Challenges (22 page)

The others nodded as they began to drift after Delin to the tea service, already discussing their own views of the experience so recently past. Kambil sat in his chair, trying to gather enough strength to go to bed, staring at Delin’s turned back without expression. He had no idea of the details which Delin had in mind, but where Rigos was concerned, Delin needed to be watched carefully. If he messed things up and was caught, the rest of them would pay right along with him.

Which thought finally gave Kambil the ability to get to his feet. The sooner he got the rest he needed, the sooner he could be back on guard. Nothing could allowed to ruin their plans, absolutely nothing…

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jovvi saw Tamma heading out of the library, so she followed while pretending to be about her own business. Luckily it turned out to be the garden Tamma headed for, and none of the servants saw either of them go. Jovvi checked carefully for observers as she stepped outside, and when there were none to be found she hurried past the bath house and around to the far side of it. By then Tamma had seen her, of course, and hurried to join her when Jovvi gestured that she was to follow.

“What’s wrong?” Tamma asked once they both stood safe from observation with the bath house between them and the main house. “Has something happened?”

“Not the way you mean it,” Jovvi reassured her, adding a bit of a smile. “There just happens to be something you and I need to discuss, without the men around.”

“That sounds almost ominous,” Tamma replied with brows high. “I hadn’t realized there were things they couldn’t know about.”

“There aren’t,” Jovvi said, still trying to find the best way to explain. “It’s just that… I feel this is something … you and I need to … discuss first. Let me start by asking a question: when we Blended, did you perceive all the men in the same way? Or did the contact with any of them seem stronger than the others?”

“Now that you mention it, the contact with Rion was stronger than the ones with Lorand and Vallant,” she responded slowly, her brow creased in thought. “I noticed it at the time, and then managed to forget. How did you know?”

“I knew because I perceived Rion and Lorand more strongly than Vallant,” Jovvi answered, sending a trickle of calm toward Tamma. “I wasn’t completely certain until you confirmed my guess, but now I’m sure of it: being intimate with the men increases the strength of our bond with them. The situation is logically sensible, but it puts us into what might be considered a … an uncomfortable position.”

“Why?” Tamma asked, her head cocked slightly to one side. “If you’ve already lain with Lorand and Rion, you just have to do the same with—Oh. And I—Oh.”

Her second “oh” was slightly higher than the first, showing she now saw the whole problem. It would be less of one if Tamma and Vallant had already lain together at least once, but that wouldn’t have made the situation go away. Jovvi herself had lain with Lorand once, and her disturbance was still very much there.

“This whole thing is very confusing,” Tamma complained, using one hand to rub at her forehead. “My feelings about Vallant are still scattered every which way, but knowing that you need to lie with him is somehow … disturbing. Do you feel the same about me lying with Lorand? I hadn’t thought you would, but now I’m not quite sure.”

“To be honest, I hate the idea of you lying with Lorand,” Jovvi admitted, struggling to keep her balance. “Considering my career as a courtesan the objection is absurd, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The fact that he and I are having difficulties must be causing it, but the reason for it doesn’t matter. If our Blending is to be as strong as possible, you and he have to lie together. Right now my main purpose in bringing up the matter is to ask if you’d rather lie with Vallant before I do.”

“Which may or may not make it easier for me to accept the necessity,” Tamma said with a nod, her gaze on the way her fingers twisted together. “It’s really strange, but touching the power isn’t helping me now at all. Which probably means that being attacked is easier to cope with than making this decision.”

She looked up then with a wry expression, and Jovvi found herself replying with the same sort of smile. What Tamma had said was absolutely true, about attack being easier to accept and cope with. Allestine’s trying to kidnap her hadn’t been half this upsetting…

“But I’m suddenly getting an idea,” Tamma said, alertness bringing her head up. “This could be a golden opportunity, and I almost didn’t see it. If Vallant lies with you first and then with me, his
returning
to me can only mean a true desire for involvement on his part. I know how marvelous you’ll be for him, so his coming back to
me
will speak more clearly than any words he may use.”

“Now, that’s something I hadn’t thought about,” Jovvi said, her own brows having risen. “It’s an excellent point, and I wish I had something like it.”

“Jovvi, you don’t
need
anything like it,” Tamma said gently and slowly, as though she were explaining something to a child. “Your ability should tell you exactly how Lorand feels—if you aren’t afraid to use it with him. You’re not, are you?”

Jovvi’s silence must surely have answered the question, telling Tamma just what Jovvi couldn’t. There had been so much bitterness in Lorand the night of the costume ball at the palace, that Jovvi hadn’t been able to approach his emotions again.

“I don’t know how much good it’s done, but I
have
been arguing with him for you,” Tamma offered, her expression now full of compassion. “He thinks he isn’t good enough for you, but I won’t let him tell me that. It’s only his disappointment with himself talking, and once he’s over that he should be over the rest as well.”

“If only I hadn’t said what I did,” Jovvi responded with a sigh, feeling fractionally better. “When we can’t be sure any of us will survive, I was a fool to talk about a secure future. But we all have our needs and fears, and that happens to be mine. If I had yours instead, I probably wouldn’t have put my foot in it quite so deep.”

“You probably wouldn’t have put your foot in at all, or any other part of you, either,” Tamma said with a grin that was very unlike her usual self. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll trade my problem for yours any day.”

“Easier said than done,” Jovvi told her with a laugh, now feeling a
lot
better. “We’ve discussed the point before, but you can’t just tell someone to have a different problem. It would take—”

“Jovvi, what’s wrong?” Tamma asked, obviously concerned over the way Jovvi’s words had broken off so abruptly. “You look … strange.”

“I feel strange,” Jovvi replied, the original understatement of the ages. “I think I need to sit down, but if I do my mind will probably whirl me up into the air. That very odd thing Allestine said at the trial; I think I now know what it means.”

“What odd thing did Allestine say?” Tamma asked, looking as though she were ready to catch Jovvi when she fell. Which wasn’t that farfetched an idea…

“Allestine was asked why she hadn’t left Gan Garee and returned to Rincammon,” Jovvi explained. “Apparently she and the men had packed their possessions and they’d even paid their bill at the inn, but they were still here when the guardsmen went to arrest them. Allestine’s answer to the question was something like, ‘Oh, it isn’t possible to leave, it just isn’t.’”

“Why wasn’t it possible?” Tamma asked, frowning over the same confusion Jovvi had felt. “It almost sounds as if someone had forced her to stay.”

“Someone did,” Jovvi told her heavily. “I’d just about forgotten the fact, but when I spoke to Allestine in the coach I used just those words. ‘Don’t even think about leaving because it isn’t possible,’ I told her, hoping she would do the exact opposite—and not realizing that I was fully in touch with the power at the time. It looks like there’s at least one side to my ability that no one ever bothered to mention.”

“It’s so unimportant, I can’t imagine why they would,” Tamma muttered, almost as stunned as Jovvi had been. “You told Allestine that leaving was impossible, and in spite of everything she obeyed you. The whole concept is so bizarre, that I can’t even imagine what you would use the ability for. Aside from making people your slaves, that is.”

“That’s one thing I
won’t
be using it for,” Jovvi told her firmly, more determined about that than almost anything else in her life. “I’d rather die than make innocent people into slaves, people who would be helpless to stop me. But that idea you had just now, the one we discussed once before: you said people have trouble coping only with their own problems, not the problems of others. Assuming I got permission from Lorand and Vallant, what do you think would happen if I told each of them that they had the other’s problem?”

“One of three things, probably,” Tamma replied, her brows still high. “Number one, nothing at all would happen. Number two, they’d each have a problem they could handle. Number three, they’d each end up with two problems instead of one. Do you know for certain that number three can’t possibly happen?”

“I’m barely certain what time of day it is,” Jovvi said, not joking in the least. “This is going to take a lot of thought, a lot of discussion, and maybe even some experimenting. After all that I
might
try it, assuming Lorand and Vallant are willing.”

“Why don’t you ask Vallant when you lie with him, and I’ll do the same with Lorand,” Tamma suggested, now much more calm and composed than Jovvi herself. “Once we get used to Blending, it might turn out to be totally unnecessary, but they still ought to know. And one of us should tell Rion what’s going on.”

“I’ll try to tell him,” Jovvi decided. “It’s easier for me to know if anyone else is around. Are you … going directly to Lorand?”

“As soon as I get my nerve up,” Tamma said with a sigh. “It’s one thing to ask a man to lie with you when you’re angry and also don’t intend to do it right away. Walking up to him and telling him the time is now is another matter entirely. Are …
you
going directly to Vallant?”

“Only if there’s no opportunity to speak to Rion first,” Jovvi said, then shook her head with a faint smile.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we? We’ve each told those men we want nothing to do with them, but now that another woman is about to lie with the man we want nothing to do with…”

“Right,” Tamma said sourly. “But it’s a good thing the other woman is you. If it ever turned out to be that floozie Vallant used to be involved with… Well, all I’ll say is that if he ever gets together with a woman other than me, you can bet every din you have that it won’t be her. I’ll see you later.”

Jovvi nodded and watched Tamma walk away, then checked for other watchers before making her own way back to the house. As involved and complicated as their previous days had been, Jovvi had the definite feeling that they hadn’t really seen anything yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The garden had been wet from the rain earlier today, and the sky had looked like it was preparing to rain on us a second time. I thought about the sky and rain as I walked back through the house, but for some reason it didn’t help to distract me. What I had to say to Lorand hung in my mind like a burning missive from the Highest Aspect, an unignorable command to rush headlong into desperate danger and unknowable jeopardy.

Which was just plain silly. I shook my skirt a little as I walked, trying to get rid of the beads of moisture I’d picked up outside, telling myself silently but firmly that I was being ridiculous. Lorand wasn’t a stranger off the street, after all, and Rion had shown me how pleasant lying with a man can be. On top of that it was necessary for our Blending, to make us the best we could possibly be. So why was I beginning to move so slowly, reluctant to peek into the library because Lorand might well be in there?

One of the answers to my question was that I’d released all but the faintest touch on the power. My memories relating to men still weren’t the nicest it was possible to have, and the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally hurt Lorand if one of those memories got the better of me. The fact that that brought me back to my usual cowardly self couldn’t be helped, except for the way I’d begun doing it: turning stubborn and refusing to back down.

So I took a deep breath, set my teeth firmly into a good chunk of stubbornness, and went to open the library door. The relief I felt when the room proved empty made me ashamed, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the relief for a short while. But it was a very short while, because empty downstairs rooms meant Lorand was probably in his bedchamber. The thought of that made me blush, which in turn made me even more disgusted with myself. I was supposed to be an adult, after all, not some silly, mouse-like child…

The wonderfully mature adult that was me found it necessary to peek into the dining room before it became absolutely certain that she had to go upstairs. I’d caught a glimpse of Jovvi earlier, going directly upstairs, but when I reached the upper hall there was no sign of her.
She
wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary, I pointed out to myself sternly.
She
didn’t stand around hoping some catastrophe would happen so that she’d have to change her plans.

The admonishment made me feel properly ashamed—until I remembered who she was being so efficient with. That very strange feeling flared in me again, the one I’d thought I’d gotten so well under control, the one I really couldn’t understand. I’d definitely decided to try to discourage anything deep from developing between Vallant and me so that he’d be safe, but the idea of him being with another woman made me feel—fluttery-bothered. There didn’t seem to be any other way to describe the combined physical and emotional reaction, but the words were so inadequate…

I suddenly awoke to the fact that I’d knocked on Lorand’s bedchamber door. Part of me must have preferred the distraction of painful embarrassment to thinking about what would happen if Vallant discovered that he preferred Jovvi after all. The idea should have pleased me, especially since it was Jovvi rather than some strange woman I neither knew nor liked. But it didn’t please me, not in the least. I’d never really had Vallant as anything but someone to argue with, and it could very well turn out that I never would…