Birthright (6 page)

“Never,” he promised, burying his face once more in the curve of her throat. This time, his muscles trembled from relief, not release. She stroked him from scalp to spine, soothing his fears. Soothing, and re-arousing him. A rough laugh escaped him a few moments later. “Though I’ll have to let go, to finish washing your hair. And to find a bed, so that we won’t drown next time. But I won’t go far…not unless you tire of me, and tell me to go.”

“Never,” she promised in turn. Not ever, when he made her feel whole.

*   *   *

“
Here
it is,” Arasa murmured. “This is the one.”

Elrik abandoned the text he had been studying, joining her as she laid out a scroll. She kept her voice quiet because that was the feeling imposed by the massive, carved depths of the Temple Archives of the Mother Goddess; this deep into the canyon cliffs, the air was comfortably cool and dry, perfect for preserving texts. The spells the ancient mages had used on these scrolls didn’t hurt, either. It permitted her to open a six-century-old scroll without fear of the parchment cracking from brittleness.

Unrolling the staves a little further, she perused the inked characters, faded somewhat with age despite the runes along the top and bottom edges helping to preserve the parchment, but still legible.

“
…
Then the Mother Goddess spoke unto him, saying, ‘Stand you now in the Womb of the World, but a womb is the place of a child, not that of a man; from here, you cannot rule. Go you to the place that you would make the Heart, make of it a pilgrimage of Our Holy Covenant, and the Land will know you as a man, the firstborn and eldest of all. Be humble, for the power you would hold is not to be held with pride; if you wish to rule the Land, you must walk barefoot upon it, with nothing between your flesh and the sand but your skin so that the Land may know and embrace you. Be faithful, for the trust you would find in those you would rule is a trust you must offer as well; if you wish to protect your people, make your pilgrimage weaponless, so that the Land will know its duty is to protect you from all that would bring harm to you.

“
…
Let this be the sealing of Our Holy Covenant, and when you reach the Heart, let the blood of your heart fall, anointing the Land, feeding it so that it may in turn sustain you. Let it know you for Firstborn in the blood you shed, and it shall know all of the firstborn of your Blood, and of their firstborn, and of theirs; let your Family be bound to the powers and responsibilities I give unto you, from now until the Land itself is no more, so long as a single drop of your Blood shall survive, so long as a single drop of your Blood shall be spilled, wherever else you and your Blood may go upon the Land.”

“
…
When the Mother finished speaking unto him, and holding himself in the faith of their Covenant, the First Emperor removed his sword and cast off his shoes, and walked in trusting penitence from the Womb to the place that was to be the Heart, from the sheltered life of a child to the responsibility of a man. The Land did indeed know him, and the Land did protect him, and the Land bound itself with him and to him when he spilled his blood upon the sand, rising up and sheltering him at his command…”

Arasa stopped reading at that point, since the rest of it pertained to the establishment of the capital. That one segment contained everything she needed to know about the journey to be made. Except for where the Womb was located, of course. Now that she knew a Womb was another name for a Temple, it made sense. Especially with that reference to “
a womb is the place of a child,
” and “
from here, you cannot rule.
” Temples were meant to be places of worship, not leadership.

Elrik wasn’t familiar with the archaic script—the runes along the edges were far more readable to him—but he had puzzled out enough of the words to know she had translated it more or less as it was written. “I see what you mean. It doesn’t say where this Womb was located, nor how long a journey he made, just that he had to make it, barefoot and weaponless. And it specifically mentions sand…so sand-demons are a worry.”

“But it says that ‘
the Land did protect him
,’” she returned, shifting her hand to point at the passage. The scroll, rolled up for centuries, immediately curled up on itself, making her laugh and smooth it back. A rueful sigh, and she shook her head. “Of course, like the explanation for ‘womb,’ the scroll doesn’t say
how
the Land protected him. But I know that there were mentions of sand-demons in even earlier texts, and that this is the best clue I have for figuring out who is firstborn, between the two of us. If Kalasa and I make a pilgrimage from the Mother Temple—and where else would a “womb” be found, but in the home of a mother—and we do so barefoot and weaponless…the Land will know which one of us is firstborn.”

“Yes, but the implication is that the other twin will
not
be protected,” Elrik observed dryly. “So that twin will risk having a sand-demon sting her. In fact…it looks like the only way to tell one from another is to
let
a sand-demon sting one of your feet. I strongly suggest you bring enough people along with you—with boots and weapons to protect themselves, though not you—so that they can lift and carry whoever must succumb. I don’t
like
it, but letting one of you fall unconscious from the venom looks to be the only way to tell for sure.”

“I agree,” Arasa concurred. “Whoever does fall should not be left on the ground for the sand-demon to colonize.” She shuddered at the thought. “That is a
very
nasty way to die.”

Elrik touched her arm, reassuring her. “I won’t let that happen to you. With my boots and my staff, I can protect myself, and I’m strong enough to carry you.” He wrinkled his nose and added wryly, “Unlike you, I don’t have the slightest chance of being firstborn, and no chance at all of the ‘Land’ protecting me. However it may do so.”

Nodding, she rolled up the scroll. “There’s nothing more to be done until my sister returns from the capital, except put this back where I found it.” She paused, bundled parchment in hand, then set it down and looked up at him. “You said you were interested in the Imperial Academy. Would you like to go and have a tour today?”

The offer was appealing. Elrik almost said yes, but then she licked her lips. It was just a reflexive act, moistening them without thought, but it reminded him of the way she tasted, and the way she felt.

She noticed his interest. “What would you like to do with the rest of the day?”

His mouth curled up on one side. “As you say, ‘whatever I like’…and I would
like
to spend time in your company. Private time. Not necessarily coupling—though that is on my list of things to do today—but just spending time with you.”

She smiled and stepped into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist. Being half a foot shorter, she was the right height to rest her cheek on his shoulder. It was a comfortable place to be, and even more so when he returned her embrace.

Elrik hugged her close, enjoying the musky-spicy scent of the softsoap he had used on her now braided hair. They weren’t traveling through the desert at the moment, so she had left her turban behind this morning. Just as he had left his woven hat, though he had been careful to stay out of the sun as much as possible on their way to the Mother Temple.

Of course, he hadn’t
seen
his hat since the bathing hall last night; their clothing had disappeared at some point after they had left, stopping in the antechamber for the towels and fanciful garments left in their place. Brocaded fabrics in rich colors, rather than the simple linens and cottons of desert travel. Shoes made of ankle-high soft leathers, rather than the stiffer, knee-high material of riding boots. She looked beautiful in shades of golds and creams accented with red, while someone had been smart enough to give him garments in hues of green and blue accented with silver. His best clothes, while brocaded, were made from cotton bought from the modest weavers of the Frost Wall, not silk that was grown, spun, and woven by the much more renowned weavers of the Cloth Wall, but they were in flattering blues and greens.

However, like everything else washable, they had disappeared. Even his worn leather belt had been replaced with a much newer, metal-studded version, though at least the servants had clipped his staff and slung his coin-pouch in the proper places on it. On the one hand, the new garments helped him blend in better with his surroundings. On the other hand, they weren’t
his
clothes; he knew it was meant as hospitality, not charity, but it was something he would have to get used to accepting, if they kept their relationship.

If she wasn’t firstborn, he would support himself as much as possible as a mage, to prove to her family that he would be an equal in their marriage, not a burden. If she was firstborn…he would have duties as her Consort. If she still wanted him in her life. Those duties would include public appearances, which would require suitable clothing befitting such a high station, but he wouldn’t be sponging off her. Even he knew a consort’s job helped a kingdom run more smoothly, and that it took a lot of work to be one. It was that way in the king-states of the southlands, and it would be that way here, as well.

Either way, he realized he would have to be a source of strength for her. It wouldn’t be easy, stepping back and letting her do the greater work, but he would do it if she turned out to be the firstborn heir. Certainly he could at least try to give her what a more likely prospective consort wouldn’t be able to, and that was a sense of normalcy in her life. Elrik wasn’t noble-born, wasn’t politically ambitious, wasn’t motivated by greed for all the wealth a position at her side would provide, either as the Consort to the Empress or the husband of a mere princess.

He was just a man, one who had fallen for just a woman. Just a wonderful, intelligent, delightful, funny, down-to-earth woman. A woman who shifted in his arms after he sighed in contentment, glancing up at him.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I’ve fallen in love with you.”

The unadorned, quiet truth held in his words made Arasa blush. She cleared her throat. “Well. It seems we’ve been thinking the same thing. That I’ve fallen in love with you, too. I was just standing here, in your arms, thinking how I never knew I was missing something in my life, until you came along and helped me out. I’m thinking how much I care about you, now that you’re in my life. And how much I’m afraid of the future, in case things go wrong, or turn out to be overwhelming…because I’m afraid you might leave me, and make me face that future alone.”

A wry chuckle escaped him. Elrik kissed her braided head. “And here I was thinking I’d have to learn how to be a source of strength for you, so that you’d never feel you had to do it all on your own, from now on.”

“Well, if you’re planning on sticking around and helping me,” she dared to tease, snuggling closer, “then I should think of some way to reward you.”

“I think we should go back to your quarters before you give me this reward, so that we don’t end up accused of blasphemy for ‘unbecoming conduct’ in Djin-Taje-ul’s Temple.”

Chuckling, she left the scroll-filled room with him.

*   *   *

Head
on her palm, elbow propping her sideways on the bed, Arasa studied the freckled, masculine face of the man sleeping next to her. Early-morning light seeped through a gap in the velvet curtains drawn over the windows, shutting out the cold of the night. The glow illuminated the room in soft gray-white. In direct sunlight, his curls gleamed with almost metallic highlights, but right now they just looked reddish-gold. Even his lashes were reddish-gold. In a land filled with pale blonds, golden blonds, ash blonds, dark blonds, the lesser-seen shades that were light browns, chestnut browns, medium browns, and a few with hair even darker than that, red was very rarely seen.

Certainly freckles were even more of an oddity. She wanted to touch them, to try to feel any tangible difference to his skin where it was spotted in brown, but knew there wasn’t. Elrik didn’t seem to think he was special, and maybe he wasn’t; maybe there were plenty of freckled men and women down in the southlands beyond the Frost Wall, but she had seen the appreciative looks her fellow countrywomen had given him. Coupled with refined masculine features, a nice, lean amount of muscle, and those green eyes when he was awake, he made her body ache, he was so extraordinary, so handsome.

But it was his personality that made her heart race. Arasa had been raised to be a strong person; she needed an equal in her life, someone who could keep up with her intellectually, work beside her in whatever she needed to do, and not be jealous of her socially. Of course, if she didn’t turn out to be the firstborn, then it would be a case of her working beside
him.
There was no doubt in her mind that she could be the wife of a mage; she’d still have certain familial tasks and duties to perform, obligations to the bloodline and to the nation, but she could support him in his career. If she did turn out to be firstborn, she knew it would be far easier to accept the responsibilities of being the heir with his support.

Djindji-Taje, I owe you a pouring of Suns and Moons into both your Right and Left Hands, for bringing this man into my life
…