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them constantly beyond her reach.
He arched above her like a clouded night sky, lowering, entering her; if not
easily, far more easily than their first urgent fumbles on their wedding
night.Exercise, indeed she thought, and smiled in memory. She felt a pang of
regret that tonight was bound to be futile for trying to catch a child, both
too late for this month and too soon for her healing. In these hurried,
frightening circumstances, she might have been tempted to take a chance on the
healing. Still& surely it would be ill omened to conceive their first child out
of fear and despair.Dag ll come back. He must come back.
He slipped his left arm behind her back, clutched her, and heaved them both
over. She adjusted herself with a wriggle and sat up, looking down at him
curiously. His face held a different abstraction, and she feared for a moment
that they would again lose their intimate impetus to the creeping chill of
tomorrow s worries.
No, evidently not. But he watched her though half-lidded eyes as his left arm
began a peculiar circuit, briefly touching the cord bound on her left wrist,
then her forehead, heart, belly, groin, and wrist again.
 What are you doing?
 Not sure. Something by feel. A little left-handed groundwork, maybe.
What he d called his left-handed groundwork hadn t appeared in their
lovemaking since he d recovered the use of his right hand. She had missed his
eerie caresses, though she supposed it wasn t to her credit that they d made
her feel so downright smug for marrying a black sorcerer instead of a mere
farmer. But that seemed not to be what he was about, this time.
 I m trying to patch a bit of ground reinforcement into you that will dance
with my ground in your cord. Shaped inside your own ground pretty ground! If
you as you grow open to me, I think I can coax it in through natural channels.
Not sure exactly what the effect will be. Just& 
She opened eyes, heart, and body to him, wide and vulnerable.  Need blood?
she asked breathlessly.
She wasn t sure if his huff was a laugh or a sob.  Don t think so. Just& just
love me& 
She found their rhythm again, taking over the lovemaking, abandoning the
magic-making to him. His eyes were as wide and black as she d ever seen them,
pools of night with liquid stars in their depths. His left arm continued its
rounds, more slowly but somehow more intensely. It ended laid diagonally
across his belly just as his back began to arch. Her eyes squeezed shut as the
wonderful, increasingly familiar wave of sensation coursed up from her heated
loins, stopping her breath. A stranger, sharper wave of sweet warmth wound
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with it, rising up through her heart and down her arm in time with the pulse
of her blood.
Oh. Oh!
Then, as he sank beneath her, the ecstatic shudders in his own body damping
out, she said  Oh! in quite another voice of surprise. She clapped her right
hand to the cord encircling her left wrist.  It ittingles . It feels like
winter sparks.
 Too much? Does it hurt? he wheezed anxiously, opening his eyes again.
 No, not at all. Strange& oh! It s fading a bit. Am I losing& ?
 You should be able to call it up to you when you wish. Try.
She bit her lip and concentrated. The warm sensation faded.  No& no, oh dear.
Am I not doing it right?
 Instead of concentrating, try relaxing. Make yourself open.
 That, she said after a minute,  is a lot harder than concentrating.
 Yes. Not force, but persuasion. Enticement.
She sat astride him with her eyes closed, right hand wrapping her wrist, and
tried again. She imagined herself smiling wordlessly, trying to attract Dag
over to her for a kiss and a cuddle.I love you so much &
A prickling heat around, no, inside her wrist seemed like an answering
whisper,Yes, I m here.  That s you? In the cord?
 That s a bit of me that s been in the cord since that night in your aunt
Nattie s weaving room, said Dag, smiling up at her.
 And you can feel a bit of me in your cord like this, too?
 Yep. He added in caution,  It may not last more than a few weeks, as you
absorb the ground reinforcement.
 It ll do fine. She vented a long, elated sigh, and slumped down across his
chest. But since he couldn t kiss any more of her than the top of her head in
this position, she roused herself and reluctantly parted from him. They
cleaned up briefly and lay back down just as the candle guttered out. Dag was
asleep before she was.
She woke in the dark and rolled over to clutch an empty bedroll. Her heart
lurched in panic. Feeling around frantically, she found Dag s dented pillow
still warm. She gripped her cord, calmed her breathing, and tried to sense
him.Alive , of course, the reassuring prickle told her; just over& thataway.
He s just gone out to the slit trench, you fool girl,she scolded herself in
relief. She rolled on her side, bringing her hands up to her breasts, and bent
her head to kiss the heavy, twice-blessed braid.
The tent flap lifted in a few minutes. The shadows outside were nearly as
inky as in here. Dag slipped his bare, chilled body into their bedroll again;
they wound their arms around each other, and Fawn did her best to share heat
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through her skin so that he might ease swiftly into whatever space of sleep
was left to him this night. But before his breathing slowed, a slap sounded on
the leather of their tent flap, and a low voice called,  Dag? Utau, Fawn
thought.
 I m awake, Dag groaned.
 Omba s girls just brought our horses around.
 Right. Be right with you.
From the middle distance sounded a muffled equine snort, and Copperhead s
familiar, irritable squeal. Fawn slipped her shift on in the dark and went out
to coax a bit of flame from the gray ashes of their fire, trying to get a last
few minutes of light from the melted candle stub in the bottom of its clay
cup. Back inside, she found Dag dressed already, running his hand over his
gear as if in final inventory. There would be no turning back for forgotten
items this trip. His face looked tired and strained, but not, she thought,
from fear. At least& not physical fear. They shared slices of plunkin, gnawed
down quickly and without ceremony. Or, in Fawn s case, appetite.
 Now what? said Fawn.
 The company will assemble at the headquarters tent. Most folks say good-bye
at home.
 Right, then.
He hooked up his saddle, Fawn tottered after with the saddlebags, and they
went out to where the horses were tied. Razi, Utau, and Mari were saddling
theirs, in the light of a torch held aloft by Cattagus. Sarri stood ready to
hand things up. In the east, across this arm of the lake, the black shapes of
the trees were just growing distinguishable from the graying sky. Mist
shrouded the water, and the grass and weeds underfoot were damp with dew.
Cattagus handed the torch to Sarri long enough to hug Mari, muttering into
her knotted gray hair,  Mind your steps, you fool old woman. To which she
returned,  You just mind yourself, you fool old man. Despite his wheezing, he
gave her a leg up, his hand lingering a moment on her thigh as she settled
into her saddle.
Dag gave Copperhead a knee to the belly, ducked the return snap of yellow
teeth, and tightened his girth for a second time. He turned to grip Fawn s
hands, then embraced her as she flung her arms around him and held hard. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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