Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm) (13 page)

The owner of the bare feet was a small bundle of energy of about seven full seasons, her blue-gray eyes lighting up with delight and curiosity at the sight of him.

There was a hint of her grandmother in the shape of those eyes, in the glints of red in her bouncing chestnut curls and in the bright wonder in her face. More of it in the fact that they obviously couldn’t keep shoes on her. Dorovan allowed himself a small smile as she tilted her head to look at him.

“You’re an Elf,” she said, wisely. “You’re a secret. I’m not supposed to tell.”

With a chuckle and a nod, he said, “Yes, yes and yes.”

Her gaze went to his shoulder. He still wore his harness and his swords; he’d been in the process of taking them off.

“You have swords.”

“I do,” he said, watching her as he shrugged them off his shoulders.

Tilting her head at him, those big steel blue eyes wide, twisting on one foot, she said, “Can I touch one?”

“Just one?”

She looked at him gravely. “The long one would be too heavy.”

“It would. I’m Dorovan,” he said, already enraptured. He’d seen her before of course, when she’d been little more than a baby but not recently. “And you would be Ailith.”

It meant ‘light’ in the old tongue and she was a light that was certain.

Sweet Selah’s daughter.

This one wasn’t quiet, like her gentle mother - she had the warmth, fire and energy of her grandmother.

Her eyes studied him and then she smiled. “Yes.”

Drawing his short sword he held it out to her, watched her take it in her small hands, the weight of it heavy.

“You teach people to use a sword?” she asked.

He nodded.

Looking at him with her head tilted, she said, “Would you teach me?”

She wouldn’t ask if she didn’t wish it, he understood this.

Dorovan’s eyebrows lifted, as did his heart. She was a charmer - this one - full of curiosity and mischief.

“Fetch the fireplace poker,” he said. “And we’ll see if the sword is for you.”

She ran over, ran back with it and before he asked, took it in a two-handed grip without being told.

Dorovan was delighted.

“You’ve been watching,” he said. Probably the guards and the Hunters at the castle.

Nodding sharply, she said, “Yes.”

It was clearly her favorite answer. There were no doubts, no fears in this one, she wanted to try everything, do everything.

Carefully, he adjusted her stance a little. “Like so.”

Being careful not to move out of it, she looked around then shifted her little body to get the feel of it before her blue eyes lifted to his and she nodded - her smile brilliant as she understood.

Delae walked in the door and her heart caught with both wonder and love at the sight, her throat tight as she watched them together. She’d known with that empathy they shared that Dorovan had been completely engrossed, enthralled, but at what she hadn’t known, nor that Ailith had arrived.  That last had obviously been meant as a surprise and everyone had kept it.

There was that about Ailith that folk did such things.

Now she watched them, young Ailith a perfect mirror to Dorovan as he walked her through the movements of what he called the ‘forms’, as he’d taught Delae herself all those years ago.

For a moment her eyes burned, before she leaned a shoulder against the door to just watch them in silence. If there was grief in her for what she couldn’t tell Dorovan, she buried it deep beneath the joy, the pleasure of watching them together, child and Elf. His granddaughter.

Whatever else, that child was the best of all of them. She could see touches of herself and Telerach in her, in the glints of red and gold in Ailith’s chestnut hair, of them and Dorovan in the color of her eyes and now, mirroring his movements, Dorovan’s grace, his strength and her father, Geric’s. There was a stillness to her, too, that Selah must have inherited by way of Dorovan and passed down to her daughter. 

Ailith became aware of her first and came running, putting the fireplace poker carefully aside first, to Dorovan’s approving nod. “Delae! Look who I found!”

It was so like Ailith, as if she’d discovered an unknown country all by herself.

“I see you’ve met, again,” Delae said, her gaze lifting to meet Dorovan’s, her friend of the heart.

As always, she saw the love there and if it wasn’t the depth of the soul-bond he sought, she could give him this much, everything she had. Including this. It seemed to be enough.

It was enough and more than enough for her.

“He’s teaching me how to use a sword,” Ailith said, excitedly - her little face aglow.

“I saw,” she said. “You couldn’t have a better teacher. He taught me.”

Coming up to her, Dorovan slid an arm around her. “She’s a natural, Delae.”

She gave him a look askance and then Ailith, seeing the question in both their eyes. “Yes, you can keep teaching her but Ailith it must be a secret. Promise me you won’t tell your parents.”

“I know, Delae,” Ailith said, almost in disgust, then she grinned and tried to hug them both.

It was a wonder to him. Curled up in bed around Delae, drawing his beloved friend-of-the-heart into his arms, Dorovan said, in astonishment, “I’ve never had a student as gifted.”

It was his second year teaching Ailith and he was finding more reasons to visit than just to see his beloved Delae, as much as his friend-of-the-heart eased his soul and delighted him. There was Ailith, now, too, her joy and her wonder, her passion and curiosity, her intensity. Her focus. At first he’d been enchanted and charmed but love had come almost instantly on their heels, just to see the expression in Ailith’s quick, intelligent eyes, the brightness she’d inherited from Delae.

A little surprised, Delae looked at him. “But you teach Elves.”

“I know,” he said, “but even among my folk, there are those who simply have the talent. I was one, but Ailith…she’ll be much more.”

His eyes went distant.

“For her blood,” he said, in stunned astonishment, “she could be a Master Swordsman.”

So few men truly cared to learn the sword, counting on their numbers more than skill. It was skill, though, that had saved Dorovan’s race.

Just at the thought, at the responsibility of it, his breath caught.

“Like Elon of Aerilann?” Delae asked, startled.

Slowly, he nodded. “Like him. Like his true-friend, Colath.”

Bright shadow to Elon of Aerilann’s dark, with Colath at his side the two elves were legendary for their sword work, Delae knew. Dorovan had mentioned Elon before. Now as advisor to the High King, the new Council and teamed with the human wizard Jareth, they were a force to be reckoned with.

“That good?” Delae said, a little awed.

He nodded.

Slowly he rolled her over onto her back. Even now with silver threaded thickly through the rich fire of her hair, she was lovely to his eyes, he thought as he pierced her. Her eyes and her smile widened as she sighed with pleasure. She wrapped her legs around him as he pressed deep into her.

“I love the feel of you, Delae,” he breathed, stroking into her, shifting his hips to feel every inch.

“Do you?” she whispered, her body shifting to take him.

She wasn’t questioning, wasn’t searching for validation - she simply echoed the emotion in him. She smiled as she always did when he filled her, her body arching as pleasure rushed through her as his own ecstasy emptied into her.

“I love this,” she sighed, trembling.

As did he. She was a delight and a joy to him.

Steel clashed and rang through the forest, the sound oddly musical, especially when done this way, moving from the forms to sparring. It was pure pleasure for Dorovan to do this with Ailith, especially to watch the laughter in her eyes, to see the delight she took in the movement of sword against sword. She had grown, and not just in age, but in skills. It was such a pleasure to watch.

“Watch,” Dorovan cautioned in Elvish and she rolled her eyes, not in consternation, but at herself.

“Forgot,” she said, in the same tongue. “I don’t get to spar with anyone the likes of you much, Dorovan.”

“Hmmm,” he said, amused. “It’s a problem. Don’t get careless Ailith. Ah and your grandmother told me to tell you that you’d best come up to visit her, too.”

There was a hesitation in Ailith’s next stroke that was uncommon in her.

“Speak,” he said, fairly certain he knew what it was that troubled her, “there is nothing you cannot ask me, Ailith.”

“You love Delae,” she said.

He nodded. “More than my life.”

It was no more than the truth, if it came to that.

A breath went out of her. “But it’s not a soul-bond.”

“No,” he said, stepping back and away.

It was too serious a discussion for sparring.

“If I could have that with Delae, I would,” he said with a sigh, “but I can’t.”

He did wish it.

With a nod, Ailith put up her sword, too, to come sit beside him on the rock.

“Because she’s not Elf?”

Dorovan took a breath and shook his head. “No. I can’t explain it. I know what I have with Delae is a true bond, just not a soul-bond although I love her deeply. So it’s not that. With a soul-bond, it’s…different… In what way I don’t know, as I haven’t found mine, it just isn’t. But know this, I love Delae deeply and her company stands in place of that bond.”

“I know,” Ailith said, clearly more at ease.

“And I love you too, little one,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead in a rare show of affection.

She was growing so fast, as all children did, Elf or man. In a way, it pained him. He wished to keep her young, keep her safe. It would be hard to watch her grow old and die as he watched Delae age.

“Thanks, Dorovan,” she said, “I love you, too.”

“I know,” he said, mimicking her tone.

She smiled.

“Forms?” he said and she jumped down from the stone.

They took up position side by side, moving nearly as one, smoothly, from guard to attack, from parry to thrust, in the rhythm of the forms.

Riding to Delae’s homestead, Dorovan had felt an odd…presentiment…a shadow of sorts. Although some Elves had stronger magic, Dorovan knew he had only such as all Elves were born with, the strength and resilience of his body, the empathy of their race, the ability to create Elven lights in the darkness, and a trace of Healing. His own truest magic was in his skill with his swords, in his ability to pass those skills on to others. Like Ailith.

He had no ability to foresee…and yet…

Now he delighted in Delae’s body, in the pleasure she took from him and what he took from her, in her quick responsiveness, in the way her body trembled and quivered. He loved the taste and the feel of her.

The feel of his long silky hair brushing over her stomach as his mouth did wonderful things to her drove all thought from Delae’s mind as heat built within her and her breath came short. Her body went limp, twitching helplessly at the touch of his tongue, his warm mouth on her.

Her hands fell away as her body quivered.

Dorovan surged up, impaling her on him and she cried out, locking around him as she trembled wildly, her body closing around him, stroking him. With a cry of his own he poured into her, shuddering, his body rigid as he emptied himself into her.

It had been true when Ailith had asked it and it was true now. If he could have had a soul-bond with Delae, no matter what race she was, he would have.

Curling around her, he drew her body close to his. So precious to him, this life.

“Ailith is troubled,” Delae said.

Nodding, worried himself, Dorovan said, “You are, too.”