Heart Fate (9 page)

All with the hope that his and Genista's marriage could be mended and the Family wouldn't be the first of the greatest Nobles to have a divorce. The scandal would smear everyone.

For generations. He looked at his brother who would have to work as the head of the Family under such a cloud.

Holm inclined his head infinitesimally and sent on their brothers-only line,
Be well, brother. Do whatever must be done.

Tinne shuddered. Holm had said that same phrase when he was caught in the quicksand of the Great Washington Boghole and couldn't get out. Tinne had managed to save them both. It could have been worse, Tinne could be next T'Holly. As always, he was glad that wasn't his fate.

Yes, he'd make everything harder on his Family for generations, but he didn't know that there was anything he could do to stop the divorce.

His Mamá was humming. His new lullaby. Lord and Lady.

“Don't call it ‘Tinne's Lullaby,' ” he said.

“I won't.” She smiled at him, and he noted she looked much older than she had a couple of days before.

“Call it ‘SecondSon's Lullaby,' ” Holm said.

Tinne opened his mouth for a return insult, expecting to see Holm's twinkling eyes. They were dead serious. Despite his light manner, Holm was suffering along with the rest of them, sorry for Tinne's hurt. Tinne had the horrible suspicion that if he gave in to his own feelings, everyone would weep. Awful.

Then his father said. “This whole mess is my fault. I apologize. I . . . I . . . You cannot know how deeply I regret my actions.” He blinked rapidly, though his taut face held a stony expression. Then he straightened his shoulders. “I received word from the Healers that you need time in the HouseHeart.” He waved a hand. “It is scheduled for the next two years.”

Tinne wanted to wince at the decree that depressed both of them, but nodded. “Thank you, I'd like to sleep there tonight.”

“Done,” T'Holly said.

His Mamá looked at Tinne. “Why didn't I think of that! Your rooms must be redecorated immediately. And Gen—and the other suite. We should have done that last year. Perhaps that will help.”

Keep them together? He didn't think so. But his Mamá continued, “I'll scry Mitchella D'Blackthorn for a decorating consult. We can do this today. We'll mine the storerooms and attics.” She squeezed his father's hand. “We have work to do.”

“We certainly do.” T'Holly sounded a little more cheerful at the thought of moving furniture all day. A distraction both physical and Flaired. “We can bring back the rest of the hunting cats now that Ilexa has returned, resume training. It's good to have plans.”

Lark opened her mouth.

Tinne figured he knew what she was going to say. The Healers had recommended pink.

“Nothing pink!” he called to his parents as they left. “Not one pink thing. And leave my drums alone!”

Lark sniffed.

“The glider awaits to take Tinne to T'Heather,” the Residence said.

Ilexa ran toward him, food on her whiskers.

Lark said, “I'm sorry, Ilexa, it wouldn't help Tinne to have you during the tests. He must get through them on his own.”

Holm said, “You look different, Ilexa. Perhaps it's time for a visit to T'Ash for a new collar. Tinne can afford it.”

After hugs all around, they all walked away.

“You should meet our FamCats,” Lark said.

Relief flooded Tinne, time with his Family was over. Now he only had the ordeal with the Healers. Four tests left.

Horrible.

 
 
Lahsin awoke and stretched with a singing heart. She was free.
Shadowy dream threats had haunted her sleep, but they were nothing like the reality she'd lived through, so she brushed them aside. Only to be expected when she'd changed her life so and coped with so many new experiences the day before: the surge of her Flair that would soon be freed, her confrontation with the Hawthorn guard, that was scary, the miraculous luck finding this garden, and then the dog.

The dog that was laying next to her in the warmth she'd generated with her spell. Staring at her. She groped for the pruners, and her foot touched them.

The dog rose, looking a little stiff. He limped heavily, dragging a back foot, to the door that was still open, letting in bright winter sunlight. He turned his head toward her and said,
I am not yours. I am my own.

Lahsin's breath shuddered out of her. That was something she should have said to T'Yew. And gotten “punished” for it. But she could say it now. “I am my own. I am free.”

She went out into the sunshine. The air was warmer than freezing. The snow hadn't collected the way she thought it would, and was now melting into the ground. It would be a good, mild day. She couldn't wait to explore the gardens.

 
 
The Healers had rearranged the tests again. Tinne didn't know
what order the examinations should have been in, but when he'd arrived at the pink room there was already tension in the air, as if D'Sea and T'Heather had disagreed.

The first examination—of his communication energy—like the previous ones, didn't seem to go well. D'Sea and T'Heather's muttering confirmed that he had problems in that area, too.

He hadn't wanted to teleport Genista to them, couldn't form a good image of her without blazing emotions around her. He hadn't wanted to talk to her. When they asked him what he might say to her, his voice had locked in his throat, because he wanted to rage and whimper and scream. When they'd asked him to consider the same tasks using his brother, Holm, he'd had no problems. All of which certainly indicated that his relationship with his wife was . . . not good.

He was allowed a little break in the cleansing room, said a prayer that the next tests would be less wrenching, and was glad that his clothes were indeed soaking up his sweat. Pitiful that he'd begun to cherish the small moments of privacy here.

Looking at himself in the mirror, he noted that he hadn't appeared so wretched since . . .

He squared his shoulders. Since he and Genista had lost the child a year and three months ago. The loss of the babe would always haunt him. As, it seemed, the loss of his wife would. He just couldn't seem to stop the crash of their relationship.

He'd given up trying to hide his true feelings from the tests. Any chance of manipulating them was far beyond his powers. The whole ordeal was such that only the most determined of people would continue through it and he grudgingly admired that Genista had endured the tests. It would have been so much easier for her to request separate living arrangements.

But the Hollys wouldn't have allowed that. Every single one of them would have tried to “fix” the problem. Forever. She'd known them well enough to understand that. She was an intelligent, sexy woman, and it didn't seem like she was his woman anymore.

“Tinne?” called D'Sea from the other room.

He wiped the cooling droplets he'd splashed on his face away with an incredibly soft towel, gave his reflection a half smile and salute, and opened the door to new suffering.

 
 
Lahsin spent a happy morning, exploring some of the wonderful,
secret garden. There was no doubt that it was the lost FirstGrove. There was the Healing pool, hot and filled with efficacious minerals as well as the remnants of herbal water plants, still imbued with potent Healing spells. The unexpected dip in it yesterday had helped soothe her emotional ills and perhaps even out and replenish her Flair. On one side of the pool was a stone terrace, and Lahsin got the impression that there had been outside “rooms” of canvas where the Healers had worked. She hadn't seen a permanent HealingHall, but there was a water conduit toward the northeast from the natural pool to someplace else.

On the other side of the pool, the side the garden shed was on, was a series of benches and a long arbor covered with grapevines.

She walked down stone paths nearly covered with moss, found a gazebo with two bathing pools nearby, almost as warm as the springs but not containing Healing spells. It was evident that other people and creatures had found this place from time to time.

The land dipped and mounded, and she found herself strolling north along the western wall that curved inward. The trees and plants fascinated her—old Earthan trees and plants mingled with Celtan ones—and hybrids. It gave credence to the supposition that the same ancient spacefaring people had colonized Earth and Celta millennia ago.

Then the wall stopped curving and became straight, hooking up to the gray stone north city wall half a block away. That gave her the clue that FirstGrove was actually nestled in the northeast corner of Druida City.

It was a large chunk of land, but still able to be hidden in the vastness of the city the colonists had measured and defined. The ancients had made the walls with their strange machines, expecting their descendants to fill the area of the city.

So two of the walls of FirstGrove would be city walls, the north and the east.

She hadn't found the sacred grove itself, though there were glades and natural copses. In the northwest area she discovered herb gardens gone to seed drying into stalks, set inside ragged hedges of boxwood. The scents nearly overwhelmed her, and the fragrance of cooking herbs like sage made her mouth water.

At that moment she saw the glint of glass in the distance to the east, and her spirits rose. A greenhouse or conservatory! It might be secure. It might hold food. It might even have a little no-time filled with snacks. She was beginning to daydream about food. Her breakfast had been a glass of hot herbed water from the pool.

She hurried toward the conservatory, now walking due east with the north wall of the city to her left. Since the only clear path wound between trees that seemed like a dense wood, when she stepped into an open glen, her breath caught.

Before her was a long, low building with a tower, a gilded ancient clock on one side, gleaming in the sunlight. The way the structure was situated and built meant “stillroom” to her—a place where herbs were dried and hung and stored. Where people made potions and pills, mixtures of everything from pretty scented potpourris to efficacious Healing infusions.

The door was solid, but there were no shields, perhaps because she sensed someone had been here more recently than the garden shed. In fact she got the oddest impression that a person had left with expectations that he would return.

She hurried inside, searched all three downstairs rooms, and found some working no-times—with only fresh herbs in them. She explored the whole building. The stillroom had bags of herbal poultices that she recognized as being for deep wounds, appearing to be no more than a few years old. But she recognized nothing that might help during Passage. Not even a recipe book.

She ran up the tower stairs and found a door in the ceiling that opened with a creak, then walked around marveling at the machinery of the clock itself. There wasn't much dust, and again, the great gears appeared as if they'd been cared for not too long ago.

Looking out the large northeast window, she saw the northern city wall marching along even ground, though beyond the wall in the north, the land fell steeply. On this side of the wall was the garden, made interesting by several levels of landscaping. And angled just far enough away from the northeastern corner where the city walls met and it couldn't be seen from outside was a two-story, redbrick house with white pillars framing the entrance. The place was large enough and certainly old enough to be a Residence. From her vantage point it appeared to be in good repair. Attached to it was a large, domed conservatory.

Movement caught her eye, and she saw the dog pounce—and miss—a wild housefluff, the hybrid of Earthan rabbit and Celtan mocyn.

Lahsin bit her lip. Birds and other animals lived in the garden. She had no doubt that the dog would eat them if he caught one. But she couldn't imagine hunting and killing them and cleaning them and eating them herself. As for trapping them,
no
! She imagined the eyes of a trapped animal. She couldn't do it.

Her diet would become vegetarian, but she still hadn't seen any vegetables, and from the looks of the grapevines, the thriving skirl population would have eaten them all.

How was she going to manage? Nothing for it, she'd have to go out into the city.

Since the very thought scared her, and she intended to teach herself to be strong, she figured that it would be a test. Noon was coming up, and the warmest part of the day. From what she'd experienced, the city outside the garden would be colder than inside.

Best go now. When it was warmest. When more people would be on the streets.

Before she lost her nerve.

 
 
T'Heather handed Tinne a warm red bag of silkeen with herbs
in it. The fragrance of summer roses came to his nose.

“Knead that.”

Tinne did, and emotions exploded from him. Pain—that Genista hurt him so. That they'd loved and love had died and she realized it and wanted nothing more of him. Anger that she was putting him through this, had put herself through this. That she wouldn't stay with him. That the scandal would be atrocious. That his reputation would be besmirched for all of his life.

More anger, more bitterness, root bitterness, that his father had done this to them with his broken Vows of Honor. That his Mamá had supported his father, as she always had, to the detriment of her own health and her son's and her daughter-in-law's.

Grief. Grief so deep he had to fight to survive every moment. His babe had died in the womb.

Grief that his brother had been disinherited, torn from him, from the Residence, from the Family.