Page 77 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
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TAMIRA
The dining room was half full when Tamira arrived, and several of her usual companions were already gathered. Tony sat with Tula, the two of them engaged in an intense discussion about the genetics of offspring and the Russian roulette of what traits children inherited from their parents.
Tony had integrated well over the months, providing a fresh perspective and a glimpse into modern science. Still, Tamira thought that he was a little too full of himself, in a typical male fashion, and assumed that the six of them only appeared smart because they had thousands of years to accumulate information.
But Tula liked him, or at least tolerated him, probably wanting some semblance of normalcy in a place that was anything but.
"Good morning, sunshine," Liliat called out. "Although I use the term loosely since none of us has been outside for the past four days. The rains are brutal, and even when it's not raining, it's too hot and humid out there. I don't know how Elias gets out there each day and works in his garden."
"I saw sunshine less than an hour ago." Tamira took her usual seat. "It was radiating from my bed."
Raviki laughed. "My, we're poetic this morning. Your shaman must have hidden talents."
"Oh, his talents aren't hidden," Tamira said, accepting coffee from the serving girl with a nod of thanks. "He displays them quite openly and repeatedly."
"Scandalous," Sarah said with mock severity, though her eyes danced behind her unnecessary glasses. "What would Lord Navuh say?"
"Probably 'Good, maybe she'll finally conceive,'" Beulah said dryly. "Isn't that the point of allowing Elias up here? Fresh breeding stock that happens to be intelligent?"
The reminder sobered Tamira's mood.
Navuh had permitted the exception to his usual rules not out of kindness, concern for their happiness, or even to appease Lady Areana, but because he wanted more sons, and he wanted them to be smart, and none of his so-called concubines had conceived in many years.
"Well, if that's his goal, he chose well," Rolenna said. "I've never seen you so glowing, Tamira."
"I caught her humming in the library yesterday," Liliat said conspiratorially. "Humming! Our Ice Queen of Profound Melancholy, reduced to humming like a lovestruck girl."
"I am not an ice queen," Tamira protested. "Nor am I melancholy. And I'm certainly not a lovestruck girl."
She wasn't sure about the last part of her statement. It was hard not to fall for Elias. He was perfect except for lacking immortality, fangs, and venom.
"We all have our ways of coping with this existence," Sarah said sagely. "Yours was to build walls of elegant distance. It's been remarkable watching them crumble over the past week."
Sipping her coffee, Tamira considered Sarah's claim, which seemed to reinforce what Liliat had said before.
Had she really been so cold?
Looking back over recent centuries, she could see their point. She'd retreated into books, maintaining cordial but distant relationships even with her sisters in captivity. It was inevitable that it would happen, especially to a realist who had at some point realized that she would welcome death over this endless, purposeless existence.
If the mythology books she'd read were a true report of the gods' shenanigans, she could understand why they had acted the way they had. They'd been bored, just like she was, and they would have done anything and everything to alleviate that boredom, even if it meant playing with the lives of mortals and making them miserable.
Not that understanding meant she would have done the same. She would never stoop as low as harming others just to entertain herself.
"Elias makes me feel alive. For far too long, I've merely existed."
"That's beautiful," Sarah said. "And terrifying."
"Why terrifying?" Tony asked.
The women exchanged glances. How to explain the mathematics of immortal relationships with mortals without making the only mortal at the table acutely aware of his mortality?
"Because he's human," Tula said quietly. "In fifty years, seventy if he's exceptionally lucky, he'll be gone. Tamira will remain, carrying the memory of these moments of happiness and the pain of their loss."
They'd had this discussion before and would likely have it again. The cruel mathematics of immortality made every human connection an exercise in anticipated grief.
Tamira had sworn off such entanglements, determined to avoid the pain. But then Elias had walked into her life, bringing his careful smiles and hidden depths, and all her resolutions had crumbled like sand.
