Beneath the Thirteen Moons Read online

  “Never react to my nearness like that again,” he commanded in a fierce whisper.

  “I’m not sure if I can do this.”

  “If I can do it, so can you.”

  She nodded, felt a small, webbed hand press her forehead to Korl’s and suddenly knew what Jaja wanted them to do. Mahri Saw into Korl, could feel his own Touch inside of her, and together they roamed every inch of each other, memorizing the individual cells that made them unique. Any novice of the Power knew to avoid another’s pathways that zabbaroot had carved into their system, for the Power’s natural defenses would either burn the intruder’s lines or shrivel their own closed. So Mahri and Korl avoided them instinctively.

  Jaja slapped both of them in the back of the head. It seemed that they must deliberately probe each other’s pathways.

  Mahri felt the tentative Touch of Korl as he slowly probed her old root-paths, skirting the stronger new ones that she’d blazed into her system over the past few days. She carefully Touched a sparkling green line that crackled inside the center of his chest, felt Jaja Push her Power into it and quickly pulled away.

  Power can be Pushed? thought Mahri in panic. “By the… no,” she groaned.

  “Do it,” demanded Korl, his breath a hot flame against her face. And aided by Jaja he plunged into her pathways with an almost physical sensation of entry, mingling his Power essence with hers, claiming each flowing green line as his own. Mahri cursed and responded in kind, felt him shudder as the greater Power at her command overwhelmed the root-paths in his body.

  She felt Jaja pat her cheek as if to say, “go easy on him.” Knew with a vague sense of detachment that Korl gripped her shoulders with flesh-numbing force. But her anger ruled and when they reached the nub where the paths joined at the base of each of their minds, she plunged into his with reckless fury. Although distantly aware that the wall Jaja had created around her mind had shattered, that Korl probed her as well, that he now knew her more intimately than her own lifemate had, Mahri didn’t care.

  She was too intent on her own discoveries, for his memories and experiences lay open to her with no veil of dishonesty. She felt him read her carefully but she felt no such compunction, ruthlessly grasping at whatever bits his thoughts revealed. Pieces of memories like a puzzle flashed before her, raising more questions than answers.

  A pale face surrounded by pure white hair with eyes squeezed shut while Korl spilled his seed into her in near desperation. The haggard face of the king, mouth open in fury. The frightened face of a child; the black form of a feather-cloaked man looming menacingly over him. The flash of a bone knife in near-darkness.

  Then Mahri saw herself. A heart-shaped face—which glowed with a beauty she couldn’t possibly possess— alternately cursing with fury or whispering in passion. Muscles rippled through a lean, long-legged body that she knew didn’t look as perfect as he pictured it. Round smooth swells of her flesh strained at her vest in ways that couldn’t be that provocative.

  He’d lied to her, sort of. When he’d said that he wasn’t falling in love with her, he’d meant it. But only because he thought he already loved her, had from the moment he’d watched her beat his guard to the floor of his room.

  And she’d chucked him over the balcony.

  Mahri groaned. I’m going to try to pretend, she thought, that I never saw myself from his perspective. She Pulled out of his mind, vowing to never return again, felt him do the same, but seemingly reluctant to leave. She heard Caria gasp from behind her, knew her sister saw the green aura that briefly surrounded Korl and her; that settled to a pulse that could no longer be distinguished one from the other.

  “How long has it been?” Mahri asked her.

  “Only an instant,” Caria answered in a puzzled voice.

  “It felt like a lifetime.” Mahri lifted her head and leaned forward, her mouth close to the Royal’s ear and whispered as quietly as she could. “How much did you See?”

  He seemed to just realize that he held her shoulders in a punishing grip and dropped them. “Not as much as you did, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  He grinned and Mahri’s heart skipped a beat. She wished he didn’t think he loved her. It made him even harder to resist.

  “Can you heal her now?” asked Caria.

  “Aya. Where’s Trian? Has he the fever?”

  “No, but what do you want my cousin for?”

  “We’ll need to… how do I explain?” Mahri looked at the prince but he just shrugged. She went over to Caria and took her hand, felt the heat of the fever and the weakness in those lax fingers. “We need to take blood from you, the parts of it that fight the illness. But you’re already so weak that we’ll need to also take from Trian so that you won’t wind up as sick as Sh’ra.” She spun and faced Korl. “Am I right?”

  He nodded, flipping back the strands of golden hair that had curled over his face with the gesture. “I didn’t think about the effect on her, but yes, you’re right.”

  While Caria fetched Trian, Mahri and Jaja searched the house for tools that Korl felt were needed for the healing. Mahri avoided Korl’s gaze, noticed that he did the same, and it made her wonder what bits of her memories he’d Seen.

  “Mahri!” exclaimed a familiar male voice, and Trian stepped into the house, swept her into his arms and gave her a resounding kiss.

  “Let me down, you big oaf.”

  Amber colored eyes stared downed at her, thick curls of mahogany hair swept across a broad forehead that wrinkled with dismay as he studied her. Trian’s wide, generous mouth shrank in a frown. “Doesn’t look to me like you could stand on your own.”

  “She does just fine,” snapped Korl. His sudden appearance at the bedroom doorway had made them both start guiltily. Mahri couldn’t figure out why.

  “Now, and who are you,” asked Trian, setting Mahri carefully on her feet, “and what’ve you done to my girl?”

  Korl raised an eyebrow. “Your girl? If you mean the water-rat, she did it all by herself.”

  His tone reeked with disdain and Mahri could feel Trian swell up beside her, like a whale-spout getting ready to blow. Caria stepped between them, gave in to the illness a moment so that she swayed on her feet. Both men immediately grabbed an arm and took her into the bedroom. Mahri stood in shocked silence, wondering at the sudden hostility between the two men and grateful that Caria knew how to diffuse the situation.

  “What happened?” she asked Jaja. He shook his head at her and scampered after the others.

  When Mahri entered the room Korl had already pierced the arm of her niece with a thin hollow bone, took the other end and put it into Caria’s arm. He then took another bone and stood before Trian, the sharp knife in his hand still wet with scarlet. The darker-haired man seemed to loom over Korl for a moment, a little taller, shoulders a bit wider, but something about Korl’s manner made him nod his head, take a seat, and bare his arm.

  When Korl finished connecting her sister-in-life to Trian with the tube, he gestured at Mahri to come closer. She stood at his side and when Trian glared, the prince flung an arm carelessly around her shoulders. She winced, for he’d bruised them when they’d Bonded. By the moons—were they really Bonded? ’Twas odd that she didn’t feel any differently.

  Korl lowered his head and whispered in her ear. “You don’t have to do anything. Just let me tap your Power.”

  Mahri shivered, whether from his words or the touch of his breath against her ear, she couldn’t be sure. He smoothed his knuckles across her cheek and turned her face to his. “I won’t drain you, I promise.” He looked at her so intensely, imploring her to trust him, at least in this.

  Mahri nodded and she Saw with him when he Looked at Sh’ra, then Caria. Watched as he Pushed the antibodies from one to the other, admired his skill when he Pushed Trian’s antibodies through to Caria when her own body started to weaken. Like a juggling act he skillfully kept the balance between the three, until the virus shrank to the point
that he could flush it from Caria’s and Sh’ra’s systems.

  Through it all Mahri felt him take her Power, the Bond that now existed between them allowing him to access it, but without knowing what reserves she had. Korl removed the bone tubes from all their arms, Healing the slight punctures with a negligent wave of his hand. Mahri could see the Power strengthening him, for she’d fed him as much as he needed to heal her family, as fast as she could. And still continued to do so.

  “I can’t stop,” she gasped, and collapsed to the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” demanded Trian. Mahri could hear the concern in his voice, although her normal vision had faded to black. But she felt the tingle that told her it was Korl’s arms that lifted her from the ground. She snuggled her face in the crook of his neck and sighed. He still smelled faintly of the white flowers that had almost buried her boat.

  Trian near growled. “What can’t she stop?”

  “She’s force-feeding me her Power. Water-rat, listen to me.” Korl jostled her gently in his arms; she could feel the rise and fall of his muscles. “You shouldn’t have Pushed your Power at me, should’ve just let me tap it. Now I’m going to have to Push mine back at you, understand? Don’t fight it.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. She felt tired unto death. Korl had been right all along. With the Power gone she had nothing to keep her going, could actually feel parts of her body shutting down from overstimulation. Then she could feel him Touch her inside, knowing where to feed the Power first, what to heal.

  “Jaja, get back!” Korl snapped, his voice more furious than Mahri had ever heard it.

  “Let him, Healer. Her pet knows what he’s doing,” coaxed Caria in her gentle tones, stronger now with the absence of fever.

  “She’s already root-fried!” Exclaimed Korl… or Trian? Mahri couldn’t be sure which of them spoke. The smooth coldness of zabbaroot touched her lips and she opened eagerly, the bitterness making her throat swallow in little convulsions. She opened her eyes and could only See the bits and dots of particles that made up her physical world, tried to refocus to normal vision and couldn’t. Would she see the world like this forever, now? Could this be the price of her abuse of the root, a total loss of control?

  But there were others in the village in need of the Healer and he couldn’t do it alone.

  Mahri took a deep breath and drew on the will that had sustained her through the deaths of her loved ones. “Caria’s right, Jaja knew what to do.” She wiggled out of Korl’s arms and struggled to stay upright. She tried to concentrate on the larger mass of lumps and when they moved she could identify each person in the room by the arrangement of their individual particles. Barely.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured them. “And there’s others in the village that need our help.”

  So she walked in a daze by Korl’s side, feeding him Power when needed, ingesting the root that Wald had recently harvested. Young, exceptionally bitter stuff, she forced it down, listened to Korl when he told her to just let him tap the Power, not force it at him. She did what he told her; even when he insisted that he keep hold of her hand as they made their rounds.

  By the time they returned to Caria’s home the night had gone and Mahri Saw the rising sun in bits of glorious sparkles.

  I did it, she realized as Caria ushered them inside. I saved all of them. And she waited for the guilt to leave her while her sister-in-life tucked her into Sh’ra’s tiny bed, but it stayed like a tight knot of pain in her heart. She’d never be free from the loss of Brez and Tal’li.

  “Where’s the prince?” she asked Caria.

  “The who?”

  “The Healer.”

  A long, thoughtful pause. “We’re going to have a long talk, Mahri, after you recover.”

  “If I recover.”

  A warm hand felt her forehead. “What d’you mean, if?”

  Mahri closed her lids and could still See bits of tiny matter. She’d hoped she could remain in control long enough to say goodbye properly, but by-the-thirteen-moons she no longer cared. Every nerve in her body felt afire, every muscle burned in agony. The last remnants of the root in her system had faded and the pathways that it had forged shivered through her like knives ripping out her insides.

  And she still carried the guilt of those two deaths.

  Mahri began to scream.

  “What’s the matter?” mumbled Korl as he staggered into the room, his voice drugged with sleep.

  Mahri kept screaming.

  “I—I don’t know!” wailed Caria. “I put her into bed and she just started shrieking.”

  Korl shouted to be heard. “Did she say anything?”

  “No, yes. Something about not recovering. But I thought she’d be fine, after Jaja had taken care of her.”

  “Mahri!” growled Korl, trying to break through to her, his fingers hot brands along her cheeks. But the screaming continued, until Caria fled sobbing from the room. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost all control, water-rat?”

  Thank-the-moons, thought Mahri, that I’m so weak. For as her shrieks faded to a hoarse moan, she could hear little Sh’ra crying in the other room. She’d probably scared her niece to death and if Mahri didn’t hurt so bad she might even be ashamed.

  Korl laid Healing hands on her and she could only feel his Touch on the parts of her body that hadn’t already gone numb. He swore softly, curses Mahri knew he’d learned from her, and she couldn’t help but smile.

  “More zabba,” he flung over his shoulder, and she could hear the heavy footsteps of Wald as he rummaged through the front cupboard, the sound of seashells shattering.

  Caria will be mad at him, she thought, and started to giggle.

  “Hush, water-rat,” commanded Korl, and then she heard the crunch of root. Felt his Power rushing through her pathways until he reached the nub of her mind. But this time he couldn’t shatter her firmly placed mind-barrier.

  Mahri cracked that black wall herself. “Come on in,” she sang between giggles.

  Losing one’s mind didn’t feel too bad, she thought.

  Then the Sight began to narrow, she Saw into the cells of her eyelids, opened them but it didn’t help. Her Vision kept going deeper, into the things smaller than the stuff that made up her world and she longed to ask Korl if he knew what it was she Saw.

  He answered her inside her head. No one’s ever Seen this deeply before. Not that I know of.

  Mahri could hear his voice within, even the deep huskiness that could make her shiver. Can you hear me, too?

  Yes, water-rat. I can also See what you do. So no matter how hard it gets, I’ll be with you.

  Like an anchor?

  Yes.

  Mahri hesitated. And if what I See makes me go mad?

  Then we’ll go together.

  He’d gotten more than he’d bargained for when he Bonded with me, thought Mahri—or had she seen aright, could his love for her have prompted this selfless aid? Or could it be that he dove in after her with the same unthinking heroics that had made him save her monk-fish? When he didn’t respond to her speculations she felt grateful that he could only hear what she wanted him to.

  Then Mahri couldn’t think anymore, for the Sight continued to spiral into smaller fragments until nothing but pure white remained. Her mind tried to grasp the concept of this void and failed. She could Sense Korl battling likewise, felt his will like a tangible thing grab hold of her and keep them close, for as long as they stayed together they had a reality to hold on to.

  Tiny particles pierced the whiteness, the world gone backwards, and now the Sight grew, creating from this reverse nothingness another world, where travelers of their kind dare not venture. Mahri felt Korl fight again, try to stop the Sight from continuing on.

  What could lie beyond the opposite of reality?

  She heard Korl’s mental growl of rage. The mere thought of plunging into that unknown had the power to whip him into a frenzy of panic. And this time Mahri fought too, for she could let
her guilt destroy her… but not him.

  She matched her will to his and it grew even stronger. What they couldn’t accomplish separately they could together and for one breath-taking moment it felt as if their souls fused together, created a force that not even the universe could stand against.

  The Sight slowed to a crawl, reversed, then began to grow so abruptly that they passed again through the white nothingness in the blink of an eye, then through the rest until Mahri could See the familiar world that she knew.

  She refocused her Vision, and with relief it responded, the bits disappeared, and with normal sight she looked on the flushed face of her prince. He knelt beside the bed, his hands folded around one of her own, dark smudges beneath those light-green eyes, lines etched in his forehead and along the corners of his mouth. He had never looked more irresistible.

  “Do I look as bad as you?” she croaked.

  He smiled and sat back on his heels, removed the headband from his brow and shook back his hair. “You look even worse,” Korl replied as he raked his fingers through the golden strands.

  Mahri bit her lip, ignoring the comment. Did he know that it made her crazy with wanting him when he shook his hair back like that? Did he glean that memory from their Bonding? She tried not to stare at the smooth line of his throat, the expanse of his chest that lay naked beneath her gaze.

  That moment when their souls had united still echoed in her mind and heart, scaring her silly. How could she fight something like that? Yet, how could she not, when the thought of that kind of connection with another could overwhelm her own identity?

  “Put your shirt on,” she said through the sandy feel in her throat. “And stay out of my head.”

  Korl staggered to his feet. “As you wish,” he replied with bone-weary exhaustion. When he turned to leave, Mahri stared with hypnotic fascination at the line that ran down the middle of his back, the bunch of muscles that shifted with each step he took. The smooth gleam of his skin. She called his name and he glanced over his shoulder, froze at whatever he saw in her face.