Ekatya disconnected her harness, hung her crash collar over the control stick, and turned in her seat. “Now. What’s wrong?”

  Tal looked up from hanging her own crash collar. “Nothing is wrong. Isn’t this a date? I want to get out there and see this.” She reached for the door release, but her other wrist was caught.

  “Something is bothering you about Micah. Tell me.” Ekatya’s fingers slipped down.

  Tal watched them tangle with her own, sensed the concern, and knew she would not let this go. “If I tell you, I’ll sound like a pre-Rite child.”

  Ekatya waved her other hand, indicating their surroundings. “Do you see anyone here who would judge you?”

  “When you put it that way . . .” She gave up. “Micah is, ah, distracted.”

  “With Alejandra.” Understanding flowed through their touch.

  “It was fine at first. He asked about the possible issues, we discussed it, I gave my blessing.”

  “Your political blessing, or your personal one?”

  Startled, Tal met her eyes. “Political.”

  “Has he asked for your personal blessing? Would he need to?”

  “He’s a family elder. Blessings are given from the top down, not the bottom up. He can do whatever he wants.” She congratulated herself on keeping the bitterness from her voice.

  “But you’re a higher rank and he reports to you. In a way, you are an elder.”

  Perhaps she hadn’t been as successful as she’d thought. “It’s—I hate it,” she burst out. “He asked about joining, Ekatya. Not courting. He’s in love and I want to be happy for him, but it feels as if he’s forgotten me outside his duties. He’s spending every free tick with her, or talking to her on the com, or—” She tossed up her free hand in exasperation. “I never see him anymore. Not for leisure time. He turned down my last two invitations for a drink. I can hardly remember what his quarters look like.”

  “That’s why you’re working so hard,” Ekatya said, realization sparking from her skin. “Salomen is buried in plantings and mostly at Hol-Opah this moon—”

  “And she’s nurturing her own bond with Lhyn. Which is exactly what I want,” she hastened to add. “She needs it, and I cannot be there as often as I’d wish. But when I missed her the most, I’d always go to Micah.”

  “Oh,” Ekatya murmured. She looked around, then gave a brisk nod. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “All right.” Startled by the shift and unaccountably disappointed, Tal opened her door.

  The silent cocoon of their cockpit gave way to the roar of thirty-two waterfalls, distracting her from gloomy thoughts. She swung her legs out and stood on the top rung of the ladder, staring in wonder.

  The caldera walls were even more majestic from here, rising a thousand strides before disappearing in the mist. The waterfalls originated three hundred strides below that, even the smallest ones glorious in their height. The largest were outright breathtaking as they tumbled down the walls. Between them, enormous trees clung to the rocks, waving gracefully in the breeze. Sparks of white, yellow, and at least four shades of blue shone through the greenery, each a flowering tree or shrub making the most of the plentiful moisture.

  Tal thought she could faintly sense the collective satisfaction of this lush growth. Feeling better already, she filled her lungs with heavy, fragrant air and felt as if the clouds had sealed them in. They were the only living beings on this entire mountain.

  Looking down, she realized that the caldera floor hosted an entirely different set of plants: short, fleshy, and adapted to arid soil. Unable to benefit from the water percolating through the porous walls, they depended solely on the rainfall that reached them.

  Ekatya appeared at the bottom of the ladder, a pack slung over one shoulder. “Are you going to stand there all day?”

  She tapped the control to seal the door and climbed down. As soon as she stepped off the last rung, Ekatya dropped the pack and pulled her into a warmron.

  “This is why I wanted to be outside,” she said.

  Tal rested their heads together, enjoying the peace and the soothing sound of falling water. “I thought you were done with the conversation.”

  “I was done with being limited to holding your hand.” She tightened her embrace. “I’m used to tucking my face into Lhyn’s throat. You and I fit differently. I like it, though.”

  “Salomen said that was one of the first things that attracted her to Lhyn.”

  “Different fit?”

  “And being able to tuck her face in.”

  “Not to mention being able to thoroughly understand her.”

  With a chuckle, Tal pulled back, her palms sliding down Ekatya’s arms. They stood a pace apart, hands held loosely between them. “Salomen understands me because we share our emotions. She understands Lhyn because they share a brain.”

  “Isn’t that the truth and a half. But we do, too. You know me better than anyone in the universe.”

  She took an inordinate pride in that. “Does it feel to you as if this was meant to be? Each of us with a partner we love for their differences, and one we love for the similarities?”

  “I’m not one to believe in . . . fate or Fahla, isn’t that the phrase? But it’s true that there’s a ridiculous amount of symmetry in our bonds. Salomen was right about the balance.” Ekatya lifted their hands. “This would never have happened if she and Lhyn hadn’t found each other.”

  Tal nodded. It was simply fact. No matter how deep the attraction, no matter that they held an actual tyree bond, they could not have hurt their bondmates.

  “I’m sorry about Micah. If it helps, I’m feeling a little abandoned by Alejandra, too.” A flicker of wry humor was quickly pushed aside by empathy. “She’s a good friend, and she’s healing from a very old wound. I’m happy for her, but I can see how hard this is for you.”

  Tal let go and stepped away, arms wrapped around her waist as she gazed up at the waterfalls. “It shouldn’t be hard for me. I should be as glad for him as you are for Alejandra, but I cannot find that in my heart. What does that make me? An ungrateful, selfish—”

  “Perfectly normal Alsean with understandable feelings.” Ekatya moved up beside her. “Micah is the one being selfish right now. But he’s earned it, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, of course. He’s earned all the happiness in the world! I don’t know why—” She blew out a frustrated breath and shook her head.

  Ekatya slid a hand across her lower back and settled it on the curve of her hip. She was not judging. She was simply there, providing comfort as they both watched the falling water.

  Tal relaxed against her, uncrossing her arms and matching Ekatya’s gesture. As warmth spread through her from shoulder to hip, she felt something unwind.

  “I might know why,” Ekatya offered quietly. “Deep down, does your heart believe he’s replacing Realta?”

  That had not occurred to her.

  “He’s had his share of lovers,” she said after a long pause. “I never gave any of them a second thought. They were here and gone. But when he brought up Alejandra in our sparring session, I knew she was different. He was different. Goddess above, am I truly such a child? To resent him for letting someone take my mother’s place?”

  Though there was no space between them, Ekatya pulled her closer. “A wise woman once said we can’t apologize for our emotions because we can’t help what we feel.”

  “That wise woman isn’t feeling up to her usual standards at the moment.”

  “Good thing she doesn’t need to worry about that here.” She let go and turned. “Tell me something. Am I taking Salomen’s place?”

  Tal frowned. “Obviously not.”

  “Because you love me in a different way,” she said with a knowing nod. “And you can’t take Lhyn’s place because I love you both in different ways. These bonds we’re building—they’re additions, not replacements. Micah can’t ever replace your mother. But he can have a different love.”

  The waterfalls seemed to grow louder as Tal stared at her.

  “I’ll need time for that to settle,” she said at last. “But you’ve probably hit the target in the red zone.”

  “Good. Then let’s set that aside for now.” Ekatya reached for her hands. “You said he’s earned all the happiness in the world. You’ve earned it, too. I think, maybe, so have I.” She lifted their hands and stepped forward to hold them against her chest. “Andira, I’m here. Right here.”

  They were alone at the bottom of a volcano, surrounded by waterfalls that might be gone next nineday. It was a unique moment in a unique place, and Ekatya had arranged it just to stand in front of her and say two words loaded with meaning.

  Tal gently detached her hands, sliding them up and over Ekatya’s shoulders to meet at the back of her neck. The fabric was Alsean, the skin Gaian—but the heart and soul beneath that? She thought they might be more Alsean than not.

  “I never believed you’d be here,” she said.

  “I’ve given up trying to predict what will happen with us. Any of us.” Ekatya held her by the waist, neither pulling her closer nor pushing her away. She had spoken her truth and was simply waiting.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Tal confessed. “I don’t know how to let go. It’s like the first time I sparred with a sword.”

  This close, she saw the smile in Ekatya’s eyes before it reached her lips. “Oh, do tell.”

  “They set us up in pairs with wooden practice swords. Every move was choreographed. There were four instructors watching us, ready to correct any wrong move we made. I desperately wanted to get through the lesson without being corrected.”

  The smile grew. “That sounds like you. How old were you?”

  “Six.”

  “Are there images? You must have been adorable.”

  “I have a few. You could probably see more if you bribed Micah.”

  “Noted. Go on, I’m enjoying the mental picture.”

  Her emotional signature was a study in contrasts: heavy desire and expectation, buoyant delight at hearing this childhood story. They seldom spoke of their distant pasts, Tal realized. There were too many pressing things to discuss, too many plans to make, and far too little time. In truth, she knew more of Lhyn’s childhood than of Ekatya’s, thanks to Salomen relating the tales.

  This was what Salomen meant by balance. Not merely the physical, but also the deeper emotional knowing of each other, built up through shared stories and understanding.

  She brushed a thumb along the back of Ekatya’s neck. “When the lesson ended, I couldn’t let go of my sword. I had been holding it so tightly and for so long that my fingers didn’t remember how to loosen. One of the instructors had to put his hand over mine and tell me to relax. I was mortified,” she added. “All that effort to be perfect, and I needed a correction at the very end.”

  Ekatya’s thumbs were in motion as well, rubbing up and down her waist. “You didn’t need a correction. Just encouragement. Andira, you’re not doing anything wrong. Salomen planned this with me. She pushed you out the door. Lhyn wants us to catch up with them. We have both permission and consent. Or at least, you have my consent. Do I have yours?”

  “Yes,” Tal whispered, staring at her mouth. Even now, she couldn’t close the distance.

  Ekatya did it for her, leaning forward with no hesitation. Their lips brushed together so gently that it barely qualified as a kiss, yet Tal shivered with the power of it.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Fahla, no. I’m burning up.” She slid her hands down Ekatya’s back and pulled her closer.

  This kiss was more solid. It multiplied, then transformed as they began exploring each other, taking turns mapping jaws, cheekbones, throats. When Ekatya lifted her chin and bared her throat, Tal nibbled down its length and closed her teeth on the skin where a throat ridge would be.

  At the nudge of a memory, she let go and drew back.

  “What is it?” Ekatya was breathing hard, her pleasure saturating the air.

  “Something Salomen warned me about. Your skin, it’s . . . more delicate.” Gently, she rubbed the reddened spot. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mark you. I know it’s different in your culture.”

  “Mark me all you want.” Ekatya shrugged at her surprise. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I can’t keep clinging to rules that applied to an old life. I’m not in that life anymore. Or I’m only half in it. The other half is here.” She locked her wrists behind Tal’s neck and looked around with a broad smile. “In this beautiful place, with a beautiful woman who grew up in a culture where those marks mean something else. They’re not an embarrassment to you.”

  “But they are, ah . . .” Tal cleared her throat. “An announcement. Of a sort.”

  “It’s good to know you’re not always so articulate.”

  “Not when there’s a blood shortage in my brain. You don’t mind the announcement?”

  “That I’m wanted? Loved?” She shook her head.

  “But you were shocked that Salomen told the divine tyrees about the vase.”

  “Well, I’m not going to walk around my ship telling people why I have a mark. Or who gave it to me. Though Lhyn will love the assumptions they’ll make.”

  “It will do wonders for her reputation, won’t it?” Tal still couldn’t believe this was real. She had Ekatya in her arms and Salomen in her mind, both radiating happiness: Ekatya’s tinged with wonder, Salomen’s with the joy of fulfilled hopes.

  “Did Lhyn send you off with the same expectations Salomen did?” she asked.

  “She’s waiting for my report tonight. She’ll be disappointed when I tell her I didn’t mark you, too.” Her shining confidence clouded over. “Is that all right? Do you want—I don’t know where the lines are anymore.”

  Tal slipped her hands under the open jacket and held her at the waist, warm and vital and here. “It’s all right. I need the same time you do.”

  Relief loosened Ekatya’s restraint. “I think I’ve loved you since the battle with that first ground pounder. You directed your forces like you’d been fighting the Voloth all your life. Then you turned around and gave Lhyn exactly what she needed. How could I not love the woman who was both warrior and scholar?”

  “You couldn’t have loved me then. I’d have sensed it.”

  Her lips drifted down Tal’s throat. “Would you sense it if I didn’t recognize it?” she murmured. “If I didn’t let myself feel it?”

  “I—you’re making it difficult to think.”

  “Good.” She pulled back enough to meet her eyes. “Lhyn has a theory.”

  “When doesn’t she?”

  “When she’s sleeping,” they said in unison, breaking into chuckles.

  “She thinks that’s why I was so furious when you outmaneuvered me with the Caphenon. And when I thought you’d forced her. It wasn’t just anger on her behalf or mine. It was also the thought of being betrayed by someone I wanted to love.”

  Startled, Tal ran through her memories with a new filter in place. “She may be right. That would explain why you trusted me to Share with you after our challenge fight. If you look at that logically, with what you knew about me then . . .” Ekatya should never have trusted her so soon.

  “I had perfectly logical reasons for it. Or so I thought.” She pinned Tal with a knowing look. “How hard was that Sharing for you? Tell the truth.”

  “Physically exhausting. Emotionally? That wasn’t the worst one. The worst was the first time I connected you and Lhyn. To channel your love and know I could never have it—” She stopped, caught in an odd twist between remembered pain and the impossibility of what she held in her hands.

  Ekatya ran her fingertips along a cheekbone ridge. “You gave us such a gift. You’re the reason we survived that. I broke Lhyn’s heart. I didn’t have the tools to repair it. You did. It’s the most selfless thing anyone has ever done for me.” She looked up, her eyes full of warmth, and Tal could hardly breathe. “How are we both so lucky?”

  “I don’t know.” Tal gathered her close again, needing to feel the reality of her. “Finding Salomen was a gift from Fahla. Being allowed to love you both is—I think I need to go back to Blacksun Temple and light every rack in the place.”

  “I’ll want an image of that. Lanaril will be thrilled.”

  “Salomen will light them with me. Do you know what else she and Lhyn have in common? They both thought they weren’t lovable.”

  “Idiots,” Ekatya said affectionately. “But at least Lhyn found some comfort in the fact that she was proven wrong empirically.”

  That made them laugh hard enough that they had to let go of each other. When they recovered, Ekatya scooped up her pack. “I brought food. Let’s find a spot for midmeal.”

  “You can think about food?”

  “It’s not a date if we don’t eat something.”

  “By whose standards?”

  “Mine. We have to give a report to our bondmates, remember? They’ll expect a picnic.”

  “Is there a checklist?” Tal shook her head. “Never mind. If Lhyn had anything to do with it, there is.”

  She listened to Ekatya’s laughter, sensed her rare relaxation, and watched the ease of her movements as they walked side by side. Then she looked up, taking in the curving wall of waterfalls, and realized the wonderful truth.

  They needed to savor their limited time here. Such a chance would not soon come again.

  But they had all the time in the world to explore their bond.

  23

  Free and honorable

  Rahel stopped at the bottom of the imposing steps and looked up to the even more imposing columns framing the tribunal’s entrance. She had been here once before, a penitent signing documents that saved her from prison. Grateful as she was, the memory was not a good one. The forms had defined her crimes in dispassionate terms that made her sick. Adding her signature locked them to her caste record. She could work the rest of her life to atone, but those words would never be erased.