"You aren't clumsy." With shyness, she added, "The way you move is, well… sexy."
Heat spread through Vyrl. "Ah, Lily," he murmured, trying to kiss her again, his hands searching for a way under her clothes.
"Now you stop that." She thumped him on the head. "Behave yourself."
He groaned. "You torment me."
"You can't tell anyone what I said."
"All right," he promised. "I won't let anyone know that you like me. Certainly they will never guess. We're only getting married, after all."
"Even so."
His good spirits faded as guilt gnawed at him. He owed it to Lily to tell her the truth about himself.
"Lily Opaline." He spoke in his serious voice, but then paused, unsure how to continue. What if his secret disgusted her? She might not marry him. But she had a right to know before they took such an important step.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. "You're so warm."
"I have to tell you. You should know — about me…"
"Have you misbehaved?" Her laugh chimed. "Do tell."
"I'm serious." He wanted to tease her, to lose his worries in familiar banter, but he couldn't. If he didn't tell her now, he wasn't sure he would have the courage later.
"You sound somber," she said.
He forced out the words. "I'm not normal."
She snorted. "Well, I know you're not normal. I mean, really, I have never seen any boy eat as much as you do."
Exasperated, he said, "Lily, I'm extremely serious here."
"You sound terribly serious," she said amiably.
There was nothing for it but to reveal the dreadful truth. "I dance."
Silence.
"Lily?"
"You do what?"
"Dance." He waved his arms around. "You know. I spin and kick and jump around to music."
"But you can't dance. Men don't do that."
"I know. But I do. Every morning I have at least three hours of class with my instructors. Often more."
"Oh, that." She laughed, relief in her mood. "Everyone knows you exercise a lot. It makes you strong, good with a sword."
"Yes, well, 'everyone' doesn't know all of it. Lily, I dance. Classical, mostly, but some modern and jazz."
"What is jazz?"
"An art form from the world Earth."
"You are making fun of me."
"No. It's true." He stopped, unable to voice his next question. Will you still marry me? What if he repulsed her now?
She spoke uneasily. "I don't like this game."
"It isn't a game."
"Men don't dance. Only women." In a matter-of-fact voice, she added, "And, Vyrl, you are definitely not a woman."
"No, I'm not. But I dance." He shifted her in his arms. "Before my mother ran for election to the Assembly, she was a ballet dancer. Men among her people perform, too. No one thinks them strange."
Lily was silent again. Apparently he had appalled her beyond speech. She kept her mind well guarded, shielding the worst of her revulsion. He hadn't realized she could raise mental barriers that strong.
Finally she said, "I've never heard of such a thing."
"Do you hate me now?"
"Hate you? Saints above, what a thing to ask."
"Will you answer?"
"I could never hate you." She sighed. "Although sometimes you do truly drive me crazy."
He squinted at her. "You think I'm crazy?"
"Broadie Candleson told us once that he saw you spinning around, like you were dancing. We laughed at him."
"I was dancing." Vyrl felt as if he were poised at a chasm. "You haven't answered me."
Silence.
He couldn't believe his stupidity. Why had he opened his fool mouth? If he had never said anything, and never danced again, she would have never known. Now he had lost her because he had to make his blasted declaration.
Lily spoke slowly. "You must have to hide it all the time, always watching everything you say and do."
"Always."
"Do your parents know?"
"Yes. Also my brothers and sisters."
"But they never talk about it?"
"Not outside the family." His brother Del-Kurj gave him a hard time, but only in private. In a family of empaths, it was too obvious to everyone how much it meant to Vyrl; they knew how deeply it would hurt him if they ruined his joy in dancing by letting people outside the family ridicule him. He could sense her pondering, but the unusually strong guards around her mind made it impossible to judge how much his confession had repulsed her.
"Will you show me?" she asked.
He blinked, confused. "Show you what?"
"Your dancing." She relaxed against him. "If you have trained so much, for so many years, you must be very good."
"Saints above." Lily wasn't hiding her revulsion. She didn't feel it. That couldn't be true. It couldn't be. Could it? In a voice tight with his fear of rejection, he asked, "Does that mean you will still marry me?"
She pressed her lips against his cheek. "I would marry you if you were a beggar in Tyrole, if we had to sit in the market pleading for food."
He tried to answer, but his voice caught. So instead he held her tight, unable to speak.
"Uh… Vyrl." Her words came out strained. "I can't — breathe."
Mortified, he loosened his grip. "Hai, what an idiot you fell in love with."
Her laugh trilled, rippling over him like water. "You are a force of nature, Vyrl, sometimes stormy and sometimes sunny, your moods changing as fast as the wind, but you are most certainly never an idiot."
Moisture threatened his eyes. Incredibly, she had learned his darkest secret and still chose him.
A nicker came out of the dark. Something nudged Vyrl, and he realized the lyrine was nuzzling him, its horn poking his arm. He scratched its head again. "She still wants me," he told Moonglaze.
That night, huddled against the wall of a cliff, wrapped in a cloak, he slept for the first time in the arms of the woman he loved. He prayed it wouldn't be the last. The storm had delayed their trip and tomorrow their parents would realize they had run away.
Then the search would start.
4. Bard of Emeralds
Moonglaze loped through the meadows at the foothills of the Backbone Mountains. The gray cliffs behind them wore cloaks of snow, but down here only a few patches of melting blue remained. Swaying reeds sparkled in the sun, topped with bubbles. Larger spheres dotted the meadows, vibrant in blue, red, purple, green, and gold, some floating off their stalks and drifting in the breeze. Every now and then one would pop, showering the ground with glimmering rainbow dust. The lyrine raced out of the hills and into the Rillian Vales, stretching his long legs as if he would leave the ground and fly. Lily and Vyrl held on, exhilarated as fresh morning air rushed past their faces. His cloak whipped back from his shoulders and rippled behind them, a swath of blue in the sunshine that streamed across the land.
They thundered past the first villages. Unlike the Dalvador Plains, where houses were whitewashed and had colored roofs, here the entire structures were glowing hues: blue, green, ruby, or gold-stalk. Although Vyrl could have sought out the Bard in any village, he headed for Rillia itself, the largest city in the settled lands. The Bard in a small town might wonder why an unfamiliar young couple went to him rather than their own Bard, but in a large town with many visitors, it would be more natural.
However, going to Rillia also carried risk; Lord Rillia, who ruled both the Dalvador Plains and Rillian Vales, knew Vyrl's father. As the Dalvador Bard, Vyrl's father was the highest authority in the Plains, or at least as much an authority as their people accepted. He not only served Dalvador; he also presided over the Bards in the other Plains villages. But Lord Rillia held authority over all the Bards, including Vyrl's father.