Keepers of the Flame (7 page)

Elizabeth
swallowed hard. Even exhausted, Bri had handled this whole thing so much better
than she. Of course Bri was used to new people and places, learning to fit into
a new culture.

Elizabeth
went back to the couch and sat, studying her twin. Bri had really meant to
settle down in Denver. How ironic that now her itchy feet had finally stopped,
they were
somewhere else
. Elizabeth glanced at their pitiful cache of
drugs. Aspirin, vitamins.

And
healing
hands
. That thought tightened her throat. She’d denied her gift for so
long. Suppressed it.

All
she’d ever wanted was to be a good doctor.

Cassidy
had discovered her secret. It had been the inciting incident of their last
fight which had led to the end of their engagement.

If
she let herself, she could hear murmuring around her—like a film soundtrack.
And she was sure her retinas still held images of the auras she had actually
seen
.
Automatically, she repacked her bag and Bri’s backpack. Then she changed
herself and Bri into nightclothes and persuaded her sleepy sister to bed. Maybe
this would all be a dream.

5

B
ri woke and
savored the coziness of sheets and warmth, definitely not the tiny, chilly
apartment in Stockholm. Elizabeth certainly did herself proud. Did the family proud,
including Bri herself. During college she’d had no doubt that Elizabeth would
sail through medical school and become a brilliant physician like their mother.
Now if Bri could only buckle down and master nursing school.

She
yawned, stretched. The day before had been hard, the worry that she’d get home
to Denver all right on standby. Those incredible dreams. She snorted. Imagine
that, flying horses. She hadn’t dreamt of them before.

Opening
her eyes to a canopy overhead showing an embroidered huge winged horse, she got
the nasty feeling that she still hadn’t dreamt of them. She jackknifed up and
the covers slid down, and the room was warm. She was covered in a large shirt,
obviously not her own. There were buttons on the
shoulders
. A soft
whuffling moan caught her attention and she looked over to see Elizabeth in the
huge bed with her. Beyond the posts of the bed were windows set in a circular
wall showing gray sky.

Tears
had her eyes stinging. She wanted to be
home
, and not just Denver, but
her old room with her old waterbed. A room that had been redecorated years ago.
But at least she was
supposed
to be home in Denver. The yearning for it
had gotten bigger and bigger in the past year and developed into a horrible
homesickness. She wriggled her feet, not just to get her circulation, but to
test. No signs of itchy feet.

She
glanced at Elizabeth, who was wearing a pristine nightgown. Slipping from the
bed, she went over to the large freestanding wardrobe that featured two doors
with a couple of drawers beneath them. Opening the left door she saw only a
smaller shirt and a larger shirt. Brought by Faucon? Or in case a man was
Summoned? Opening a drawer, she found handkerchiefs, took one and blew her
nose.

“Bri?”
Elizabeth mumbled.

Bri
froze. If she was feeling this bad, how would Elizabeth the homebody feel? How
was she going to comfort her sister when she had little emotional strength
herself?

But
Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, looking around, eyes bright. She smiled at
Bri, rolled her shoulders, linked her fingers and stretched. “Not in Colorado
anymore.”

It
occurred to Bri that to Elizabeth, leaving Colorado and her grief and problems
might be a relief. Bri blew her nose louder, saw a large wicker basket with a
linen sack that she figured was a laundry hamper, and tossed the used hankie
inside. “Lladrana.” She remembered that much.

Recalled
also that she had some power bars in her back-pack. Padding on thick carpets to
the love seat, she grabbed her pack.

She
hopped onto the high bed and under the covers and opened her satchel. Elizabeth
probably would have put the food—yup, she unzipped the pocket, dipped her hand
in and tossed a bar to her sister, while ripping the wrapping off one herself.
“Thanks for sleeping with me. If I’d been alone, I mighta freaked.”

“I
didn’t want to be by myself last night, either.” Elizabeth studied the wrapper.
“What’s in this?”

Bri
spoke around a mouthful of granola, raisins and yogurt bits. “Only healthy
stuff, I swear, sweetened with rice syrup.”

Hastily
Elizabeth peeled off the wrapper, dropped it over the side of the bed, took the
shreds of Bri’s wrapper and did the same. Must be a wastebasket there.
Elizabeth chomped down, made a humming noise. Chewed. Swallowed. Turned to Bri
with crumbs on her lips. “This is really good.”

“Yeah.”
Bri had already gobbled hers and wasn’t going to eat another one of what now
must be rationed. She slipped from the bed and went to the windows.

“What
do you see?” asked Elizabeth.

“Green
fields and hills.” A movement caught her eye and she craned her head to the
left. “Castle wall, garden, big dirt field. Pretty bustling down there.
Soldiers. Those knights, Chevaliers, a couple of…of volarans. That city guy,
Sevair Masif, all neat and tidy and pressed, watching this tower.”

“Any
sign of The Three?”

Snorting
with laughter, Bri withdrew from the window. As kids they’d always had
nicknames for those in their lives, twin shorthand. “Nope.”

“How
late is it?” Elizabeth was frowning, staring at the window.

“Hard
to say. No sun, though I think the windows face west. A gray day.”

“How
long do you think they’ll give us alone this morning?” Elizabeth asked.

“If
they can sense resting versus waking energy patterns—”

A
strumming came at the sitting-room door, then the rapping of a knuckle. Bri
finished, “—I’d say not long at all.”

Hopping
from bed, Elizabeth said, “Gotta pee,” and headed to the bathroom.

Bri
never drank much on a travel day, but now that Elizabeth mentioned it…

More
harplike notes.

She
recalled the polished rosewood door to the suite had something like a Swedish
door harp affixed to the door, without the little wooden balls, and with
vertical strings.

She
went to the outer door. “Give us a break, folks, we’re sharing a bathroom. And
we don’t want you in our bedroom.”

There
was some mumbling. There seemed to be a lot of life signatures beyond the door,
and Bri was able to sense them easily. Scary.

“May
we come in?” a voice asked in English.

Definitely
at least The Three.

“Who
all’s there?” Bri asked.

“Bri?”
came Alexa’s voice.

Good
ear. This being an aural society, they probably all had good ears, or like Bri
had guessed before, they sensed energy patterns, too. Though Bri’s and
Elizabeth’s energy patterns might be very similar, they wouldn’t be identical.

“Who
all’s there?” she repeated, heard a flush and thanked God that there appeared
to be modern plumbing. Water ran as Elizabeth washed her hands.

“Marian,
Alexa, Calli, and our husbands,” Marian said. Bri had a good ear, too, and the
voluptuous redhead’s voice was deeper, throatier than the others.

Bri
backed up a couple of paces as Elizabeth walked into the room, dressed in her
clothes from yesterday and not seeming too pleased about it. She’d have washed
out their underwear, of course, before they fell into bed. “‘The Three’ have
turned into ‘The Six.’”

“They
brought their men? Why?”

Shrugging,
Bri went to the bathroom. “Don’t know. At a guess, to show us a benefit of the
place? Hunky husbands?”

Elizabeth
snorted. “The last thing I need is a man in my life. Let me go through the
bathroom to the dining room where there’s another door to the hallway.” She
hustled past Bri, closing the door behind her, then faced the outer door. Her
panties were still damp and she resented wearing them. If the women had been
perspicacious enough to have nightgowns made, why couldn’t they have provided
some decent underwear? All Elizabeth had seen were long-underwear type leggings
and tops and she’d had enough of those all the last miserable winter long.

The
Six. Huh.

“Elizabeth?
This is your morning briefing. By now you would have realized that you’re here
for a while. And we thought we’d help you get on,” Alexa said.

Elizabeth
crossed her arms. “Bri is in the bathroom.” She heard sputtering water.
“Showering. Come back later. With breakfast. I’ll take an egg white omelette
and a piece of dry toast. Bri will have eggs scrambled with cheese. If this
benighted land has coffee, bring two cups, hot and black.”

A
male chuckle came as if in approval. “I don’t think they’re as disturbed as you
expected them to be. You go get the food. We will stay here,” the man said. In
English
.
One of the men knew English. Elizabeth couldn’t figure out whether that was a
good sign or a bad one.

Marian
said, “They have each other for support, so of course they are less affected
than we were—being stranded in a strange dimension all alone.”

That’s
what
she
thought. Elizabeth allowed herself an irritated sniff.

“But
a discussion over food will be fine. I will, indeed, go, Jaquar.”

Who
was Jaquar? Calli’s husband or Marian’s?

Alexa
said, “I’ll hang here with the guys. A coupla croissants and butter and an
omelette sounds good to me, too, with that cheese. And mushrooms!” Alexa
called. “Too bad we don’t have hash browns.”

“I’ll
go with Marian,” said Calli.

“Much
running around,” said another male voice in English, very heavily accented.

Shifting
from foot to foot, Elizabeth stared at the door, wondering if it would be
beneficial to let the others in, four instead of six. Would it throw off their
rhythm?

“It
might,” Bri said next to her ear and Elizabeth jumped.

“Sorry,”
Bri said. “You were thinking really loud.”

“Alexa
and the men are out there.”

“Ah.
Well I have the feeling that Alexa would be a handful by her very self.”

“True.”
Elizabeth looked at Bri. She was wearing the leggings and the smaller shirt,
with her bra underneath. Both Lladranan garments were made of cream-colored
silk. “You look good.”

Bri
shrugged. “The outfit works for the moment.” She smiled. “I didn’t want to put
on damp panties.”

Elizabeth
grumbled, “More humid here than in Colorado. Our underwear would have been dry
if we were home.”

“Yeah.”
Bri’s smile became a wicked grin. “Bet at least one of them is leaning against
the door?”

“I
don’t know.” Elizabeth frowned. “These are warriors. Would they do that?”

“One
way to see.” Bri strode forward.

Bri
yanked open the door.

6

N
o one fell into
the room. Instead, with twinkling eyes and a smile as wide as Bri’s, Alexa
strolled in. “Good morning. The greeting here in Lladrana is most often
‘Salutations.’” She waved to the men following her. “I don’t know if you
remember the guys. Bastien, the one with the black-and-white streaked hair and
the baton at his hip is a Shieldmarshall and mine. The taller one with blue
eyes—ancient Exotique blood mixed with Lladranan—is Marian’s soulmate, Jaquar,
a Sorcerer-Circlet, as you can see from his gold headband.”

Jaquar
walked in, and like Bastien, gave the room and the open doors a quick scan.
Neither of them would miss anything. Then Jaquar bowed, first to Bri who still
held the door, then to Elizabeth. “Salutations,” he said. He spoke English
well.

The
last man was equally tall and had an easy amble that Elizabeth recognized was
similar to a cowboy’s walk. He carried six books.

Deceiving,
that last one, Calli’s man. He’s even more aware than the others
, Bri said to
Elizabeth.

Hands
on her hips, Alexa studied them. “You’re talking to each other telepathically,
again. Rude.”

“We
think we should have all the advantages we can get,” Elizabeth replied. “And
you will no doubt be speaking Lladranan before us.” She gestured. “Make
yourselves at home.”

“Don’t
mind if I do,” Alexa said, heading for the angle between walls where the chest
sat with the leftovers from their father’s birthday dinner.

Bri
jumped in front of it at the last minute. “Ours!”

The
third man holding the books gently closed the door. He made a short bow. “I am
Marrec. I am with Calli.” His expression turned considering. “You will read in
Calli’s book that I was in Co-lo-ra-do with her.”

With
an effort, Elizabeth kept her mouth from falling open. Possibilities spun in
her mind. “If you were in Colorado, then there’s some way to get back and
forth. We can go home.” To her surprise, her heart didn’t leap in her chest in
delight. She blinked and took a few instants to probe her own feelings. She
wasn’t sure she wanted to go home right now.