Page 49 of Taken to Lemora
“Nob, you can’t,” she snaps back petulantly — it’s something I would do.
I plant my hands on my hips, then throw them up in the air. If I could get across and scale the damn walls, I already would’ve. My horns are on ohring fire, but chills wrack my body, making me shiver. I’ve never felt so terrible. I’msick. I’ve never been sick.
“Merquin!” I shout and I shake my right fist up at the small Eshmiri globe illuminating the upper landing. “I need you! You have to talk to me. You’re my best friend! Well, aside from Gorman, and right now I feel like everyone is lying to me. Or ignoring me. Do you know that I went to the ohring pad pad stables and the stable master wouldn’t give me one!Me! The ohring clan chief!”
I would have raged against the stable master, but she’s Rekkaru and I could seriously hurt her and I don’t want to hurt anyone.
I don’t want to hurt anyoneelse.
Not anymore. Never again.
Merquin’s chuckle greets me before she says loudly, “You hardly deserve the title.”
“I know.” My organs all feel enlarged. Too big for my body, they’re pushing against my brittle bones. I stoop, having to catch myself on my knees. I say as loud as I can, “I hurt my mate, Merquin.”
There’s a pause and a voice that is not Merquin’s but her mate’s says, “We know. We saw the bruises. And then we heard this solar you were keeping her prisoner.”
“The bruises, I took her freedom, I insulted and neglected her, I…I’m hardly better than Tyto!” Still better, but hardly.
Silence. It’s harder this time. The lunar has fallen around us and is deepening quickly and I just want to see her, to lower my horns to the ground at her feet and promise her the world if it just means she’ll talk to me again. And if she promises never to call me master. And if she promises to stop running from me, but just tell me where she’ll be so I can know she’s okay, even if she asks me not to join her. But I would. I’d go anywhere she wanted to be if it means I can just be with her.
“And?” Librida draws the word out. I don’t understand.
“What?”
“And what do you plan to do about it?”
“Give up!” I roar. “She is miriga. She makes the rules. And I will have to learn to trust that she’ll make rules possible for me to follow.”
“Unlike your rules.”
“Yeffa.” I wince, thinking about all the ways I tried to curb or stop her from living. “That’s why she makes them from now on.”
“Does she know that?”
“Nob, you silly female! That’s why I’m here! To tell her!”
More silence. I hear murmuring up above, but it isn’t distinct. A moment later and I hear a loud cranking and a dull creaking. The heavy wooden drawbridge groans as it lowers and I have to step back to avoid getting crushed by it. Merquin and Librida appear on the platform, an Eshimiri globe floating just behind them. It burns a slightly whiter color than the orange we’re used to, a sign that the new oil is working.
Librida strides purposefully towards me, her hands clasped in front of her robes. Even though Merquin looks like she wants to impale me — and she’d have every right to — she’s waved off by Librida who moves to the very edge of the drawbridge and gives me a stern, sad look with her large, black eyes.
“You know that youdodeserve her, Raingar. You didn’t think you deserved to be clan chief, either. but there’s a reason you are. I can see it, the clan chiefs see it, even Essmira sees it. You should hear how highly she speaks of you. It drives Merquin crazy.
“When Merquin first approached me with questions of courtship, I wasn’t half as open as Essmira is to you. You’re already her hero. You got her out of a bad situation. It’s clear you already love her. You just need to show her that you respect her, too. That you trust her.”
“I know…I just…It’s hard…”
“Nob, Raingar. It isn’t. You just don’t trustyourself. You know that you are good enough for her. You know that your position as clan chief is earned. There is no clan chief kinder to their village or more helpful. You consider everything. You made sure to negotiate Walrey honey for Moreth even though its healing properties are only experimental. Your actions are what show that your village can’t do better for a clan chief. Show her through your ohring actions, Raingar, that she can’t do any better for a mate.”
I cringe through her explanation. I hate praise. I hate when the focus is on me. I hate having totry. I don’t know how to try. But…I do know how todo. I can show her things. I know what she likes, at least a little. I can do this.
“I am the chief of my clan. I can do anything,” I tell the two females — two beings that I trust more than any others in the galaxy. Well, aside from Gorman.
And Tana and Reyna and Bebette.
And a host of others.
Pagh! I trust them all equally. And Librida’s right. I trust Essmira, too. Is the only being Idon’ttrust in the whole of Lemorame? Ohring stars, Essmira’s right. I am an idiot.
