalmHeal will not be forsaken and alone again.” A note of exasperation came to T'Holly Residence's voice. “It was only its pride that kept it from reaching out for help until it was too late.”

“A lesson for us all,” Tinne said.

There was a second's silence. “Yes, a lesson for us all.”

Then the Residence said, “But I would inform you that the tower rooms are now free of all storage items. The rooms are currently furnished with old pieces arranged in the way that you prefer. Between myself and the Turquoise House, we have moved the personal items you left there to that space, including your drums.”

Tinne smiled and picked up the pace, until he was bounding up the stairs. “I'm glad I'm home, too. This calls for a celebration drumming.” Better to say that than think of a despair drumming, or just plain drumming to let the pain out.

“I am sure that GreatLady D'Holly will realize that you were right to claim the rooms.”

Jokes that Family understood. He was home. As a man.

 
 
Lahsin slept until late afternoon, rising just before sunset. She and
Strother and TQ had a good talk and dinner. She strolled with a cup of caff to the back window of the mainspace, which looked out on a flat grass yard of no distinction. She could . . . she found her shoulders had tensed and rolled them. No. She didn't want to rehabilitate another landscape that she'd leave. She'd been up front about that to TQ, and it had been cheerful about the comings and goings of occupants, unlike BalmHeal Residence. Guiltily she realized she liked TQ better already.

Guilt. It was like a huge, hard stone in her chest. There was no use pretending she hadn't killed a person. Again and again the moment when her hand hit T'Yew and he died replayed in her mind. SupremeJudge Ailim Elder was right. Living with that moment for the rest of her life would be punishment.

She felt even more guilt that she was glad the man was dead. She couldn't grieve for him, he'd been bad to her. Evil. Yet something inside her still told her it was wrong not to grieve for him. She shrugged again, shifting her shoulders, getting used to the lifelong burden of killing a man.

The Turquoise House coughed. It was a real cough, not some sort of soughing of wind through cracks in the house. “Yes?”

“There are many messages in your scry cache,” it said.

Lahsin frowned. “Really?”

“Yes. Several from D'Sea. As part of your rehabilitation, the SupremeJudge has ordered counseling and mental Healing for six years or until you are through your Third Passage, whichever comes first.” TQ sounded regretful.

Lahsin staggered to the couch. That was going to be expensive. She supposed she needed it, though. If she'd had counseling in the past, she might not be here, living with guilt. Might not have hurt T'Yew in the first place. She should have just run.

But she hadn't, and there was no going back. No matter how much she might regret her actions, there was no mending them.

“D'Sea would like the initial consultation tomorrow morning at WorkBell.”

“Confirm,” Lahsin forced herself to say.

“Confirmed with D'Sea Residence,” TQ said.

“I'll need a map or teleportation visualizations.”

“I'll take care of that,” TQ said, then added, “your parents—”

“No!” Her voice was too sharp, she didn't care. “I don't want any messages from them.” Surely, they'd had a hand in fashioning the events, as had T'Yew himself. The silence felt loud, and Lahsin thought she'd hurt TQ's feelings. “Thank you for telling me, but please erase all messages from the Burdocks unless it's my brother Clute.” How was he feeling? Was he blaming himself for a bit of this tragedy, too? Or was Lahsin shifting guilt onto others? Thinking so much about the killing, because she was searching herself for more feeling than she had?

“Please inform T'Burdock Residence that I am considering disinheriting myself from the Family.” Another tide of relief, that's what she wanted to do, whether or not it was “good.”

“I'll do that,” the Turquoise House said. “The next message is from HollyHeir, Holm.”

Instant defensiveness. “Yes?”

“He has a banner Tinne Holly and I had requested for this space. Calligraphy.” Holm probably wanted to talk about Tinne.

“He can deliver it tomorrow when I'm at D'Sea's.”

“Very well.”

Strother came in from the kitchen where he'd been testing the no-time food units. He crossed to Lahsin and put his head on her knee, looked at her with concerned eyes.
You are sad.

“I don't know what I am.”

“Yes.”

“He wouldn't have killed me.” Not her body, but her spirit? Hadn't he wounded that already?

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” She couldn't see any law, any FirstFamilies Council, any GreatLord or GreatLady preventing T'Yew from doing as he pleased with her.

“Yes.”

“Easier said than done, but you comfort me. Will you come with me to D'Sea's tomorrow morning?”

“Thank you. Turquoise House?”

“Yes, Lahsin?”

“I'd like to see a holo show. Do you have any recent ones?”

“I have
The Silver Hand
, starring the actor who gave me my voice, Raz Cherry,” TQ said proudly. “It's very long.”

Lahsin recalled that Raz Cherry was extremely handsome and not at all like Tinne Holly. “Let's see it,” she said.

 
 
Tinne spent hours drumming in his new sitting room. His memory
of the day unrolled, and he pounded out his emotions as he'd felt them. Fury at T'Yew's attack; pride then shock when Lahsin defended herself and killed T'Yew. A slow thumping rising in volume and increasing in beat at the questioning.

His realization that he loved Lahsin was expressed with hard, joyful beats—the rhythm of a fast heart.

Her stricken look as she doubted him, understood that there were more circumstances surrounding his time with her than he'd told her.

Hurt. That look she'd given him as if he'd lied. Nothing with her was a lie, but he couldn't tell her that. She wouldn't listen or believe him.

Their link had narrowed again, through it he sensed her lost loneliness, her confusion, her own hurt at the way events had turned out, and he wasn't there to help her. Grief.

She wasn't here to help him. He repeated Lark's words over and over; they, too, became a drumming pattern. Lahsin would come to him. It was only a matter of time, but when?

Meanwhile he felt like he had a fatal wound but was still walking around, leaving a trail of dripping blood behind him.

Thirty-six

Over the next two weeks counseling helped Lahsin. Strother did,
too, as did Clute, who'd extended his time in Druida. Her brother didn't press her to meet with her parents. She thought he was mostly estranged from them himself.

D'Sea had not used distance Flair to set the killing far in the past, that was something Lahsin would have to work through herself, according to the SupremeJudge. But Lahsin's memories of her marriage
had
been distanced, and much of the emotional resonance removed. It seemed to have happened to another person. She wasn't the same person she'd been before her Second Passage.

Lahsin had not spoken of Tinne or of her time in FirstGrove. Those memories came back beautiful or painful or bitter-sweet.

 
 
Tinne drummed every night, and his Family commented on how
pleased they were that he'd moved to the tower. They left him alone and were supportive, and his father and brother challenged him to sparring matches more often. He was glad about that.

He'd consulted with Mitchella D'Blackthorn about decorating his new suite, and it became comfortable. Nothing reminded him of Genista. That hurt was an ache in the bottom of his heart.

Oddly enough, Mitchella had advised restructuring rooms just outside his tower on two floors to connect with it, making it into a suite for his HeartMate. She had plans for tinting the walls, murals and holos, furnishings, but Tinne told her to keep the decorating to a minimum, Lahsin would like to do it herself. He did approve restructuring a back room into a sunroom, opening onto an area that could be made into a garden.

He learned to live in the moment, one septhour at a time, focusing entirely on being the best he could for each septhour. He was at the top of his form and his energy and his Flair.

He still felt like he was leaking blood from a slow, mortal wound. But he had no more dreams of falling, and that was good.

One night when he'd settled down to sleep, sobbing filled his head. He sat up.
Lahsin?
Could she be as unhappy as he?

No answer. He opened the link between them and found her sleeping soundly . . . too soundly to be natural, and he saw the faint aura of a Healer's spell around her.

Ilexa was never sad enough to weep, besides, she was prowling the storerooms, choosing finishing touches for her room.

Sighing and rising to his feet, Tinne stretched, then marched over to the simple brass scrybowl. He ran a finger around the rim, “Turquoise House.”

The water glowed blue green. “Here, Tinne. How can I help?”

It didn't sound as if TQ was crying. “How's my HeartMate?”

“Well. She chose a more feminine room than yours.”

That hurt a little. He rolled his shoulders. “Thank you. Please take care of her, TQ.”

“I will do my best.” TQ throbbed with pride.

“Thank you. Later.”

“Later.”

He could still hear the crying.
Strother?
he projected, not quite sure of the strength of his bond with the dog.

Tinne rubbed his face, listened to the quiet weeping, checked every tendril to all his Family. Everyone was asleep.

Except him.

Finally, he found a big, cushy chair and sank into it, opening himself entirely.
Who cries? Who needs help?

A choked gasp-sob, a tiny uncertain voice.
It is I.

Tinne didn't recognize the person.
Who?

BalmHeal Residence.
It was a woman's voice, not the sour old man's Tinne was used to.
I have been abandoned again, and I will be forgotten again. This time I think I might die.

You are not here.
Now the grumpy oldster was back.
I even had a plan, and you did not listen.

BalmHeal Residence snorted.

Tinne stared at his very own bedsponge in his very own rooms and sighed.
I'll be right there.

As soon as he'd landed, the Residence said, “I am alone again.” The creaking of wood around him was a whispered despair.

“I'm here.”

“But you will not stay. Not even for the night.”

“No.” He hadn't been back since the morning after Lahsin's last Passage. His body yearned for the heat and herbs of the Healing pool, his mind wanted the comfort of it, but his heart knew there'd be another wrenching blow if he went there. He'd see Lahsin in every shadow.

“You,
both
of you, said you would help me.” The wind wept through the windows.

“Do you have any suggestions?”

There was a few seconds of silence. “You will help?”

“If I can.” He'd learned that helping someone else eased his own pain, distracted his mind from repeatedly probing hurt.

“I told
the girl
”—obviously the Residence was having as much a problem as Tinne in dealing with Lahsin's rejection—“that I could call those who have taken sanctuary within the walls of FirstGrove to come back.”

That pricked his curiosity. “Come back?”

“Come back to visit me, or meet to discuss how I can be appeased.”

That
didn't sound good.

“I can close the doors to FirstGrove, make the walls solid.” More a whiney scold than a deadly threat.

Tinne kept his reaction cool. “That would be a great pity. FirstGrove is needed.
You
are needed.”

“Then we should find a solution to my loneliness.”

“I promised, so I will.”

“Easier with many minds working on the problem.”

“Many?”

“I sense twenty individuals beyond my walls in Druida City who were once within. Including the one-without-Flair.”

“You can ‘call' them?”

“I know their patterns. Four of them spent time within my walls. Three are old. I can send my wishes by Flair, or words on the wind. Most are powerfully Flaired.”