Daav closed his eyes. She was well. He was trembling, he noted distantly, and his chest burned.
“Korval?”
He cleared his throat, opened his eyes and inclined his head. “Accept my thanks,” he said, voice steady in the formal phrasing.
“Certainly,” Kestra murmured, and paused, the line of a frown between her brows.
“You should be informed,” she said, abruptly, and Daav felt a chill run his spine.
“Informed?” he repeated, when several seconds had passed and the Healer had said no more. “Is she then not—entirely—well, Master Kestra?”
She moved a hand—half-negation. “Of this most recent injury, you need have no further concern. However, there was another matter—a trauma left untended. Scar tissue, you would say.”
“Yes,” he murmured, recalling. “She had said she thought it—too late—to seek a Healer.”
“In some ways, she was correct,” Kestra admitted. “Much of the damage has been integrated into the personality grid. On the whole, good use has been made of a bad start—she's strong, never doubt it. I did what I could, where the scars hindered growth.” She sighed lightly and sat back in her chair.
“The reason I mention the matter to you is that I find—an anomaly—within Scholar Caylon's pattern.”
Daav frowned. “Anomaly?”
The Healer sighed. “Call it a—seed pattern. It's set off in a—oh, a cul-de-sac—by itself and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the remainder of her pattern. Although I have seen a pattern remarkably like it, elsewhere.”
“Have you?” Daav looked at her. “Where?”
Master Healer Kestra smiled wearily, raised a finger and pointed at the vacant air just above his head.
“There.”
It took a moment to assimilate, wracked as he was. “You say,” he said slowly, “that Aelliana and I are—true lifemates.”
Kestra sighed. “Now, of that, there is some doubt. The seed pattern was found in the area of densest scarring.” She looked at him closely, her eyes grave.
“You understand, the damage in that area of her pattern was—enormous. Had a Healer been summoned at the time of trauma—however, we shall not weep over spilt wine! I have . . . pruned away what I could of the scar tissue. At the least, she will be easier for it, more open to joy. That the seed will grow now, after these years without nurture—I cannot say that it will happen.”
He stared at her, seeing pity in her eyes. His mind would not quite hold the information—Aelliana. She was his destined lifemate—the other half of a wizard's match. He was to have shared with Aelliana what Er Thom shared with his Anne . . . She had been hurt—several times hurt—grievously hurt and no one called to tend her, may Clan Mizel dwindle to dust in his lifetime!
He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, reached through the anger and the anguish, found the method he required and spun it into place.
He was standing in a circle of pure and utter peace, safe within that secret soul-place where anger never came, and sorrow shifted away like sand.
“And who,” Kestra demanded, “taught you that?”
He opened his eyes, hand rising to touch his earring. “The grandmother of a tribe of hunter-gatherers, on a world whose name I may not give you.” He peered through the bright still peace; located another scrap of information: “She said that I was always busy—and so she taught me to—be still.”
“All honor to her,” Kestra murmured.
“All honor to her,” Daav agreed and rose on legs that trembled very little, really. “May I see Aelliana now?”
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Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Three
On average, contract marriages last eighteen Standard Months, and are negotiated between clan officials who decide, after painstaking perusal of gene maps, personality charts and intelligence grids, which of several possible nuptial arrangements are most advantageous to both clans.
In contrast, lifemating is a far more serious matter, encompassing the length of the partners' lives, even if one should die. One of the pair must leave his or her clan of origin and join the clan of the lifemate. At that time the adoptive clan pays a “life-price” based on the individual's profession, age and internal value to the former clan.
Tradition has it that lifemates share a “bond of heart and mind.” In view of Liaden cultural acceptance of “wizards,” some scholars have interpreted this to mean that lifemates are “psychically” connected. Or, alternatively, that the only true lifematings occur between wizards.
There is little to support this theory. True, lifematings among Liadens are rare. But so are lifelong marriages among Terrans.
—From “Marriage Customs of Liad”
He paused on the landing to compose himself. It would not do for Aelliana to see his anger at her clan, nor yet his most ardent desires. Whatever choices resided within the circumstances they shared, those choices belonged wholly to her. That she was drawn to him was plain. That he was likewise drawn to her . . . might not be so apparent to Aelliana as it was to himself, who had some hours past shouted his desire to stand as her lifemate into the branches of Korval's meddlesome damned tree.
That she and he were the two halves of a wizard's match—but, no. Master Kestra had been careful to say only that they had been intended to be thus. Before Aelliana's clan chose to see her come to harm, and having done so, denied her even the courtesy extended to any stranger that might have fallen, in need, among them.
He shook his head, baffled anew at how little her kin cared for her whom Scout and pilotkind revered: Honored Scholar of Sub-rational Mathematics Aelliana Caylon, reviser of the ven'Tura Tables, who had therefore saved, and would save, hundreds of pilot lives.
It was seldom enough that he willingly took up the melant'i of Delm Korval; at this moment, however, he could scarce restrain himself. Korval Himself would make short work indeed of Mizel—but that choice, too, was Aelliana's.
For all he knew, she was fond of her mother, her sisters. It had seemed to him that at least one sister—the halfling with the speaking brown eyes—held Aelliana in genuine regard.
There on the landing, Daav closed his eyes and ran the Scout's Rainbow, stabilizing thought and emotion. Much calmed, he sighed, opened his eyes, and went up the last flight to the third floor, and the second door on the left. Her room.
He put his palm against the plate, expecting a chime to announce his presence. Instead, the door swung soundlessly open under his hand. Startled, he went one silent step into a fragrant and sun-filled room.
She stood in the open window, looking out on the rows of flowers—a slender woman in a long green robe, her tawny hair caught back with a plain-silver hair ring.
Silent though he was, she turned of a sudden, as if she had heard, a smile on her thin face, and her eyes gloriously green.
“Daav,” she said, and walked into his arms.
He held her lightly—lightly, so he told himself, and so he did, despite his more urgent wishes. Her cheek lay against his shoulder, her arms about his waist; her body was sweet and pliant against his.
Lightly, he told himself again, though his blood was warming rapidly. Aelliana moved against him, her arms tightening. Carefully, he lay his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her, and, gods pity him, he was on fire and she was his!
Aelliana stiffened slightly, certainly less so than he. And it was not meet—it was far from meet, and if anything like what he wished for went forth in the Hall, be sure that Hall Master would see to it that he could not function for a relumma—or longer. So, say, it was desperation—or self preservation—that made him reach again for the old Scout trick and spin the Rainbow, reaping calm from the flow of its colors . . .
“That was pretty,” Aelliana murmured against his shoulder. She stirred slightly. “Daav?”