Gatewright (19 page)

I
nodded, gave my politest goodbyes, and followed Riven out into the hall, almost
scrambling to keep up with his long strides.  Riven’s jaw muscle twitched,
and his hands were in fists, faintly glowing.  I grimaced, and hoped he
had enough self-control not to set anything on fire, including himself.

He
finally let loose, growling through gritted teeth.  “I’m a mage-blasted
idiot.  It makes sense, though.  Jetay has always been coddled, and
Becot probably played Jetay like a fiddle.  Becot would never make such an
aggressive move unless they had more support, and there is no way Toran would
be involved.  I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” he spat, furious.

“Who
is Jetay and why would he be involved?”

“Jetay
is my cousin, the second son of Queen Essint and a few years older than
me.  His mother is blind to his faults.  He didn’t like that she
selected me to be the guide on the trip, even though I was far more
qualified.  I’ve heard rumors that he’s been seen with the Becot queen,
but I don’t know how it connects the outcast.  I’ll bet you my focus
stones that he’s wrapped up in this somehow.”  He smirked coldly. 
“For once, I’m glad my cousin is an incompetent git.  If they’d succeeded,
we’d be dead.”

“Hey,
we’re alive!”  I made jazz hands, and he stared at me in bewildered
confusion. 

“And
for that,” he told me, “I am grateful.”  Riven slowed as we arrived at my
room, and he kindly opened the door for me.  “More than you know.”

“
Cause
I saved your sorry fey skin?”  I teased as I
stepped through.

Instead
of wishing me goodbye,
Riven
came in after me and shut
the door behind us. 
Us vs. the worlds
, I thought sadly.

He
nodded for me to sit down next to the fireplace, then gestured at it.  A
blast of heat hit me as the fire exploded into life.  He planted himself
in the chair opposite me.  “My emotional control is shoddy.  I’m
easily distracted.”  He flexed his hand.  “It’s bizarre.  My fey
self is back, but the human-ness is still there.  I can’t believe I
changed that much that quickly… I mean, I was in the human realm, what, less
than a week?”  He shook his head in disgust.

“Something
like that.  I’m sorry.”  It had been five days.  No wonder
Exiles blended in so quickly when they arrived.

He
sighed, rubbing his hands on his face as if to wake himself up.  “It’s not
your fault.  I’m the one who swore to protect you in the first place.”

“Why
did
you swear?”

He
rolled his shoulders and leaned back.  “I’ve had quite a bit of time to
think about that.  It’s rather a long explanation… remind me to tell you
one day.” 

I
added it to the list of questions accumulating inside my head.  I lowered
my voice and switched to English.  “Is Jack’s fix holding up?”

“Completely. 
The outside doesn’t help the inside, though,” he concluded, frustration clear
in his voice.  “Losing control like this is embarrassing.  Yet, it’s
not as if it’s for nothing.  If we are forced to return you pre-emptively
to the human world, you would be even more defenseless than you are here with
me.” Riven got to his feet to pace the room.

“If
I have to go through the portal, I can come back.  Just with a bit of
hiking.  And Jack will watch out for me, too,” I reassured him.

“A
bit of hiking almost killed us both last week. And Jack’s not me.”  He
cocked his head as if he just heard what he said, and a faint smile softened
his eyes.  “Humans are possessive, territorial creatures, aren’t they?”

I
couldn’t help but grin.  “Oh, sure, blame it on the human-side of
you.  ‘The devil made me do it’.  I’ve read enough Azry history to
know the fey are
just
as bad about it.”

“Written
by Exiles trying to slander their home,” Riven countered, meeting my
eyes.  Reflexively, I licked my lips.  Someone needed to slap me back
to my senses before I did something we both regretted.

“You’re
saying that you don’t fight over land?”  I faked shock, rising to my feet.
 His restless pacing made sitting still impossible. “But what about all
those glorious talents the
atsili
have, oh, what will they do with them
now that the fey love to share with each other?”  I mean
, I
was
into him, but that was strictly in my own head.  Unless Jack had ratted me
out?  No, Jack would cut his tongue out before he ever encouraged Riven in
that way.

I
looked my Bad Idea right in his indigo eyes and held my ground.  We stood
in a Mexican standoff for a long moment, then Riven gently stepped
forward.  “I’m sure I’ll find a use for my talents.  I’ll have plenty
of opportunities… my life is going to be interesting now, thanks to you.” 
He was calculating something and there was mischief in his eye.  Mischief
was a good look on him.

“How
interesting?”  I asked.  “Good interesting?”  Focusing was
difficult with him this near to me. 
Was it
mischief?  Or
something else? 

“You tell me” he said, leaning in as if he smelled
something good, gently lifting my chin.  I closed my eyes, willing my heart
rate to go down.  Right then, I was pretty sure he could feel it against
his skin, and he didn’t need that sort of encouragement.  Hell,
I
didn’t
need that sort of encouragement.  He smelled slightly smoky, even in his
fresh clothes, and he was warm.  Before I knew it, powerful warmth was
radiating through my body, and I realized he was channeling his magic. 

I savored it.  Eventually, I opened my eyes. His
face was barely a foot from mine, so close I could feel his breath.  He
was waiting for something.  I had no idea what fey courtship rituals were,
and I needed to stop indulging this fantasy of mine.  Meanwhile, the part
of my brain that was responsible for cognition ran a loop of ‘Warning, Warning
Will Robinson’.

Instead, I gently took his face in my hands, closed my
eyes, and kissed him softly on the lips.  My heart was beating so fast it
felt like it would break my ribs.  I opened my eyes again, hoping that I
hadn’t just made a horrible human fool of myself.  I’d probably broken half
a dozen fey social norms.

In answer,
Riven
grabbed both
sides of my waist and dived in for a passionate, deeper kiss.  I savored
every second of sensation.  Had our hormones completely overrun our common
sense? I stretched my arms around his neck, enjoying the soft skin of his neck
and his smell.  Our enthusiasm increased.  I ran my hands over the
muscles in his back, over the tips of his ears, while he gripped my hips hard
and our kiss grew more sensual.  Physically, he was eager but clumsy, but
made up for it with magic.  Warmed from head to toe, and I couldn’t tell
or care if he was actually controlling it or not.  We were both losing
ourselves to the moment, and at least one of us should have cared.

We might have hurtled our way into bed, if Julip
hadn’t entered.  Seeing our embrace, her eyes just about fell out of her
head.  Her mouth fell open as she choked back a shriek, then immediately
slammed the door shut.

I immediately broke down giggling, shattering the
spell before our heads got any more befuddled.  “Oh my god,” I wheezed,
still giddy.  “I can’t even… her face…”

“She’s probably never seen that before,” he answered
frankly, not
quite
as amused as I was.  Still breathless, his ears
were turning pink.

“Art?  Theater?  Anything?”  I asked
incredulously.

Now it was his turn to look utterly shocked. 
“Public portrayals of intimacy?”

I couldn’t help it.  His expression had me
laughing so hard I started to feel lightheaded.  “We can talk about that
some other time.  It’s an important part of human culture.”  Breathing,
I had to focus on that.

“I do need more information on human courtship
rituals.”  He nodded to
The Complete Works
on my desk.  “I had
heard it was full of great romances, but I found most of the lovers either
foolish, idiotic, or cowardly.”

“You read all of
Complete Works?
”  I
asked, incredulous.

“The vocabulary was exceedingly challenging. 
It’s one way I improved my English beyond basic usage.”

“Ah.  Well, that’ll do it.”

He paused, glancing at the door.  “I should
probably go,” he sighed.  “If I stay here, others might infer that…”

I nodded.  “Okay.  I get it.”

He smiled apologetically as he left and shut the door
behind him.

My heart was still racing, and all I wanted to do was chase
him down and find out where those kisses could lead.  I hadn’t been this
ridiculous since I was a teen.

But lucky for me, I also had a brain attached to my
hormones.  He may have been onboard with getting attached to a
gatewright.  His family, however, thought I was just some lowly
human.  Knowing teenage girls and gossip, I had little hope Julip would
keep what she’d seen a secret.  I just prayed it wouldn’t have any
consequences for Riven.

Thanks
to Julip’s unfortunate entrance, I didn’t see Riven for two days
straight.  Julip told me stiffly that he had been sent away to inspect
boundaries of the territory. I failed to be invited to breakfast with the
family again, but received a generous helping delivered to my door. 
Julip, to my exasperation, refused to look me in the eye.  So, naturally,
I insisted on daily tours of the grounds.  As soon as I sensed her warming
up to me again, I wheedled her into teaching me Anowir characters.  I
couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in more of a prison than protective
custody.

The
rest of the time, I relaxed next to the fireplace in the oddly-shaped recliners
that reminded me of the bastard child of IKEA and a camping chair.  I kept
the fire burning.  I told myself that it was practically winter, and I
didn’t have any matches to re-start it, but it was Riven’s fire.  He’d
started it for me, and I wasn’t about to let it go out.

 Choosing
a play from Shakespeare to begin had been difficult… It was a close call
between
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and one of the shipwreck plays (
Twelfth
Night, Pericles,
etc), and as I read Titania’s metered speeches, I wondered
if Shakespeare’s muse had been fey.   Wouldn’t that throw scholars
for a loop?

Each
night, after dinner alone in my room, I amused myself by trying to open a gate
without extreme stress. I focused on the gates late in the evening in case the
other side was populated. My hands buzzed, but that was it.

When
I finally did see Riven, a ‘chance’ meeting in the gardens, he was utterly
poised and showed no hint of emotion.  My heart sank, and I stuck to
reading
King Lear
and
Hamlet
afterward.  Good plays, high
body counts. 

The
good news was that it upset me enough to make a proper gate.  Burning with
frustration, I finally broke through after an hour of trying to push myself
through the worlds.  As the wicked prickling danced through my body, I
stumbled out of Azry…. and almost into a yellow slide. The dim back porch light
of the modern two-story house not far off illuminated the swing set and a sandbox.
 Light from their dining room poured through the picture window, and I
could make out a father trying to convince a small child to eat something, by
his waving of the spoon.  The rest of the dining room table was hidden
from me, and I hesitated before returning to Azry.  Had my life looked
like this, before my father had left?  I carefully stepped back into the
realm where I was supposed to be but didn’t belong.

Closing
the gate was my next challenge. I spent most of the night nervously glancing at
the door, praying Julip had no reason to check in on me.  I’d never had
time to examine a gate before, and I took advantage of the opportunity, poking
it from every angle.  The surface was a dark blue, reflecting little
light, giving it a matte finish.  A good thing; I didn’t want the family
to look out their window and panic.

Passing
my hand in and out of the gate made my flesh tingle down to the bone, but never
as badly as creating the gate in the first place.  I attempted to gently
touch the edge, unsure of whether it would instantly cut me, but the air
thickened around the border, making the edge itself impossible to touch. I
tried pushing harder.  My eyes widened in awe as I pushed the gate
wider.  I tried to capture the feeling, the odd pressure against my
hand.  Was this the answer to creating gates?  Turning away, I closed
my eyes and pushed, ever so gently, trying to remember the exact sensation,
trying to combine that sensation with the intention and force of my jumping
exercises.  My hand tingled wildly, and I cracked open one eye and beheld
the tiniest, cutest portal I could imagine.  It was perhaps the size of my
hand.  I
got
it!
 
Thrilled, I made two more of the
miniature portals, grinning at them stupidly.

There
was
still
the matter of closing the gates.  Jack had been right, it
was harder to repair something than to break it, but at least I knew
what
I
was trying to repair instead of waving a metaphorical stick hoping there was a
piñata somewhere out there that would crack open a gate.  Pulling at the
seams worked, but it was a long process that felt like a massive tug of
war.  Every time I relaxed my mental grip, the portal started slipping
back toward its widest point.  Eventually, I yanked it shut with a grunt,
wiping sweaty hair off my face.  My hands were numb with buzzing by the
time I finished closing my tiny gates.  Closing the largest one took the
last of my energy, and for a frightening moment, I feared I wouldn’t be able to
close it at all.  “You’re dead if they find this,” I reminded myself, and
hauled on the edges for all I was worth.  Pure relief flooded me when I
finally managed to seal it shut.

I’d
gotten a solid night of sleep after Riven’s kiss, but not since then. 
Even my inexplicable exhaustion from gatewrighting didn’t help fend off the
nightmares.  Forging portals must draw on some other ability. 
Magic?  Something intrinsic to being a gatewright?

The
next morning, the fourth since I’d arrived at Peregare, Julip handed me a note
with my breakfast tray.  “It’s from Master Vaal.”

Humans
demand your safe return.  We leave tomorrow.  This will conclude my
oath to protect you.

Riven’s
handwriting was comically poor.  “Well, that’s cold,” I muttered, and read
Macbeth. 
I hoped his tone would be different with me if we ever
got the chance to speak in person.  Wait, could we?  Walls and doors
shouldn’t matter to a gatewright.  That afternoon, I asked Julip to take
me on a detailed tour of the interior of the manor.  Getting the location
of Riven’s bedroom wasn’t the easiest or least awkward thing I could have done,
and Julip was certainly suspicious when she bid her farewell.  I think she
would have locked me in my room, if there had been a lock.

As
soon as Julip left, I changed into my own clothes, cracked a small gate into
the family’s backyard, and carefully sealed it behind me.  I gloated over
how easy opening gates had become… although just as uncomfortable. 
Carefully counting my steps, I passed through several backyards, squeezing
through a hedge to emerge on a residential road.  Leaves rustled in the
wind, their fallen brethren dancing down the quiet street.  Well-manicured
lawns surrounded the small houses, a humble suburbia that felt like home. 
No streetlights messed with my night vision, either.

“Young
lady, what on earth are you doing?”

My
breath caught, and I spun to find an elderly man, out for a walk with an
adorable pug, staring at me in bewilderment.  I was immensely glad I had
not
chosen to wear fey clothes, although my own human ones were permanently
stained from hiking.

“Um. 
Geocaching.” That sounded plausible, right?  At least I had my gender
working for me.  A young lady wandering the streets at night had a very
different connotation than a young man, and was much less likely to get the
cops called on me.

He
shook his head and nudged his dog forward along their walk.  “Best be
careful,” he called after me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Carefully
keeping an eye out for anyone else, I continued to count my steps diagonally
across the street and yet again in someone’s yard, clumsily crawling over a
fence to a construction site.  The frame of a home stood starkly against
the night sky, equipment frozen in mid-action until the morning.  Another
thirty steps and I thought I’d made it to Riven’s bedroom, but my calculations
were not exact.  My first attempt landed me in a closet, and then in a
hallway (luckily I closed that one
quickly
, pretty sure that was a
record).  That gave me my bearings, and I opened the last one in Riven’s
quarters.

I
popped out literally right in front of him, to the surprise of us both. 
Riven stumbled backward with a curse, hands flaring briefly, bracing himself
against a tall armchair.  The upholstery beneath his hands caught fire,
but he snapped his wrist at it and the flames died instantly.  He wasn’t
fast enough to stop it from smoking, and I grinned without mercy at him.

Riven
was not nearly as amused as I was.  “I assume you received my note,” he
told me in English.

I
left the gate open behind me.  I only had enough juice for closing two
more gates at most, and even that was a guess.  I raised my eyebrow at him
and crossed my arms.  “Yes,” I sighed.  “But what I’m here about has
nothing to do with that.”

He
rubbed his neck and smiled wanly.  “My mother is
furious. 
Not
quite angry enough to kill me, but it was a close call.  You must
understand, she still regrets mating with an Oradim
atsili
, and made
significant sacrifices to ensure I was only recognized by her bloodline and not
his.  She’ll be damned if I get involved with some human.”

Well,
that was not what I had been hoping to hear, and my cheeks reddened.  I’d
known his family wouldn’t be pleased, but I hadn’t expected him to take their
side so unapologetically.  Was it my fault?  Had I misread him? 
 “Well, I’m sure there are plenty of fey who won’t piss off your mom,” I
shot back.

Riven
scowled and switched to Anowir.  “What I’m trying to say is that I’m
not
trying to use you.  I’m trying to keep you
out
of fey politics,
which you know all too well tend to be fatal.”  He growled in
frustration.  “This humanity makes me impatient.  I shouldn’t have
brought attention to you as more than a victim.  I
know
better. 
It’s almost a violation of my oath to you.”

“Riven,
you will
always
be in fey politics.  You’ve got two goddamned
braids showing that.  There is literally no place in your life for
me.”  Were my eyes stinging?  Oh, hell no.  I hadn’t shed a tear
when I’d broken up with Shawn, and Riven and I had only shared a single kiss.
“If you just want a fuckbuddy, I’m probably the wrong person for it.” 
There.  I’d said it. 
Jack would be proud.

Riven
looked like I’d just stabbed him in the gut.  Shock turned to pain turned
to anger.  His mouth worked before he exploded in a slew of Anowir curses
I barely understood.  “You think I am trying to make you my whore? 
That I’m simply indulging human urges?  I’m not sure whether to pity you
for your world or be offended you would even
think
I would be capable of
doing such a thing to you.  Dammit, Jan, you think I share my magic with
just
anyone?
”

My
heart sunk.  I hadn’t meant to offend him.  I’d wanted to be clear
that anything lasting between us was beyond unrealistic, and it had come out
all wrong.  “Um.  I hoped it wasn’t the case,” I stammered
apologetically.  “But in all reality, I don’t see how this would
work.  I’m human at
best
.  You have a duty to your clan.”
 
An
awkward silence fell.  Words hung on the tip on my tongue.  If either
of us had half a brain, we’d forget that kiss ever happened.

Riven
searched my face, saddened by what he found there.  He approached me to
brush a stray hair out of my face. “I don’t regret it, Jan.  I regret
making you a target.  I’ll remember what it is to be fey, and to be
patient, to get you to safety.”  His mouth quirked in a smile. 
“Remember, I’m fey, ‘at best’.  My future is just as murky as yours.”

“That’s
my fault,” I lamented.

“Hardly. 
But first, I need to honor my promise to Jack.  You need to try to stop
your kind from lashing out.  We need to root out the fey who murdered Hazel,
Meadow, and the humans.  And
then
we test Jack’s accusations that
our justice system is corrupt.”

I
exhaled.  “That’s a lot.”

He
squeezed my hands, and bent in for a kiss that completely derailed any thought I
had.  Breaking off after only a moment,
Riven
rested his forehead against mine, and I could feel him struggling with his
self-control by his uneven breaths and clenched hands.  I felt my soul
warm, chasing all the cold out of my body.  “Hang in there with me. 
And shut the damn gate behind you!”

Happy,
relieved, but at the same time overwhelmed at the challenges facing both of us,
I reluctantly bade him goodbye, stepped through the gate into the construction
site, and closed it with a grunt behind me.

I
didn’t move for a good minute, savoring the memory of his touch and the feel of
his magic.  Every time I tried to take a step back from Azry I just got
myself in deeper.  My escape had turned into a desperate attempt to
return; my challenge for an oath from Riven had turned into his transformation;
now my simple arrival would make me the voice of the murdered.

Once
I felt my head clear enough to concentrate on my surroundings, I cautiously
made my way back to my bedroom.  It took me an exhausting, nerve-wracking
ten minutes to close the gate.  I slept soundly, however, and woke with
more confidence than I had any of the other nights.

We
left the next morning, and I endured Riven’s cold demeanor with significantly
more confidence.  What we hadn’t said cheered me as much as what we
had
said.  Neither of us were willing to stay away from each other, but at
least we accepted there were significant challenges. 
Kusay Vaal, not
Riven,
Jack had said.  But what if they were one and the same?