The Blackgod

moments ago.”

“They've—all—gone off to look at their own allotments, down the ridge,” he stammered—and blushed.

“Oh.” She felt an odd sensation in her stomach, for no reason she could clearly explain. “Where are we walking to?”

“Just walking,” Perkar replied. “We have something to discuss.”

Something serious, by his tone, and her belly tightened further. What was it he had to drag her four days' travel from his father's damakuta to discuss? It irritated her that Perkar was keeping secrets again. He had kept his offer of land to Tsem from her, for instance. She had been forced to drag that out of her old servant. During the journey to this place, he had barely spoken to her, as if his concealments were muzzling him. It was a side of Perkar she knew well and intensely disliked—and yet it was familiar, almost comfortable. Now, as he was about to reveal something to her at last, she was suddenly afraid to know. Could it be that she was more frightened of Perkar's candor than of his evasions?

“You've made Tsem very happy,” Hezhi said, to have something to say, to delay Perkar's admission or whatever it was.

“Good,” Perkar answered. “He deserves happiness.”

“Indeed.” So why did she feel that Perkar was a thief, stealing her lifelong friend?

“You've made yourself happy, too,” she went on. “I've never seen you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Happy, I said. Excited. All you can talk about is your land and your damakuta. I'm glad you finally decided to come here. Your family is delighted. Why—“ She stopped, wondering suddenly what she meant to say.

“Go on,” he prompted. They had taken a few steps into the forest, but now he turned to confront her, his eyes frank but nervous.

“Why so far out? Ngangata says this is as far as we could go and still be in the new lands. The closest holding is more than a day away from here.”

Perkar shrugged. “Not for long. These lands will fill up soon enough.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

He sighed. “The truth is, I'm not at home back there, with my people. Not really, not anymore. And Tsem and Ngangata …” He trailed off.

“Will never be at home there? Is that what you mean to say?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But out here we can be. All of us.”

“You and Tsem and Ngangata, you mean,” she replied, carefully. Just to let him know what he was leaving out.

Perkar's shoulders visibly slumped, and though his mouth worked to say something, no sound emerged. Clearly frustrated, he leaned close, as if he must whisper what he had to say …

And kissed her. It was not what she expected, not then. A year ago, perhaps, but not now. Couldn't Perkar get anything right?

But the kiss seemed right, after an instant, after she fought back the first swell of panic when he leaned in. It seemed careful, and sweet, and when he drew away she was surprised to feel a bit disappointed.

“I—uh—I've wanted to do that for some time,” he admitted.

“Then why did you wait until now?” she asked, unable to keep a little of the bitterness out of her voice.

Perkar's eyes lit with surprised chagrin. “I didn't think…”

“Oh, no, of course not. Of course you didn't think.” She felt some heat rising in her voice. “You didn't think that while your mother was planning my wedding to some cowherd I never met and everyone was busily discussing your marriage to some cattle princess and Tsem—“ She choked off, bit her lip, and went on. ”You didn't think to give me any sign of what you were thinking or felt—for more than a year.” She snapped her mouth closed, feeling she had said too much.

Perkar looked down at his feet. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I thought it was clear.”

“The only clear thing to me is that no one cares to see you and me together.”

“I just kissed you.”

“That could mean a lot of things,” Hezhi snapped.

“And you kissed me.”

“That could mean a lot of things, too,” she responded, but her voice wavered, because he was moving closer again.

“What it means to me,” he said, his voice barely a breath, “is that I love you.”

Hezhi wanted to retort sarcastically to that, too, to tell him it was too late, to hurt him just a little.

But what she said was “Oh.”

He shrugged. “Another reason for being this far out. I love my family, but I want none of their matchmaking. If there is anything that I've realized in all of this, it is that the most precious Piraku is that which you find. And despite everything, I was lucky to find you. It is the only thing I have to thank the Changeling for.”

Hezhi clenched her eyelids, but the tears squirted out anyway. “This is a fine time to start this,” she murmured, “just when I had resigned myself to leaving.”

“Leaving?” He gaped, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “To go where?”

“Perhaps back to Nhol, perhaps to somewhere I've never been. I don't know; just away.”

“Back to Nhol?”

“Yes, of course. What is there for me here?”

“I've just told you.”

“Yes, I guess you have. But I don't know that I'm ready to become a wife. I know I'm fifteen, but for me there was never a childhood, Perkar. How can I become a woman when I was never a child?”

Perkar reached and took her hand. “I haven't asked you to marry me,” he replied. “I only told you I love you, something I thought you already knew. You did know, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, wiping her tears. “Yes, but you never said it.”

“Well, we are two of a kind then,” Perkar rejoined mildly.

“Oh,” she snapped, “of course I love you, you idiot.”

“Then stay here, with Tsem and Ngangata and me. With your family.”

Hezhi drew in a long breath and looked at him, this man she had first seen in dreams, and as she did so, she realized that her tears had stopped. “Well,” she said at last. “I do want to stay here, with you. I do. But I am not ready for marriage. I'm just not, despite my age. I want …” She drew her brows together and gazed defiantly up at him. ”I want to be courted for a time. I want more stories about two-headed cows. I want to separate what we feel from what we went through together—just a little.”

“I remind you that I didn't ask for your hand—” Perkar started, but she shushed him with her finger.

“But you will, Perkar Kar Barku. You will. And when you do, I want to give the right answer.”

Perkar smiled then and took her hand. “Good enough, then. How do I go about this courting business?”

Hezhi wiped what remained of her tears and felt an almost impish grin touch her lips. “Well,” she said. “I suppose you can kiss me once more, and then we should really find my chaperone.”

Wind rustled the trees and dapples of sunlight streamed through the leaves above. It was a long kiss.

Now available in trade paperback from Del Rey Books—the bold new adventure from the mind of J. Gregory Keyes!

NEWTON'S CANNON

by J. Gregory Keyes

Please read on for a sneak preview of this thrilling novel…

1716 A Miracle

Benjamin Franklin was ten years old when he saw his first miracle. Cold fingers of wind had been groping up