Pursued (12 page)

“She blackmailed you,” Nadiah said indignantly.

Lissa nodded. “Yes. She said that even though he was her son and she loved him, she would expose him to the entire clan if he didn’t renounce me. Saber…he was braver than I. He refused to say the formal words or take the oath never to see me again. But I feared for him—for his future. He is to be the next ruler of our people, just as
Challa
Rast is the Councilor of the First Kindred. All that would be lost if anyone knew of our shame.”

“So you lied to him to keep him away. To keep from hurting him or spoiling his future,” Nadiah said softly.

Lissa nodded again. “Yes, I could see no other way.” She sighed. “It has been three long cycles since our separation and Saber is doubtless joined to another girl from a different clan. I am certain he never even thinks of me anymore. But I…I cannot stop thinking of him. Cannot stop loving him, wanting him. And wondering what might have happened if I had agreed to run away with him when he first asked me.”

“Would you have joined with him?” Nadiah asked gently. “Would you have agreed to be his mate and the mother of his children?”

Lissa shook her head. “I can't say. I don’t know if we could have overcome the injection of kinship compound we both received as infants. And even if we could, I don't know if the shame I felt—that I still feel—would ever have allowed me to take the Deep Touch from him.” She blushed again. “But Saber said he loved me so much he was willing to forgo a physical relationship. He said that if all we ever did was Touch with our minds, it would be enough for him.”

“That’s amazing,” Nadiah said honestly. “He must really have loved you. Most males want a physical relationship above all else—at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“I know,” Lissa whispered. “Though I am daily grateful I never had one with Saber. The shame of such a memory would have been too great to bear and I would have been forced to end my life.”

“Surely not,” Nadiah objected. “Don’t even talk that way.”

Lissa looked at her earnestly. “But it’s how I feel—how I was taught to believe. I can’t help the way I was raised, my Lady.”

“Call me Nadiah. And I’m sorry that your upbringing has given you such overwhelming guilt.” She squeezed Lissa’s hand again. “But I still don’t think it makes you unfit to be the high priestess.”

“But it
does
,” Lissa protested. “Because I
still
have those feelings for Saber. Even though I know I’ll never see him again, I still think of the way he Touched me. I still…still
want
him.”

“Well, no matter what, you’re still not related to him by blood,” Nadiah said firmly. “I understand your people’s taboo, Lissa, but I want you to know I don’t think any less of you for what you’ve gone through or how you feel.”

“Truly? You don’t?” Lissa began to cry again but this time, Nadiah thought, with relief. “Oh, thank you, my Lady. Thank you…Nadiah.”

“You’re welcome, Lissa.” Nadiah lifted the other girl’s chin and looked into her lovely jade eyes. “The Goddess doesn’t call us to be perfect, you know,” she said softly. “Only to strive to live in her light and show her kindness and love to the universe. You do that very well, I think.” She smiled. “Certainly better than the old high priestess, what’s-her-name…”

“Minverna,” Lissa said. “Her name is Minverna.”

“Oh, right.” Nadiah nodded. “You know, I haven’t seen her around lately. Is she still sulking in her new quarters?”

“You mean the novice quarters?” Lissa allowed herself the ghost of a smile and Nadiah was sure she hadn’t been fond of the overbearing ex-high priestess either. “Yes, she’s been keeping the door shut and only coming out late at night when no one’s around.”

“That has to stop,” Nadiah said frowning. “She’s had long enough to lick her wounds and I don’t like the idea of her sneaking around the temple at night when no one else is up and around to keep an eye on her.” The old high priestess had been power hungry in the extreme and Nadiah wouldn’t put it past her to try some kind of sabotage in order to get revenge on herself and Rast for her new, lowly position.

“I will look in on her this very night,” Lissa promised dutifully. “Forgive me for not doing so before. It is…difficult to assert my authority over one who has always been so much more powerful than me.”

“Of course it is,” Nadiah said comfortingly. “If you want, I’ll have Rast go with you. Old Minverna won’t dare to mess with him—not after what happened last time she tried.”

Lissa smiled again, a little broader this time. “Thank you, my L…Nadiah, but I think I can handle it. Without her Goddess-given power she is just an old woman. An angry and unhappy one, but just an old woman all the same.”

“All right then.” Nadiah smiled at her. “I’m so glad we had this talk. I’ve felt from the first moment I saw you that we would be friends if we could just get to know each other.”

“Friends?” Lissa’s jade green eyes went round with surprise. “The
Lysell
would think of me as a friend?”

“Of course I would.” Nadiah laughed. “Don’t look so surprised. You’re sweet and earnest and loyal and kind—of
course
I want you for a friend.” She grew suddenly shy. “But…I’m not sure. If you don’t feel the same way…”

“Of course I do!” Lissa grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly. “I’ve felt so alone since I came here,” she said in a quiet, intense voice. “So cut off from everyone else, even the other priestesses, because I couldn’t tell anyone my secret. But with you…now you know. And…and you
truly
don’t hate me for it?”

“Of course not.” Nadiah laughed. “Not a bit. And Lissa,” she said, growing more serious. “I think you should forgive yourself for your feelings. They may seem unnatural to you, but I promise you that most of the people in the universe would think differently.” She sighed. “Of course, I know we all have our own hang-ups—”

“Hang-ups?” Lissa frowned.

“Oh, it’s an Earth word I got from my good friend Sophie,” Nadiah explained. “It means we all have certain things that bother us, that we get caught or hung up on and can’t get past. But—”

“My Lady? My Lady!” One of the few male temple guards suddenly rushed into the library, his face red from exertion. “Oh, my Lady,” he gasped, nodding at Nadiah. “My Lord the
Challa
thought I might find you here.”

Nadiah was instantly on the alert. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“A…a ship has been found,” the guard explained, still gasping a little for breath. “It crash landed in the desert outside the holy mountain.”

“What kind of ship?” Nadiah went suddenly cold. “Does it belong to one of the Hoard?” The Hoard were an ancient Kindred enemy which had recently resurfaced and now threatened everything her people held dear.

“No, my Lady.” The guard shook his head. “The ship is not of that cursed origin. It is the occupant which must concern you. He was badly injured in the crash. But he keeps calling…”

“Calling what?” Nadiah asked impatiently, when he didn’t finish his sentence. “Calling for who?”

“Calling for you, my Lady.” The temple guard looked grave. “He has been calling with his dying breath for
you.”

Nadiah rushed down to the lower levels of the holy mountain with the winded guard leading the way as fast as he could. The infirmary was located not far from the temple kitchens where the special memory bread was baked and she got there less than ten minutes after the guard had come for her.

The first thing she saw upon opening the heavy stone door was her new husband, Rast, leaning over a cot containing a limp figure. She tried to see who it was but Rast’s broad shoulders blocked her way even though his wings were currently furled tight and folded against his body.

“Rast?” She said, coming into the room quickly. “Rast, who—?”

“Nadiah.” He got up, still blocking her view—deliberately Nadiah thought—and came toward her with his hands out.

“Rast, what’s going on? Who is that?” she demanded, trying to look around him.

“Someone you know—that both of us know, unfortunately.” Rast took her by the shoulders and held her eyes with his. “Brace yourself—it’s not a pretty sight.”

“But who
is
it?” Nadiah’s heart was pounding with fear. Not waiting for her husband’s reply, she twisted out of his grip and ran to the cot…only to stop short. “Y’dex?” she whispered, looking at her ex-fiancé in horror. “Is…is that you?”

It was a fair question. The old Y’dex had been straight and slender and proud, had moved with an insolent grace that spoke volumes about his arrogance before he even opened his mouth. But this thing lying in the cot…it was most horribly burned and blackened. Its skin was charred and cracked, pealing away in strips to reveal raw red meat underneath. Its legs were crooked, obviously broken in several places and no hair remained on its bald, smoldering head except for a single white-blond tuft over one melted ear.

“Y’dex?” Nadiah whispered again, this time in horror. “Oh no…
no!”

At the sound of its name one cloudy light blue eye rolled toward her. It seemed to be damaged in some way but not nearly as much as the other which lay in a ruined mess on the thing’s cheek. It opened cracked and blackened lips. “Nadiah…” Her name was an almost unrecognizable croak but somehow Nadiah understood it. And she was sure now that this thing truly was Y’dex.

“What happened to you?” she demanded. “We thought you’d fallen to your death from the High Mesa except we couldn’t find your body.”

“Wish I had,” the thing croaked. “Would have been better…easier.”

“But Y’dex—”

“Caught by spies…Hoard spies. They wanted my ship…wanted to know how it worked.”

Suddenly Nadiah remembered him bragging that the Kindred weren’t the only ones with interstellar travel ability anymore. She hadn’t had time to wonder what he meant—at the time she’d been too horrified to see him popping up unexpectedly on First World to claim her. But now…

“How
does
it work?” she asked. “What did they want with it?”

“You’ll see…soon enough.” The blackened thing on the cot gave a hoarse, cawing laugh. “Your fault, you know. If I hadn’t chased you, this…” It gestured at its broken body with one gruesomely twisted claw, “Never would have happened. Your fault.
Yours.”

“Y’dex, I’m sorry.” Nadiah shook her head helplessly.

“He’s coming for you.” The thing laughed again and this time the hoarse, awful sound had the sharp edge of madness in it. “He’ll kill you…kill you
all.”

“That’s enough!” Rast snapped from behind her and Nadiah turned to see he was scowling. “Give him more pain medication,” he told the priestess healer on duty. “He’s crazy with pain.”

“Not crazy…” The thing which had used to be her fiancée laughed some more, sending cold chills down Nadiah’s spine. “Not crazy at all. Kill you! Kill you a—” Its laughter suddenly ended and the charred, bald head slumped on its ruined chest.

“My
Challa,”
said the healer respectfully after checking carefully for a pulse. “Forgive me, but I fear that the patient is dead.”

“Dead?” Nadiah heard the waver in her own voice. Though she’d gotten used to the idea of her ex-fiancé being dead earlier, now the concept was truly brought home to her. Y’dex wasn’t lying peacefully somewhere on the desert floor, his body buried in the shifting rainbow sands—he was actually dead, right here in front of her. And horribly burned and mangled into the bargain. She turned on Rast. “Why didn’t you save him? You could have done it—you brought me back with your wings when I was almost dead.”

Rast lifted both hands. “He didn’t want me to. I offered—believe me, sweetheart, I did. As much of a bastard as he was to both of us, nobody deserves to go out like this.” He gestured at the twisted corpse. “But he said no, that he wanted to die. He just wanted to see you first.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I never should have sent for you.”

“No.” Nadiah put a hand to her eyes and took a deep breath. “No, I…I’m glad you did. I never…never would have known it was truly him if I hadn’t talked to him. It’s horrible, but…but I needed to see it to believe.”

“I understand.” Rast folded her in his embrace and his vast, iridescent wings came out and wrapped around her as well, like a second pair of arms. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing her hair. “So damn sorry.”

“So am I,” Nadiah whispered. “I just…just wish we knew what he was talking about.”

“Well, it has to do with the Hoard. With Draven—their leader—I’m guessing.” Rast gestured at the corpse. “His eyes didn’t get that way in the crash. Somebody did it deliberately.”

“Don’t!” Nadiah shuddered against him and he hugged her tight.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “But I think we’d better take a look at the wreckage of his ship. If that was what Draven was interested in, we’d better be too.”

“I guess.” Nadiah closed her eyes and tried to get the image of the charred and blackened face out of her mind, tried not to hear that hoarse, croaking voice. “I wish he’d died the way we thought he did,” she whispered. “A fall from the High Mesa would have been so much better than this.”

“Almost anything would have,” Rast said grimly. “I didn’t like him much but nobody deserves this.” He sighed and began leading Nadiah away. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get out of here and try to forget about this whole messy scene.”

“Of course,” Nadiah agreed faintly. But privately she thought it would be a long, long time before she could close her eyes and not see Y’dex’s single cloudy blue eye rolling up to look at her, before she could stop hearing him say,
“Your fault…he’ll kill you all.”

“So you’re not taking your own ship?”

Merrick looked up from his contemplation of the innards of the small but surprisingly spacious Kindred interstellar cruiser he was borrowing and saw Sylvan standing there.

“Nope.” He shut the lid to the engine compartment with a clang and wiped his greasy hands on a clean-all cloth. The bacteria that lived in the simple white fabric went to work at once, ingesting the grease and oil from his fingers and leaving them as clean as though he’d just scrubbed for surgery. “That ride down to Earth and back was too fucking rough. I don’t want to take her out as far as Rageron unless she’s in tip-top shape,” he said, avoiding his friend’s eyes.