It started with her simply comforting him. As she spoke, Maya felt D’arvan relax, and gradually his arms crept around her. Rather to her surprise, that comforted her, and she found her mind turning to just how attractive she had been beginning to find him lately. Stop! her common sense warned her. This is folly! You know what happened to Aurian and Forral. But Maya didn’t care. She had no delusions about their plight, and suddenly it seemed to her that this might be the last chance—for both of them. “Do you know,” she murmured to D’arvan, “you have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen?” And she kissed him.
???? turning to evil—but now we know what made him act when he did. Miathan, with his obsession with the purity of our race, would take such a joining ill, indeed.” She shook her head. “My poor child,” she murmured. “My poor, poor children.” As Eilin mounted the tower stairs, Maya heard the soft sound of her weeping.
In the dead of night—the dark, oppressive time when it seemed that dawn would never come—Maya left her room to sit by the embers of the kitchen stove. Weary though she was, she had finally given up trying to sleep. Her thoughts were filled with sorrow for Forral, who seemed so close to her in the room that had once been his, and with fear for Aurian, now a fugitive. Gods, how she must be grieving! Maya also worried about her city, in the grip of an evil madman, and her troops, who would be bearing the brunt of the disaster. Between grief and worry, she was finding it impossible to think clearly. The more she tried, the worse it became. What’s wrong with me? she thought despairingly. I’m a bloody soldier. I’m trained to deal with emergencies. There must be something I can do! But whatever it was, it eluded her. Never before had she felt so alone—or so utterly, wretchedly helpless.
The sound of a door opening made her reach for her sword _but the intruder was only D’arvan, coming out of his room. He looked haggard and haunted. “You, too?” Maya said ruefully, suddenly glad of the company.
D’arvan glared at her. “How could I possibly sleep, after what I’ve been told toaight?” he snapped.
“How, indeed? I can’t sleep after what I’ve been told, and you’ve had it far worse than me.” The self-pity in the Mage’s voice had served as a salutary reminder to Maya of just how close she had come to sinking into that same trap herself. “Want some tea?” she offered.
“No! I want this not to be! I want to wake up and find myself in my bed in the Academy, with everything safe and normal—and none of this ever to have happened.” He sank to the floor beside Maya’s chair and leaned his head against the arm. Though he was trying to conceal it from her, she could feel him shaking with sobs.
Maya stroked his fine, pale hair. “Me, too, pet,” she murmured sadly, “me, too.”
D’arvan looked up at her quickly, dragging a hand across his eyes. “Gods, how you must despise me!” he choked.
Maya was taken aback. “Whatever for?” she said.
“Because I’m good for nothing! I’m a useless coward—I can only weep like a maid and make a nuisance of myself! But you’re a warrior—you’re brave—I know how brave you are! You would never shame yourself by giving way like this!”
Maya chuckled. “Little do you know. Less than an hour ago I was lying next door bawling my heart out!”
D’arvan’s eyes went wide. “Truly?”
“Of course, dafty. We’ve had terrible news—treachery heaped on tragedy—and you’ve had some shocks to cope with on top of that! This is the best time for us to give way to our feelings—here, where we’re safe for the moment. It’s never wrong to need—or take—comfort, D’arvan. That’s something we both need right now.” As she spoke, Maya slipped to the floor beside the young Mage and put her arms around him.
He turned his face away. “How can you bear to touch me?” he muttered. “You don’t know what I am,”
“Balls! I know exactly what you are—I’ve known for months. You’re shy and good-hearted, you like music and flowers, and you have the most amazing aptitude for archery I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t believe it when you tried my bow that first day at the Garrison, then told me you’d never handled one before! So that’s one thing you’re good at, for a start. You can talk to wolves, and the Lady Eilin thinks you’ll be fine at Earth-magic—and who knows what talenft y»u might have inherited from your father! I know what you are, D’arvan. You’re very special, indeed.”
It started with her simply comforting him. As she spoke, Maya felt D’arvan relax, and gradually his arms crept around her. Rather to her surprise, that comforted her, and she found her mind turning to just how attractive she had been beginning to find him lately. Stop! her common sense warned her. This is folly! You know what happened to Aurian and Forral. But Maya didn’t care. She had no delusions about their plight, and suddenly it seemed to her that this might be the last chance—for both of them. “Do you know,” she murmured to D’arvan, “you have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen?” And she kissed him.
The Mage froze, his lips unresponsive against her own, then suddenly he tore himself away. “No!” he gasped. “I can’t!”
Feeling unutterably foolish, Maya tried to make light of the situation, wondering how she could manage a dignified escape. “That bad, eh?” she said with a shrug.
D’arvan’s face went crimson. “Maya, no! I mean—don’t think ... It wasn’t you . . .”
“Well, that’s a comfort, anyway.” Her attempts to rescue him from his floundering seemed to be making matters worse.
He turned his face away, refusing to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t. I mean I’ve never—Oh, curse it, I don’t even know where to start]”
Maya smiled. “If you want,” she said softly, “I would consider it both an honor and a pleasure to teach you.”
He was clumsy at first—clumsy and awkward and painfully shy. But Maya was patient. Gently, unhurriedly, she encouraged and instructed him, and the look of wonder on D’arvan’s face—first at his own pleasure, and later, when she taught him to pleasure her—was more than reward enough. Seeing his glowing expression as the dawn light crept through the window of his room, Maya was flooded with a feeling of tenderness so intense that it took her breath away. Selective though she’d been about her lovers in the past, never had any of them evoked such a feeling within her. She reached out to touch his face, “There,” she told him. “Now we’ve found something else you’re good at.”
D’arvan blushed, bat his eyes gleamed with delight. “Oh, Maya. I never dreamed . . . Maya—you won’t go back to the city, will you? I won’t be parted from you now!”
Maya’s brows knit in a frown as she realized how badly she had complicated matters. “D’arvan,” she said gently, “the time will come when we’ll have to fight. You know that, don’t you?”
To Maya’s surprise, the Mage met her eyes with a clear, steady gaze. “I know—and I’m ready to fight,” he said. “It’s difficult to explain, but, after my—After Davorshan betrayed me, it was as though I had no reason for existing. I felt empty, like a shadow. But now it’s different.” He smiled. “For the first time in my life I feel like my own, whole self—and now I have something to fight for. All I ask is that whatever form the battle takes, we face it together. And if you really feel that you must return to Nexis, my magic can wait. I can still shoot a bow, you know. I’ve had the best possible teacher—in all things.”
Maya was stunned by his words. At last she found her voice. “I can think of a hundred reasons why I should go back,” she said. “But somehow . . . Well, maybe it would be best if I stayed for a while. The Lady Eilin seems to think that my returning to Nexis would serve no purpose, though I do feel guilty about leaving my post. But I don’t want to leave you either, dear heart. Perhaps, together, we could work out some way of combining our talents against the Archmage—depending, of course, on whether Eilin will approve this arrangement. She’ll probably be horrified, and throw me out of the Valley at once,”