Heart Fortune

“I can help you with that,” Jace said.

She nodded and began her slow, picky, progress again. He heard shouts of satisfaction from the area set aside for the new communications instruments—what looked like a series of small, thin wire grids. “Rumors have it that we will be testing a new communications system.”

“Oh, yes,” Glyssa said. “Laev is working with Nuada’s Sword and Dani Eve Elder, a commander of that Ship, to put an artificial satellite into orbit around Celta, based on ancient Earthan data, since our Celtan science is not like the old tech.”

Jace stopped. “Put equipment into space!”

“Yes.” Glyssa stopped frowning at the straight line of gauze and looked up at him with a smile. “Curious?”

“Oh, yeah!”

She sighed. “I’m sure that Nuada’s Sword will viz the launch of the satellite for all of the city of Druida, and maybe the closer towns, to see.”

“We’ll miss it,” Jace said, disappointed.

“Yes, we will.” She handed him the next peg and he set it in the ground, repeated the spell aloud for her so she could do the last one on her own.

Glyssa stared at the outline of Lugh’s Spear. “This ship wasn’t sentient like Nuada’s Sword.”

“No, a pity,” Jace said.

“You think?” She shook her head. “I don’t. How horrible it would have been for the ship to have known it was dying . . . that no one could save it. None of the colonists had the means to rescue it.”

Jace shuddered. “Hadn’t thought of it that way. Trapped and unable to be saved. Terrible, all right.”

She’d stopped when he’d kept going and his step brought him close to her. Closer than any but lovers should be. He took a pace away, didn’t like how his heart leapt when his body had brushed hers. He thought he saw disappointment in her face.

Glyssa was disappointed. Reluctantly she placed the last small spike, pointed end down, checked twice to make sure it was in line with all the other corners, and murmured the raising spell. The gauze stretched to two-meter-high walls, took on a purple tint—Laev T’Hawthorn’s color—as they became opaque. There was even a pointed top to the pavilion and what appeared to be vents. Occasional markings showed and as she studied them, she saw that they looked like spaces for windows.

Even as she turned to Jace, he’d walked to the eastern side, narrowed his gaze, and dragged his finger in a rectangle high in the tent wall where the sun would angle as it rose.

Lepid jumped to his feet, shook himself out and yipped, running straight into the door opening.

Our space! Ours! It is a big tent!

“A pavilion,” Glyssa corrected automatically. She went to the door, gestured for Jace.

He tucked his fingers into his belt, rocked back on his heels and shook his head.

Her smile faded and her jaw clenched, but she pushed through the light shield of the door—had Laev tuned it for her and Lepid? Amazing Flair—to see her FamFox prancing around.

It is big for the camp, he said, but not as big as our house or our library.

He leapt up and she caught him in her arms, snuggling with him, and took him on the very short tour. The pavilion was nothing short of impressive. It actually had three rooms. An outer room like a sitting room, complete with space for the no-time food storage unit, a bedroom only slightly smaller, and her very own tiny toilet and waterfall room. What luxury. When Laev T’Hawthorn bought something, it was the most lavish item possible.

She went back out to exclaim her pleasure to Jace, and see what other furnishings might be in the huge bag, but he was gone. Dammit!

And she barely saw him the rest of the day. She ate in the Elecampanes’ tent, discussing the new communications instrumentation and her duties, the new communications system and Maxima helping her, Nuada’s Sword launching the communications satellite, and the excavation.

By the time they were done hashing out the security for the new hole down to Lugh’s Spear, and the revised plan for earth removal from the site, night had fallen and she’d dragged herself and a snoozing Lepid into their pavilion . . . where she’d increased the size of the furniture and set it up, along with lovely rugs for the sitting room, and the latest in thick, portable bedsponges, big enough for the two of them, though her FoxFam headed for his own basket.

As a finishing touch, she hung the mobile containing a thousand colorful cranes she’d made a while back using her creative Flair for origami.

With the last spurt of Flair energy she had, she contacted Camellia telepathically. I am here and doing well.

Lovely to hear! Her friend sounded cheery, lively . . . well, it was a couple of hours earlier in Druida City. So strange, this time difference, something Glyssa had never had to consider or take into account before.

Is he as gorgeous as you remember? asked Camellia.

More. Older, more muscles. Glyssa laughed. She recalled her first glimpse of him that had dazzled her. He looked like a poet or a dreamer, narrow face with dark brown hair and deep auburn highlights . . . but, of course his bold and wild silver gray eyes gave him away.

He wasn’t a dreamer, more like a swashbuckler.

A wonderful word, ancient and Earthan. Glyssa rolled it in her mouth. Swashbuckler. She just wished it didn’t apply to her HeartMate. She didn’t think swashbucklers were all that stable as lovers. Well, she’d already found that out, hadn’t she?

Is he kind? demanded Camellia.

More like dangerous, but Glyssa wouldn’t tell her friend that. Dangerously exciting. Camellia prized kindness in men. He helped me set up the pavilion.

Oh, good! Camellia said.

Glyssa yawned. Her weariness must have been transmitted along the sister-friendship-bond because Camellia said, You’ve had a very long day. Thank you for letting me know all is well.

Welcome, Glyssa said. Merry meet and merry part.

And merry meet again, love you.

I love you, too. ’Night.

Her FoxFam gave a fake snore even as she petted him.

“Good night, Lepid,” she muttered as she changed into her nightgown and fell onto the bed, pulling up the thin and bespelled covering that wouldn’t keep her too warm or too cold.

Good night, FamWoman.

The last thing she said was, “I worry about you, please stay in the tent.”

* * *

Help! Help! Something pawed at Jace. He opened his eyes to too-close predator muzzle and bad FoxFam breath, sat up so the fox tumbled from his lap, felt the slightest dig of sharp claws in his groin and woke fast.

Help! the fox yipped again.

Jace scanned the animal in the gloom of his tent. Looked okay to him. “What?” he grumbled.

There is a hurt Fam. Come!

Grunting, Jace threw off the bespelled and padded cover and rolled off the bedsponge. For an instant he envied Glyssa her wonderful tent that she could stand up in instead of hunch. A hurt Fam. The crew had a few, he thought, though they kept close to their people and tents. Fams were still rare and prized.

The most adventuresome were, of course, those companioned with the owners: Shunuk the FoxFam, Rosemary and Carolinia the cat Fams. Shunuk had more experience than Jace, so he figured the wounded Fam wasn’t him. In any case, saving any Fam would be a heroic thing to do.

Which was why Lepid was here, he was sure. Nipping at Jace’s ankle as he drew on a shirt.