In the rift, p.29
In The Rift,
p.29
We do what we have to do, she told herself. In war, when there are no right answers, no easy answers, we do the best we can.
We do what we have to do.
A gate opened on the other side of the clearing, and a dozen men and women stepped out. The first woman through wore ski pants and a nylon parka. The Watchmistress, Kate thought. The other human.
The woman looked around her and said, "Jesus Christ. What went wrong?"
Forty-three
We could use you here," Jayjay Bennington said. Kate sat in a comfortable chair next to a roaring fire, opposite the Watchmistress and her mate, Matthiall, a Kin with an easy smile and an infectious laugh. Matthiall laughed then. "Jay would love to have another human here with her. I think she gets lonely, even though she won't admit it."
Kate smiled, but it wasn't a smile she felt. "Glenraven is beautiful. And I'm sure I would make friends here, and . . ." She shrugged.
She wouldn't even pretend to consider the offer. She'd watched the hunting parties going out after the Rift closed, looking for stray monsters trapped in Glenraven. Kate thought of the thing she'd shot in her front yard and imagined running into another one. The parties went out on horseback, the hunters armed with longbows and magic. She listened to the rhythms of speech, to the easy talk of lords and ladies and oaths of fealty. She watched the people on the bottom of the system and realized that no matter how hard they worked, they couldn't rise above their state.
We've gone beyond all of that, she thought.
Jay said, "Yemus, the wizard who created that book you ended up with, took a trip back to our world. He figured out what Callion was doing—breeding half-Aregen children. He evidently intended to bring them back here and reestablish the Aregen race. But you wouldn't have to worry about that. Without him to bring them back, the kids will grow up never knowing what they are. They'll just be kids. Some of them might have real talent in magic, but so what? Other children have been born with the same talent on and off since the first outcasts arrived in our world. Maybe they'll do something good with their lives. Maybe they won't. But the world will keep on spinning."
"It always does that," Kate said.
Rhiana joined them, settling onto the hearth. "Val and I intend to take eyran vows after he buries his father," she said. "We'll claim ourselves to be bondmates before the Faldan Kin and the people of Ruddy Smeachwykke, and state that our marriage is political; we intend to unite Faldan and Ruddy Smeachwykke. The fact that we love each other can be for us to know."
"Your people will accept a political marriage but not a marriage for love?"
Rhiana shrugged. "Everyone will be able to see the benefits to themselves, so they'll swallow the distasteful fact that he's Kin and I'm Machnan. If they thought Val and I were the only ones to benefit from the union, they wouldn't accept it."
"It's an ancient world," Jay said. "It isn't perfect, any more than our world is perfect."
Kate stared into the fire, watching the tongues of flame dancing in sinuous arches between the blackened logs, watching sparks fly up the chimney and the soot on the stones in the back curl up and peel away, drawn upward with the sparks by the draft. She looked down at her hands, no longer bathed by blood, but reddened by the glow of the fire until they seemed to be.
We do what we have to do.
In spite of her fear, she had done exactly that. People lived because of her actions who would otherwise have died. Two worlds were safer. In Glenraven, she was a hero, with the promise of an income-producing estate of her own, title, and the knowledge that she was welcome. In her own world, no one would ever know what she had done, and even if she tried to tell, no one would ever believe her.
She had been a soldier chosen for her special skills, for her willingness to serve, and she had done what she had to do, frightening and difficult and ugly as it had been.
But the moment of dire need, of expediency, had passed. The moment when she had been needed, when she had been the only one who could do what she had to do ... all of that was gone.
Now she had to get on with her life.
And her life belonged in her world.
Not in Peters, certainly. She had come to see that Peters was a fight she couldn't win, so she wouldn't stay and fight. Peters had no place for her. But Peters wasn't everything, or even very much of anything.
She'd lost a lot. She'd lost her family long ago, when they insisted that she be someone other than the person she was. She'd lost the people she'd thought were her friends, the ones she'd created as replacement family, and for much the same reason. She'd lost all of her things. Most of her past. The harsh events that brought her at last to Glenraven had stripped away everything she couldn't live without, and she'd discovered she could live without almost everything. Her desire to belong with other people and the pleasure she took in her possessions had hidden from her the truth; that she could depend on herself.
She knew who she was.
She'd tested herself in a crucible and discovered that she wasn't precisely who she'd always believed herself to be. She'd also found out she was tougher and more capable than she'd ever suspected and that she could trust herself in tight places and critical situations.
She knew what she wanted.
She wanted her world. She wanted her work. She wanted to create things that were beautiful for people who appreciated them, in a place where people let her be who she was.
Someday she would make friends again. Someday she might find love again. But she wouldn't waste her time looking for love, searching for friends, chasing after happiness. She would instead pursue the challenges of living her life in a way that mattered, doing the things she believed were important, taking the stands she felt she had to take in order to be true to herself.
Eventually, she thought, happiness would pursue her.
She glanced at the people who watched her, waiting to hear her decision. And she said something that surprised her. "Those kids could be more than just kids if they were pointed in the right direction. I'm going home, and I'm going to rebuild my life . . . but I'm going to find them, too. Maybe see if I can't do something to point them in the direction of honor. I don't think that bringing magic to my world would be a bad thing at all. The Machine World needs some magic."
Rhiana frowned. "You're blind to it, Kate. How can you teach anyone to use what you can't even see?"
Yemus laughed softly. Everyone turned to look at him. He turned to Jayjay Bennington and said, "I thought when I had the bookstore and when I recruited you and Sophie to come to our world, that my work there wasn't done. When I went back and found the wizard-children waiting, I became even more sure of that. But now I see where my path lies, too." He smiled at Kate. "I'm coming with you." His eyes were warm and kind. "You need a friend. You need a teacher. And you need someone to watch your back. Together, we'll go through Callion's records and track down his children. Together we'll figure out a way to turn what he intended as evil into something good."
Kate studied him. "You don't belong in my world, though."
The wizard shrugged. "I liked it when I was there. I could like it again." His words spoke of mere contentment, but his eyes, when they looked into hers, wondered at other possibilities. Private, personal questions . . . things that only long acquaintance and close proximity might answer.
Kate found herself smiling. Perhaps happiness began to pursue her already.
Contents:-
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Ninetten
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty Three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Unknown, In The Rift
