The Forests of Dru Read online

  Oria leaned back in his arms, arching to place her gloved hands on his cheeks, so she could search his face. “What’s that for?”

  “I missed you,” he said simply, expecting a teasing reply, but she sobered, her laughing smile softening to a tender one.

  “I missed you, too.” The smile quirked to one side. “It occurs to me that we’ve not been much out of each other’s company in the last days.”

  True. And the small separation had left him a little hollow. Not how he’d ever expected to feel about a woman. Well, about anyone. Needing to reconnect with her, he searched for what to say. What did one ask of a sorceress who went seeking meditation? It felt like she’d been hunting and he should inquire if she’d gotten the trophy bull she sought, though that metaphor was all wrong. Also, he didn’t know much about magic, but it seemed like something that eluded her the more she forced it. The last thing she needed was more pressure.

  “Did you find what you sought?” He finally asked.

  She looked thoughtful, pushing at his shoulders, so he set her down. “Can we go inside? I am cold now.”

  “Of course.” Surprising her, he picked her up again, but this time in the cradle of his arms, in the traditional style. Striding to the cabin, he kicked the door open, carried her over the threshold and set her on her feet inside.

  “Now what was that for?” But she laughed as she said it, then he was saved answering as she took in the room with wide eyes. It had warmed up nicely, Chuffta vigilantly tending a fire that burned to the limit of the stone frame, thrilled to be given free rein. The freshened bed linens were turned back invitingly, furs piled at the end. The candles around the room in their shuttered lanterns scattered light with a warm glow and the table set for two boasted a small vase of bledsiae he’d found. She went to that, touching the hardy white blossoms. “Flowers?”

  “They grow under the snow, at the base of the trees.” He put his hands on her shoulders, looking at the flowers, too. “They reminded me of you.”

  She glanced up with narrowed eyes. “Small and frozen?”

  “Hardy.” He squeezed her shoulders, the bones light as a kitten’s under the shadowcat fur, but with a similar tensile feline strength. “Able to survive and bloom in harsh conditions. Apparently fragile, fragrant, and lovely, but unstoppable.”

  “I feel like I’ve been stopped a few times.”

  “Not yet. You’re still here, still going strong—and climbing higher.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “I’m always nice to you.”

  “No. Sometimes you’re grumpy and taciturn.” But she smiled as she said it, her tone teasing again. “Like in explaining to me why this place.”

  “Then I’ll explain. There’s something I want you to see.” He took her gloved hand and tugged her toward the chapel. She dragged her feet, resisting.

  “Am I going to hate this?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because this thing you want me to see is why you’re being all sweet and seductive, I’m thinking.”

  Her instincts were good ones. Even without sensing his actual thoughts, she’d sussed him out pretty accurately. Or maybe there was more to it. “Are you able to read my mind again?”

  “Some,” she admitted. Then shrugged, an exasperated movement, pushing her hood back as she did. “To answer your question, I did get something from meditating in the woods. Nothing like what I did before in Bára. Back then I meditated to calm myself, to try to control what I now understand was a constant inpouring of sgath that I had no idea how to manage or channel. This… this is much quieter in a way, like breathing in mist rather than standing under a waterfall.”

  He ran a hand over her hair. “It sounds easier on you.”

  “But a much slower way to build power,” she pointed out. “And it’s power we need and fast, not as slow as this.”

  “I’m sorry for that. We could—”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Your one for the day—and don’t be. We’ve agreed this is the right course of action. The same course we’ve been on since you accepted my proposal of marriage. I just need to hold up my end of the deal.”

  “Next time, I’ll propose to you.”

  She smiled, then squared her shoulders. His tiny warrior. “Show me this thing already and then you can feed me.”

  “We can eat first,” he offered.

  She arched her brows. “And delay the fun? Never.”

  “It won’t be that bad,” he muttered, pulling her along while she was feeling amused at him still.

  She balked again at the threshold, peering into the darker hallway. “Will I need Chuffta?”

  “I don’t think so, but we can leave the door open so you can call him if you do.” The derkesthai perched on a log he’d dragged to just in front of and beside the fire, digging his talons into it, perched like a bird of prey. At the moment, he’d swiveled his head backwards on his neck to gaze at Oria while they silently communed.

  “All right,” she breathed, and gripped his hand more tightly, interlacing her gloved fingers with his. The sensation felt very like actually touching her, with the plush velvet against his skin whetting his anticipation for the rest of the evening.

  But first this. Please, Arill, let this help her.

  The corridor between the cabin and the chapel wasn’t long—more a vestibule to allow one or the other to be closed off, depending on whether any guardians lived on site, or if visitors wished to use the chapel in private. The air drafted a bit chilly from the larger building. With its higher ceiling and echoing space, it took longer to heat up. For this reason, the builders had put small fireplaces at intervals along the walls. Lonen had set alight only the one next to the altar. They wouldn’t be in here long—he hoped—so he hadn’t built it up as much as in the cabin. When Oria shivered and drew the cloak tighter around herself with her free hand, he regretted that choice, then realized her reaction wasn’t to the temperature.

  Her gaze, the copper flat with shock, was fixed on the retablo over the altar. She saw it, too, what had prompted him to bring his own sorceress to this place.

  His memory hadn’t failed or misled him—as Oria’s astonished reaction confirmed. The woman in the center panel of the retablo looked like her. Looked Báran, rather. And similar to Gallia, a woman from one of Bára’s sister-cities, with the high cheekbones, slender build, and fair hair of Oria and Gallia’s people. More, she possessed a certain look to her eyes, as if the artist had observed and attempted to capture that glimmer of enchantment he’d so often glimpsed in his own sorceress’s gaze.

  Oria pulled away, moving closer to the painted wooden panel, and trailed her fingers over the edges, careful not to touch the old gesso. The illustration showed a sorceress of Oria’s people, almost certainly. Though the edges of the retablo had crumbled somewhat with age, the gessoed layers of paint flaking away, it seemed clear what she carried in her hand, half hidden in her skirts: the gold mask of her office as priestess, dangling by the ribbons.

  “Her hair isn’t copper, like yours.” His voice came out as a reverent hush, whispering back from the silent stones. “But when I saw you in that window in Bara, you reminded me of her and this place, without my realizing it. I only connected it consciously in Arill’s Temple, thinking how the image of the goddess in our family chapel reminded me of you—but this illustration even more so. At first I thought it was only because of the framing, the way the side panels echo the pillars flanking that window you stood in. But then I thought, no, it’s more. Ever since that memory hit, I’ve been trying to reconstruct what she carried, wondering if it could be a mask. It seemed like maybe it could be, though guess I never paid it that much attention. Usually Arill carries a stalk of grain in one hand and a scythe in the other. But this looks like a mask, like yours, the one you had, so that’s significant, yes?”

  “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “This is Arill?”

  “Not really. This chapel is dedicated
to Arill’s worship, but this woman was considered to be one of Arill’s priestesses elevated to semi-divine status. An avatar of the goddess.” He pointed at the words scrolling in painted text on the side panels. “That’s what this bit says.”

  “It tells her story?” Oria asked in a strangled tone. Maybe he should have waited. Enjoyed their evening together and then shown her in the morning. But that wouldn’t have been fair, knowing this was here and keeping it from her.

  “It’s a short piece in a longer history. It’s written in an antiquated script, mostly about the deeds she performed that pleased Arill, so that when she passed on she went to serve in the Hall of Warriors.”

  “Will you read it to me?”

  He cleared his throat. “I am not skilled at reading aloud—”

  “I’m looking for information, not entertainment. Just translate the essence of it.” Her voice came out taut, her profile sharp with some humming tension.

  He focused on the words, letting her interpret the meaning of them. “When Odymesen returned from the Seven-Year Wars, he and his warriors brought with them many prizes, including fair-haired slave women from desert cities built of gold. As ephemeral as they were beautiful, many of the foreigners did not live long, but languished and eventually perished. The strongest among them, however, Odymesen’s favorite, survived many years, bearing him fair-haired sons and bringing him and the Destrye joy and riches beyond their imagining. Beloved of Arill, she loved this place best, so she was laid to rest here, with highest funeral honors.”

  Oria was silent, contemplating. Then, “What was her name?”

  He shook his head slowly, stalling on the inevitable argument. They’d gone round on this subject with his warhorse, somehow ending up with the ignominious moniker of “Buttercup,” which was entirely his fault. This would have to go much worse discussing a woman of Oria’s people. “It doesn’t say.”

  “Why not? Her name must be recorded somewhere if this whole story is.”

  “Not if she didn’t exactly have one.”

  Oria slid him a look. “Of course she had a name. You mean that this doesn’t say what it was.”

  “Back in those days, women didn’t have names, as such,” he hedged. “So there wouldn’t have been one to record.”

  Her copper eyes sparked, reminding him of the glass forges of Bára. “Like animals.”

  He winced. “An unfortunately accurate parallel.”

  “Incredible. I can’t believe you just admit to it.”

  “As opposed to what, Oria?” he threw up his hands in exasperation. Nothing like wading directly into an argument you’d hoped to avoid. “I’m not going to lie about it. That’s our past. Yes, an abomination, but pretending things weren’t that way won’t magically make it so that it never happened. The Destrye have a saying that a man who flinches from the shames of the past will never recognize the dark paths that lead back to them.”

  She punched her fists to her hips. “Fine. But a Báran woman or one from our sister-cities would have had a name.”

  He shrugged his impotence away. “It wouldn’t have occurred to the Destrye then to ask for it or to record it. She was Odymesen’s.”

  Oria ground her teeth at that. “If this place is dedicated to her, what is it called?”

  He held her gaze, not letting himself look away or step back. “Odymesen’y Chapel. Putting the ‘y’ at the end of his name denotes his woman. That’s why most traditional Destrye female names end with a ‘y’ sound.”

  The look she gave him could have frozen fire. “Are they going to write me in the histories as Lonen’y?”

  “If so, it would be as an honorific,” he suggested, hoping she didn’t read in him the primitive thrill of pleasure the sound of that gave him.

  “Well it sounds stupid,” she hissed. No surprise they wouldn’t have like minds on that one. “Never mind all that. What does ‘highest funeral honors’ mean?”

  “It means that she was buried as befits a warrior—and that we believe she entered the Hall of Warriors, where only those Destrye who die in battle are admitted.”

  Oria blinked, long and slow, that considering veiling of her eyes that never boded well, magical tension coiling palpably around him. His system sprang to alert and, though he’d never draw his battle-axe on her, he stretched his fingers to disperse the instinct to reach for it. “What happens to women otherwise, in this brilliant afterlife,” she asked in a lethal tone, “or to children who take ill, or those men not fortunate enough to die battle-axe in hand?”

  “I don’t know why you’re mad at me,” he replied as calmly and evenly as he could. “I’m only telling you what I was taught. I’m not the enemy here.”

  That keen sense of attack receded. His response had been instinctive—from the memory of that shimmering sense of lethal danger swirling around her, one he’d learned well in Bára. She was gaining her magic back, slowly or not. An exultant surge of triumph filled him, replacing his previous wariness. Bringing Oria to the chapel had been the right thing to do.

  She turned in a circle, reminding him of how she’d done that when they dismounted, eyes closed, her face that serene mask, as if she listened or scented for something. Or reached with some other sense. “Answer my question, please,” she said in an absent tone.

  He let out a breath of regret. “It depends. Some say they go to serve the warriors in the Hall. Others that they’re reborn, in hopes of living a life where they can die a warrior’s death. Most think that the souls of those not admitted to the Hall of Warriors go back to the roots of Arill’s tree, to provide nutrients.”

  She cracked an eye open. “You Destrye have serious issues.”

  “Fine. What do Bárans believe? You have a temple, but I’ve only heard you reference the moons. I’ve never heard you swear by any god or goddess. Who do you pray to?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention?” She broke into a beatific smile, one that covered sharp teeth. “You’re the one who pointed it out. I am the goddess—or my ancestress was—so who do you think the gods pray to?”

  He shook his head at her, trying to look stern, but failing in the face of her saucy arrogance. “Do me a favor and don’t let my council hear you say that.”

  “I wouldn’t.” She closed her eyes again, turning slowly. “I don’t really believe that, for the record. If Arill was a sorceress, I’m sure they called her a goddess long after her death. Or this one—I’m going to find out her name, or give her one, as a last resort—she likely only wanted to help. Her Destrye barbarian lover and all his people. We sorceresses are apparently easy prey for that sort of thing.”

  “Not so easy,” he muttered. “Not easy at all.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, love.”

  Her close-lipped smile deepened, showing the deep dimples in her cheeks on either side. They gave her a girlish, even impish look completely at odds with the questing magic coursing around him. “We don’t pray to anyone,” she said. “We pay respect to the moons, yes. Sgatha and Grienon, sources of magic, the female and the male, the waxing and waning. Death is the ultimate waning. Like the new moon, a spirit emerges again, a slim crescent that…” her words had fallen into an almost singsong chant and she trailed off, facing a niche set into a wall on the far side of the altar. “Where is her body buried?”

  “It would have been burned and the ashes sealed into a vessel. I have to warn you that I won’t let you disturb her—”

  “I’m not interested in her ashes,” Oria cut him off, going to the niche, her eyes closed still.

  “What are you doing then?”

  “I’m seeing with sgath sight. Physical vision interferes, so it’s easier with my eyes closed.”

  “You do have it back then.”

  “Some. As I said, it’s slow, but getting stronger.” She moved her face, reminding him of an animal testing the wind a distant scent. “You’re right—it’s better here. My ancestress liked it here for a good reason. I just need to f
ind her place.”

  “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “What? No. Her meditation place—where she gathered and hopefully pooled sgath—will be outside somewhere. At least, it’s not here in these two buildings or I’d feel it. I’ll seek it out in the morning. I knew something called to me, but I wasn’t sure what. Right now I’m looking for her mask.”

  That cursed thing. He’d hated Oria’s mask, the way it hid her face from him. More, which he’d admit only in the darkness of his heart, the thing gave him the creeps. “Why do you want it?” he asked, carefully neutral. “It might not even be here.”

  “If it isn’t, what became of it? It’s solid gold, so I’d think you’d know if someone had it as a part of their art collection. If they burned her with it—as she would have asked—then it wouldn’t have melted, so they’d have had to put it with her ashes. If this Odymesen really loved her—”

  “He did.” Lonen said it with too much force, startling Oria into turning toward him, though she didn’t open her eyes, making him wonder what she saw in him with her sgath sight. “He loved her. No man would go to such trouble if not.”

  Oria smiled, opening her eyes to shower him with the warmth of her gaze. “This is something I’ve come to understand.”

  He shifted his weight, wanting to do something with the powerful emotion she evoked in him—though the impulse at the forefront of his mind involved utterly distracting her from her current task, so he held back, letting her finish whatever she was doing. When he had her attention, he’d command it undivided.

  “I’m going to ask you for more trouble, love,” she said, gesturing at the stone beneath the niche. “I need you to break that open.”

  ~ 13 ~

  She had to give him credit. Though her Destrye warrior clearly seethed with impatience, shock at her proposed sacrilege—and with the smoky sense of frustrated lust—he firmed his jaw against whatever argument he longed to throw at her and surveyed the problem.