LITMIR.BIZ

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Summoned Exotiques had returned home, Blossom had been her volaran. Raine’s stomach sank. You know I don’t want to stay here in Lladrana.

      You were treated bad. When you are treated good you will stay.

      Raine winced. There was another pop as Blossom formed the Distance Magic bubble around them.

      We will fly due west, then south, she said with a cheer that sounded a little false. Raine realized she’d poked a sore spot and shook her head. She was just getting her balance here, why did she have to make decisions right away? But what decision was there to make? Could she really see herself facing the Dark and fighting and staying here forever? No.

      Blossom was flying due west to the coast because that was where the estate the Lladranans had offered Raine was. She’d seen drawings, and pictures from Bri’s camera, but not the place itself. She shouldn’t be curious.

      And the island where the Exotique Circlet Marian lives is due west, too, Blossom reminded.

      Raine gritted her teeth and called up a map in her mind. I think we need to angle south.

      Faucon’s main estate is almost due south of your land.

      It’s not my land.

      A big beautiful seaside estate. Lots of room to fly and run, a nice stream, good stables for volarans and horses.

      Raine had never been on the back of any sort of horselike creature until she’d met Blossom.

      Big house for you, too. Bigger than where you live now. Blossom didn’t care for Raine’s house in the “city” of Castleton, there was no room for a volaran stable. From what Raine had seen in the pics, the place on the tiny peninsula was a small castle.

      The world blurred outside the bubble, but Raine thought she smelled the ocean. Mixed emotions welled inside her. She loved the ocean, couldn’t imagine not living close to one, but her first months in Lladrana had been hideous.

      Now she only had a few more, one way or another.

      10

      Singer’s Abbey

      Jikata’s voice lesson with the Singer went well, they treated each other with exaggerated courtesy. Before actually doing the exercises, they did some body stretching. After the scales and range practice, the Singer spoke of Power, and spells initiated by sounds, notes, tunes, “songspells.” Jikata opened and shut windows and doors, locked them, released the locks. She learned various humming bits to Summon Friends.

      The Singer watched with a careful eye as Jikata stirred water, lit a fire in a fireplace, made wind chimes tinkle and moved dirt in a planter. By the time she was done with the “simple” spells, Jikata was exhausted and would have smelled of sweat except her gown absorbed perspiration. Since the dress released an herbal scent, it was obvious how hard she worked.

      The old woman, of course, demonstrated all the tasks serenely and with little effort.

      Jikata ate lunch by herself, a light one of fruit and cheese and crackers with a hardboiled egg. Then came the baths, massage and rest. She could almost believe this was a resort—Club Lladrana, a retreat specifically for singers. She’d reluctantly decided differently, let the knowledge that she was in another place incrementally filter through her, and focused on the incredible instruction she’d been getting.

      In the afternoon she went with the Singer to a suite of personal rooms above an octagonal tower. The old woman had several suites throughout the compound for various activities—or various levels of visitors. Certainly the Friends in different buildings were of different status.

      “These are the rooms where I receive Marshalls who come for a Song Quest,” the Singer said. “I do not use them otherwise because they are very close to the Caverns of Prophecy. Listen and feel.”

      Jikata recalled her Summoning, the caves, the sounds, the visions, and didn’t open herself up fully. She’d already learned how to tone down the soundtrack around her, hear selectively. It was a matter of control, like breath control. If she opened herself fully, she’d be overwhelmed by Song, especially in the Singer’s presence. She thought of her Power like the flame of a gas oven, opening a valve and giving the burner more energy.

      So now she set her Power on low, listened.

      Hollowness under her feet. She knew the sound of stone—worked and raw around her, beneath her. The different, deep chord of the planet itself. Only now, when she heard that strange Song, did she realize that she’d always heard a rhythmic beat quite different, that of Earth.

      Whispers. Perhaps even hissing like gas. Dangerous if she were open and defenseless to it.

      Jikata! Pay attention! It was the Singer’s voice, in her head. Jikata sucked in a breath. All right, she should have expected that people could speak telepathically, too.

      “One moment!” She wouldn’t let the woman rattle her. She wasn’t a tyro in the music business.

      But the Singer had that smug smile Jikata was beginning to intensely dislike. Eyes widening, Jikata realized the Singer had spoken to Jikata with her mind, while she’d answered aloud.

      The Singer had spoken Lladranan.

      Jikata had understood.

      She was learning the language through Song and telepathy and hearing it spoken around her. She’d been a fairly quick study before, but nothing like this.

      Letting her knees soften, becoming aware of her ki, she let Songs sift into her, or into her awareness and Power.

      Her senses slipped down from this chamber to below to the Caverns.

      Whispers coalesced into sound, into language—English. A vision formed.

      She saw the man in white leather. They were walking along a sandy beach, surf foaming near their feet.

      They were talking. No, they were flirting. Warmth tingled through her, then and now. A half smile curved his lips, lightening his serious expression and making him dangerously attractive. There was an easiness between them, as if they had a lot in common. His eyelids lowered over a very male glint, and he took her hand, raised it to his lips.

      His mouth on the back of her hand sent frissons through her and she knew that this night they’d make love.

      Then he froze, dropped her fingers, reared back, shock on his face.

      Followed by utter revulsion. Pain. He shook his head, slapped his hands against his ears.

      She stared at him in horror. Worse, she could feel tears backing up in her throat, rising, rising. She had to get away…. She stumbled, blinking frantically to keep tears back. Why hadn’t she learned a spellsong for that?

      Jikata! The Singer’s voice.

      Suddenly she wasn’t there and then, but here and now. That was Zen, this is Tao, she thought with ironic humor. Her throat still burned.

      The Singer was frowning, her face wrinkled into a thousand lines that spoke of age and experience…and some of them of lost love. “What did you see?”

      Jikata cleared her throat. “The man from the other night.”

      “The night you were Summoned.”

      “Yes.”

      “Ayes.”

      Did the Singer mean her to parrot “Ayes?” Jikata didn’t want to play games. She nodded.

      “That is Luthan Vauxveau, a wealthy, Powerful noble of the Chevalier class. He wore Chevalier leathers and is my representative to the rest of Lladrana,” the Singer stated.

      Chevalier meant what? Horseman? Knight? One of those who flew on the winged horses?

      A knight in white leather. Was that as good as in shining armor? He looked more like a Western knight than a shogun. No, he acted more like her idea of a Western knight, though her ideas of both knights and samurai were formed by

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