The Last of the Wilds

“I’ll respect your privacy.”

He flushed and hastily looked away. Auraya smiled and crossed to the door of her rooms.

Emerahl concentrated on Mirar’s mind. At first she detected nothing, then a feeling of impatience and uncertainty touched her senses.

“I can sense you,” she said. “You let your shield fall out of boredom.”

He let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “How long are we going to do this for? I’m getting hungry.”

“The shield can’t be temporary. You have to get to the point where it is there all the time, where you can hold it unconsciously. Now try again.”

He groaned. “Can’t we eat first?”

“No. Not until I can’t detect your emotions at all. Do it again.”

She sensed frustration, then stubbornness, then something strange happened. For a moment his emotions faded to nothing, then she sensed puzzlement. He shifted position from half-lying on the bed to sitting straight.

Mirar never sits so... so symmetrically, she thought. He always lounges about. Looking into his eyes she saw wariness and resignation.

“Leiard? Is that you?”

“It is I,” he replied. Even the way he spoke was even and considered.

“How?”

His shoulders lifted. “I believe he wanted to not be present.”

“He ran away?” She felt mirth well up inside her and let out a laugh. “Mirar fled from my lessons. Ha! What a coward!”

The corners of Leiard’s lips lifted slightly, the closest he came to a smile. She sobered and considered him thoughtfully.

“I do not wish you to think I do not enjoy your company, Leiard, but I can’t have Mirar playing truant like this every time he finds my lessons difficult. We are going to have to make sure he doesn’t do this again.”

Leiard’s eyebrows rose. “How do you expect to persuade him otherwise?”

“By getting you to tell me about him. Tell me things he would not like me to hear. What terrible deeds has he been up to?”

As Leiard’s expression darkened she felt a thrill of interest. Obviously there was much to tell.

“To do so would be to confess to my own... folly.”

She blinked in surprise. “You? Folly? You do not seem the type to indulge in foolishness.”

“Ah, but I have, and he will enjoy hearing me relate it, which will hardly achieve your goal.”

She leaned forward, intrigued. “We can get to that later.” She remembered the conversation she had overheard just before they had arrived at the cave. “Is this about a woman?”

Leiard started and frowned at her.

“He has told you.”

“No. I’m a woman, remember. We sense these things. There’s nothing like love to lead a man into folly. Perhaps...” She let her flippant tone rest. “Perhaps a woman’s ear might be more sympathetic to your tale. I can’t imagine Mirar would make a good listener.”

Leiard let out a quiet snort. “He did not approve at all.”

Mirar not approve of a woman? Interesting. “What would this woman’s name be, then?”

The Dreamweaver looked up at her. His tortured expression was one she had never seen Mirar wear, and it made him look like a stranger. He considered her for a long time before he spoke again.

“You must swear to never allow another to know of it.”

“I swear,” she replied solemnly.

He looked down at his hands. She felt herself growing ever more tense as she waited for him to speak.

Tell me! she thought.

“The woman I loved... that I love...” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper “... is Auraya of the White.”

Auraya of the White! Emerahl stared at him. She felt a rush of cold, as if someone had just poured icy water over her head. The shock rendered her incapable of thinking for a moment. One of the Gods’ Chosen! No wonder Mirar did not approve!

Now that the name had been admitted to, a dam against words within Leiard broke. The whole story flooded out: how he had been Auraya’s friend and teacher when she was a child; how he had travelled to Jarime and been enchanted by the woman she had become; how she had made him Dreamweaver Adviser to the White, and the night of “folly” before she left for Si. He told of his resignation in order to preserve their secret; the growing presence of Mirar in his mind, the danger of terrible consequences should the affair be discovered, yet being unable to stop reaching out to her in dreams. He spoke guiltily of the resumption of their affair when Auraya joined the army, then of Juran’s discovery of it, of fleeing and Mirar’s suggestion he take over their body. Then discovering Mirar had hidden in a brothel camp. Finally he told of the dream link which had revealed that Auraya had seen him with a prostitute and now believed he had betrayed her.

When he had finished, he lapsed into a glum silence.

“I see,” Emerahl said, for the sake of saying something. She needed time to consider this incredible story. “That is quite a tale.”

“Mirar was right,” he stated firmly. “I endangered my people.”

Emerahl spread her hands. “You were in love.”

“That is no excuse.”

“It is excuse enough. What I don’t understand is... Auraya must have seen Mirar in your mind. Surely this alarmed her.”

“She knew the link memories in my mind had manifested into a personality I would occasionally converse with. She did not believe Mirar truly existed. She never observed him taking control.”

“I can understand her wanting to believe that. Love makes us tolerate things we might not normally stand for. Juran, surely, would not have accepted it.”

Leiard shrugged. “He did. Perhaps only because I was useful to him and Mirar did not show himself capable of taking control until later.”

He obviously didn’t recognize Mirar’s body, Emerahl thought. Has Juran’s memory faded that much over the last hundred years? Had Mirar looked so different as to be unrecognizable? She shuddered as she realized how close Mirar had been to discovery. The gods must have looked into his mind, perhaps several times, yet they didn’t recognize him. Unless... unless the gods did, but are unconcerned because they know Leiard is the true owner of his body.

Even so, they would not have approved of this affair between their chosen one and any Dreamweaver. Why did they allow it? Maybe they feared to lose Auraya’s trust and loyalty. Maybe they expected Leiard to confirm their low opinion of Dreamweavers. Auraya may now hate them because of Leiard’s “betrayal.”

She frowned as something else occurred to her. “You say she discovered you with a prostitute, but Mirar was in control. Surely if she hadn’t observed him in control before, she should not have recognized you. Or rather, she should have realized it was him in control - not you.”

He frowned. “I had not considered that. It is... puzzling.”

“Yes. You must be alike enough for her to recognize both of you as the same person,” Emerahl said slowly. “She might have noticed differences given the chance, but at that moment she would have been so shocked by what you had done. She may have decided she didn’t know you as well as she thought.”

“I would not have done what he did,” Leiard stated, a little defensively.

Emerahl regarded him thoughtfully. “No. You are quite unlike Mirar in that regard.”

“Why do you like him when he is so despicable?”

She laughed. “Because he is. He’s a rogue, there’s no denying it. While his morals may be a little questionable, he is a good man.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know that, I think.”

He looked away, frowning. “I know he was once more... restrained when it came to women. I think time made him change. He seeks physical sensation in order to assure himself he is still alive. That he is still a physical