means there’s got to be another way to trigger the magic.”
“She used her mage talent. He’s not a mage.”
Unfortunately, that brought Shandi full circle and had her eyes narrowing. “No, he’s not. Yet you’ve taken him as your lover again, despite what the nahwal told you. Have you thought about what this could do to your magic?”
What magic? Jade wanted to ask, but didn’t, because it would disrespect both of them, not to mention the harvester bloodline. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but her own that she couldn’t figure out how to be a true scribe. And besides, that wasn’t what this fight was about. “You mean because he’s human, and Vennie found that her powers dropped to match those of a harvester after she and Joshua were married.” Somehow it was easier to call them by their first names. “But if you’re saying that my powers are going to drop to those of a human—i.e., none—then you’re assuming that Lucius and I will become a mated pair. Do you really believe that was the gods’ intention?”
“I don’t believe your parents were destined mates, yet they wound up wearing the jun tan, and Vennie believed that her magic had decreased to that of a harvester. Are you willing to risk losing yours entirely?”
“Lucius can’t form the jun tan; he wears the hellmark.” Which was too easy an answer, given that Sasha and Michael were clearly mates despite their lack of the formal mark. Jade exhaled, shaking her head. “We’re not lovers. We’re just enjoying each other.” But the words caught a little in her throat and she felt a stir of the panic that had driven her to the archive and had her pacing rather than working.
Last night might’ve started hard and fast on the TV room floor, but after that first time, when it had become clear that the sex magic wasn’t theirs to invoke at will, they had transitioned to the bedroom without her even realizing that the decision had been made and acted on. There, the get off and get gone sex had morphed to soft touches and sighs, and slow, easy lovemaking that had gone way further than she’d meant to let it go. Then, this morning, she’d woken up curled against him, her hand over his heart, their legs twined together beneath the earth-toned quilt. More, where she’d expected the morning-after conversation to be uncomfortable, as both of them acknowledged they’d gotten in deeper than they’d meant to, and needed to pull it back, he’d been pure relaxed, satisfied male as he burned toast and made bad coffee wearing nothing but jeans and a smile.
She’d kept waiting for him to say something about how intense things had gotten. He didn’t. He’d just given her a friendly kiss and a, “Later,” on her way out the door, like they were just friends sharing damn good sex.
It was what she had wanted, what she had insisted on. So why did it make her want to scream?
“I’ve never before seen you ‘enjoy yourself’ with a man who didn’t make sense in the context of your life,” Shandi pointed out. “This one doesn’t. He’s different.”
That startled a strangled laugh out of Jade. “Everything’s different. I’m different.”
“No, you’re not. People don’t change, not that way. You’re just confused.”
“You can say that again.” Jade realized she was back to pacing , made herself stop. Leaning back against the conference table beside her winikin, she scrubbed both hands across her face and let out a sigh. “It’s like there are two different people inside me. One wants to be a good girl, quiet and obedient, the perfect harvester. The other just wants to make noise and blow shit up.”
“It wasn’t arbitrary that some bloodlines intermingled and some didn’t. There are traits that just don’t mix well.”
“No kidding. I think I’m starting to get an idea of what Rabbit’s going through.”
“Don’t say that.” Shandi gripped Jade’s wrists and yanked her hands down from where she’d been rubbing her eyes, trying to massage the encroaching headache away. “You’re a full- blood. Be proud of that if you’re proud of nothing else the harvesters have to offer.”
Jade stared at the raw, naked emotion on the face of a woman who didn’t do emotion, and her inner counselor suddenly spoke up when it had gone silent over the time away from her old world. Here’s the way in, her instincts chimed. Follow it if you want to know her inner truth. She hesitated fractionally, wondering whether she really wanted to know, or if it would be better to let the winikin have her privacy. The Skywatch community was too small for everyone to be tangled in one another’s business. But then again, this wasn’t just business. It was her life. She and Shandi were linked, despite whether either of them was happy with the pairing.
Jade shifted within the winikin’s grip, until they were holding hands in a rare moment of physical contact. “Listen to me, and please believe me. I’m proud of being a harvester. That’s one of my biggest problems right now. I feel like I should be doing more—my nahwal is telling me to be more, for gods’ sake—but I know that’s not the harvester way. It’s because of my respect for the bloodline, and for you, that I’m all screwed up right now.” At least in part. Great sex, a guy who was sticking to the friends-with-benefits arrangement she’d demanded, and the threat of her inner Edda weren’t helping. But the winikin’s stricken expression didn’t ease, even with the reassurance. Confused, Jade gave their joined hands a shake. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
The winikin’s voice broke. “Yesterday . . . all that talk about the day of the massacre brought it back. Not that it’s ever far away, but it was suddenly right there. They were there again, beside me, inside me. They’re why I need . . . I need you to be perfect. I need to know it was worth it.”
Jade nearly recoiled from the pleading in the older woman’s face. I can’t be perfect. Nobody can!
But the counselor in her set that aside, pushed it deep beneath the shell, and said, “You need to know that what was worth it?”
Shandi’s eyes were wide and stark, not seeing the archive anymore. “Letting my husband and son die.”
“Your—” Jade’s breath left her in a rush. “Oh, Shandi.” Her heart twisted, shuddering in her chest.
“Oh, gods.” Oh, shit.
The winikin chosen for binding to Nightkeeper children typically didn’t marry or have children of their own, as their first and foremost priority had to be their charges. There had been exceptions, of course, but those families had, of necessity, been loosely knit, with the children often raised creche-
style in extended networks of relatives. The system had evolved over generations and had been part of the fabric of Nightkeeper- winikin life. The chosen winikin focused on their charges; the unchosen fell in love, got married, and had families.
Unless an unchosen winikin was somehow picked by the gods to serve in a role she hadn’t planned for, hadn’t been prepared for. Oh, Shandi.
“Denis and little Samxel,” the winikin said, pronouncing the “x” with the “sh” sound it took in the old language. “On the night of the attack, Denny went with the king, along with all the other unchosen adults, the fighting-age magi, and their chosen winikin. I stayed behind with you. Samxel was there too, dancing with the other children in the middle of the rec room. He was ten, not old enough to fight, thank the gods. Or so I thought. In the end, it didn’t make a difference.” A tear tracked down her cheek. “They were playing a Michael Jackson song and trying to moonwalk when the first boluntiku broke through the wards and attacked the great hall. Dozens were dead within the first few seconds.
There was blood everywhere, children screaming. It was . . . it was chaos. Hell on earth.”
You don’t have to tell me if it hurts too much , Jade wanted to say, but what she would’ve really meant was, I don’t want to hear this , so she said nothing. She just held on to Shandi’s hands while the other woman broke into harsh, ugly sobs that rattled in her chest. “You were in one direction, Samxel in the other. I started to go after him; gods help me, I did. But then my marks started burning. I looked down and saw them disappearing, one after the other, doing this crazy vanishing act right in front of my eyes. The harvesters were among the last to die, of course, because they were in the rear guard. But they died. All of them, except you.”
Back in the day, each chosen winikin had worn, in addition to the aj-winikin glyph of service, row upon row of small bloodline marks denoting the
