The Dove Page 8

  In the moment of silence before she spoke, they suddenly realized there was more than the usual amount of noise coming from the heart of the city. They stood up and looked down the road toward the marketplace.

  “What is happening down there?” she asked.

  Cayetano pointed. “There! Someone is running!”

  Singing Bird gasped. “It’s Tyhen! Something must be wrong!”

  Cayetano panicked. Where were the guards? Where was Yuma? And the moment he thought the name, he saw the man running behind her.

  “Yuma is behind her,” Cayetano said. “See! It’s only Yuma.”

  Singing Bird’s anxiety subsided. Whatever was happening, he wasn’t far behind.

  Then the closer they came, the more certain Cayetano became that nothing was wrong. When she started up the slope toward the palace, he could see she was laughing.

  “They are racing!” Cayetano said. “See! See! She’s laughing.”

  Singing Bird went weak with relief and grabbed Cayetano’s arm.

  “And he just caught her,” Singing Bird said.

  When Tyhen turned and threw herself into Yuma’s arms, Singing Bird felt a moment of surprise, and when Yuma threw her over his shoulder, Singing Bird looked up at her husband and then looked away. Maybe it was because she was a woman and saw beneath the obvious, but there was more to that race than speed.

  She didn’t want to be a witness to what was happening between the boy she’d saved, and the girl she’d born. They didn’t need her anymore. Her job now was to come to terms with it.

  “I want to go inside now,” she said.

  He was confused, thinking she would be curious as to what started the race. “But don’t you want to—?”

  “No, I don’t think they need us. Come with me, my love, and leave the celebration to the runners.”

  “Celebration? What do—?” And then it hit him. “You mean they are—?”

  “She has recently faced two frightening adversaries and come out a victor both times. She is a child no longer. We will leave her to what comes next.”

  When she took Cayetano’s hand and led him away, it was a silent nod of permission for Tyhen to step into her own.

  ***

  Yuma carried her all the way up the slope to the palace entrance before he put her down.

  Tyhen was weak from laughing and when he put her down, she dropped to her knees, folding her arms across her belly.

  “I laughed so hard my stomach hurts.”

  He grinned. “That is what you get for thinking you can run away from me.”

  She looked up. “I wanted to be caught.” She saw the look on his face and forgot what she was going to say next.

  Yuma pulled her to her feet, and without saying a word, led her into the palace. Tyhen’s heart began to pound. She couldn’t think. All she wanted to do was feel.

  The hallways were dim and quiet. They could hear laughter and talking in another part of the palace, but they were moving away from the sounds, rather than closer.

  The blood was rushing through Yuma’s body at such a pace it made him feel lightheaded. This wasn’t just about sex. This was a fulfillment of part of his journey. She was his to protect, even die for, but she was also his to love.

  When they reached the hallway leading to the family quarters, Tyhen gripped Yuma’s hand. They passed the room where Cayetano and her mother slept. She knew his room was at the far end of the hall, but it also belonged to the twins, too.

  “In here,” she said softly as she pushed the door to her room open, and then stopped, stunned by the sight of the new, rearranged room.

  “What happened in here?” Yuma asked.

  She turned to face him. “You happened,” she said, then pulled the shift over her head and dropped it at her feet.

  He closed the door and shed his clothing where he stood.

  They stared at each other without touching while the room and the air began to spin around them.

  “What makes this?” he whispered.

  “We make it and I am the Windwalker’s daughter. Only you can make this stop.”

  He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed while the wind blew her hair in his face. He was surrounded by a scent he could not identify until he laid down beside her and realized it was the scent of her body still sweaty from the run with just a hint of musk. Then he heard the faint sound of drumming as she parted her legs and pulled him to her.

  “Make love to me, Yuma, before we both blow away.”

  He slid between her legs and stopped just before the pain.

  She wrapped her fists in his hair and locked her legs around his waist.

  “Do it!” she cried and felt the momentary jolt and tearing as he pushed past the barrier.

  “I am so sorry,” he whispered, but at the moment of joining, all motion inside the room had stopped.

  It was as she’d said. Only he could make it stop. He was the anchor that kept the storm at bay.

  He began kissing her face and then her lips, then gently licked the tip of each breast, reveling at the softness of her skin and the heat in her eyes.

  Tyhen had known how to do this, but she could never have imagined the feelings that would result. When he began to move, rocking slowly between her legs, she closed her eyes. The pain was gone and all she wanted was to ride the building heat.

  Yuma watched the changing expressions on her face while trying to maintain a steady pace. But she was so tight and hot that it was difficult not to give in and let go.

  He was watching for the flush on her cheeks and the flare of her nostrils. He would know when she was ready and he wanted this to be right. But he had not counted on the passion of an untried girl.

  “More, Yuma, more,” she whispered, digging her fingers into his forearms.

  He deepened the stroke, moving faster and harder, and all of a sudden, her eyes flew open and the stunned expression of ecstasy on her face was something he would never forget. When her lips parted and her eyes rolled back in her head, he felt the muscles inside her body contracting around him. He was no longer in control.

  The climax came in mind-numbing waves, one after the other rolling through him and leaving him weak and speechless.

  Tyhen hadn’t turned loose of Yuma since the first contraction hit her, and now that the climax had passed, she was still holding on. When she felt his shudder, then heard him finally moan, the joy that went through her was palpable. She’d done that! She’d given him that pleasure and she’d made him that weak. Now she understood the depths to which a man would go for the woman he loved.

  “Yuma?”

  He shifted slightly, rising up on his elbows to look down at her face.

  “Is it always like this?” she asked.

  “When love is there, yes.”

  “It was the best thing I ever felt,” she said.

  He grinned. “It will get better.”

  She gasped. “No! If it gets better, I might die.”

  “You won’t die, and it does get better.”

  Her eyes narrowed as the muscles across her belly began to tighten once more. “Show me,” she said.

  So he did.

  ***

  When Adam and Evan came back from the temple late that evening and found all of Yuma’s things gone from their room, they looked at each other and grinned.

  “Finally,” Evan said.

  Adam shrugged. “It should be no surprise to anyone,” he added.

  “Except maybe Cayetano?” Evan said.

  “No. Singing Bird will smooth the way. She always does.”

  Evan looked down at his clothing and frowned. “I’m filthy.”

  “That’s because we have about two hundred years of accumulated grime on us. I’m going to the bathing pool. Are you coming?”

 
Evan nodded. “As soon as I get something clean to wear back.”

  “Good idea,” Adam said as he grabbed a clean wrap and headed out the door behind his brother.

  As they left the palace through the back entrance, trouble came in the front.

  ***

  Johnston Nantay came running up the palace steps carrying a large, bulky object wrapped in an animal skin.

  “I need to speak with Singing Bird. Tell her it’s Nantay and ask her to hurry!”

  One of the guards headed inside to get her as Johnston began to pace. When Singing Bird came running out, he heard the panic in her voice.

  “Johnston! What’s happened? Is someone hurt?”

  “No. It’s this. You have to see this.”

  He thrust the parcel in her arms, then waited as she pulled back the wrapping. When she gasped, his heart sank. He was right. It did mean what he’d thought.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “A trader brought it, thinking because there were New Ones here that we might know what it was, that we might want it.”

  Singing Bird was trying not to panic, but the implications were huge.

  “Is he still here?” Singing Bird asked.

  Johnston nodded, then looked apprehensive when Cayetano came striding out of the doorway.

  “What is happening? What is that you are holding, Singing Bird?”

  Singing Bird pulled the covering back further to show him.

  “It’s a piece of stone with runes on it.”

  He frowned. “What are runes?”

  “A race of people called Vikings used them as written language.”

  “Can you read it?” Johnston asked.

  Singing Bird shook her head. “No, but it doesn’t matter what it says, so much as where it came from.” Her frustration was evident. “This is maddening, not knowing what time in history we are already living, or what damage may have been done to the tribes north and south of us.”

  “What about the tribes?” Cayetano asked.

  Singing Bird sighed. Trying to blend the past with the present was difficult and Cayetano was lost.

  Cayetano didn’t realize the markings meant, but Johnston knew. Like Singing Bird, he was sick. He didn’t want to believe that their Last Walk might have been in vain.

  “Do you want to talk to the trader? I will go get him if you do,” Johnston said.

  “Yes. Bring him here,” Singing Bird said.

  Johnston turned and ran. It wouldn’t be long before it got dark and he didn’t want to have to find his way back through the city without a torch.

  “Why does this matter?” Cayetano asked, as he walked back inside with Singing Bird.

  “It means strangers from across the big water have already been in our world. They have come and gone, which means others will come after them.”

  Cayetano’s eyes widened as realization dawned.

  “Then it has already begun?

  “Yes, and the people most vulnerable are unaware of what’s happening. Find the twins and bring Tyhen and Yuma, too. I want them to see this.”

  Cayetano didn’t bother to send a servant. He went after them himself.

  Chapter Seven

  The twins washed up quickly, anxious to return to the palace before sunset, and walked inside the back entrance only moments before Cayetano found them.

  “Singing Bird needs you now. Go to the throne room.”

  They dropped their dirty clothing inside the kitchen entrance and grabbed a torch, lighting it from the one burning on the wall as they went.

  Cayetano knew where he would find Yuma and Tyhen. Singing Bird had prepared him for the shift in living quarters and had already come to terms with it. Still, when he got to her room, he stopped and pounded on her door rather than rush inside to something he was unprepared to see.

  ***

  Yuma was stretched out on the bed beside Tyhen when the pounding began. He rolled out of bed naked and ran to the door. When he saw Cayetano, he could tell by the look on his face there was trouble.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Cayetano didn’t waste words. “Singing Bird needs both of you to come to the throne room now.”

  “Tyhen is asleep. I will wake her and—”

  “I’m awake,” she said as she threw her legs over the side of the bed.

  Unashamed of her nudity, she pulled a shift down over her head before she stood up.

  “Get your sandals,” Yuma cautioned as he fastened his loincloth. “No walking barefoot in the dark, even if it is inside.”

  She quickly tied them on, and together, they followed Cayetano, who lit the way.

  She glanced once at Yuma, but couldn’t read what he was thinking, and then it didn’t matter. It was as he’d said. Apart, they were just a man and a woman, but together they were one, and stronger for it.

  Their hasty footsteps reflected the urgency, while the flickering torch cast ominous shadows on the walls, adding drama and, for Tyhen, the addition of fear. She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew it had to do with her and that was enough.

  As they approached the throne room, light spilled out of it onto the tiled flooring in the hall, highlighting the armed guards who stood on either side of the doorway, while the thick walls muted the voices within.

  Yuma could feel Tyhen’s gaze on him more than once, but he couldn’t look at her without showing fear, fear for her. Yet when they entered the throne room, he reached for her hand.

  ***

  Singing Bird saw them coming and quickly waved them over. The twins were sitting side by side on the bench next to the table, studying the tablet.

  Tyhen walked up to her mother, saw the stone with the marks and frowned. “Mother, what is happening?”

  “This. Do you see the marks on it?”

  “Yes. What do they mean?”

  Yuma knew by the excited way in which the twins were talking that it was big. The fact they’d lapsed back into the twin speak from their childhood was telling. They only did that when they didn’t want anyone else to know what they were saying and knew it couldn’t be good. He put a hand on her shoulder as if bracing her for the answer.

  Singing Bird glanced at the twins and frowned. “Stop that. Say what you have to say aloud to all of us.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Adam said. “We didn’t mean to hide anything. It’s just a habit from our childhood. Evan agrees with me on this, by the way.”

  “So are those markings really runes?” Singing Bird asked.

  “Unmistakably, but we don’t think they are very old. The carvings are still sharp. There’s no erosion whatsoever on the individual marks, so this tablet is not old,” Evan said.

  Tyhen frowned. Nothing they said made sense. “What does this have to do with me, and don’t say it doesn’t because that’s all I know.”

  Yuma’s gut was in a knot. He knew the implications. “Does this mean the Vikings have already come?”

  Tyhen frowned. “What are Vikings?”

  Singing Bird clutched her fists against her belly as she began to pace. “They were explorers, men who sailed from their homeland to our land. Men who built homes on the land that did not belong to them and thought nothing of what they’d done. There were many others who came after, but in the time of New Ones, it was believed they were probably some of the first.”

  Tyhen lifted her chin and at the same time, unconsciously straightened her shoulders. “Then it has already begun.”

  Adam took her hand. “Touch it, Tyhen.”

  She laid her hand on the stone and closed her eyes. A face slid through her mind so fast that she gasped and jumped backward.

  “What! What did you see?” Yuma asked.

  Tyhen was shaken. She had visions, but never from the single touch of an object. She glanced at Yuma an
d then back at the twins.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked.

  Adam smiled and elbowed his brother. “I told you she would know.”

  Cayetano had had enough. He pushed past all of them, grabbed the leather wrapping, and threw it over the stone in disgust, then turned on his family and thumped his chest with his fist as his voice rose in anger.

  “I am chief of Naaki Chava. I want people to stop talking and ignoring the people who do not understand what is being said.”

  “I’m sorry,” Singing Bird said. “It was such a shock I didn’t take time to explain. I’m going to let the twins tell you because they know more than I do.”

  Adam stood abruptly, properly honoring Cayetano’s presence.

  “This stone has Viking marks on it that mean words in their language. This stone tells the name of a man who died, and this was laid on top of his grave as a marker. And since Vikings always put their dead to sea in a small boat then light it on fire, I’d say this man died a long way from water or they wouldn’t have buried him.”

  Evan picked up the story. “It also means that these Vikings have already come to your land, and when they leave, they will go back and tell their people what a wonderful, rich land it is, and that will bring men from different lands who ride the great water, too.”

  “Which means, my time in Naaki Chava is coming to an end even faster than I believed,” Tyhen said. “There is no time to waste. It will take a long time to walk from this place to all the other tribes. It will take even longer to spread the word of what happened and ask them to accept the New Ones who will stay and help them change.”

  Cayetano listened without outward emotion, but his heart was breaking and Singing Bird was crying. It was not a good night.

  Moments later, Nantay and the trader were escorted into the room and Singing Bird wiped her face and turned to face them. She would show weakness to no one but her inner circle.

  “Singing Bird, this is the trader who brought the stone. His name is Izel,” Nantay said.

  The trader was a short, squat man with wide shoulders and bowed legs, and it was obvious from the look on his face he was afraid for his life.