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Trying to pay attention to Ezra across the workroom table, but without much success, Bryar remembered the lingering touch of Tai’s lips on his. Last night, touching Tai, kissing Tai for the first time... he’d had hundreds of first times, but last night was the kind of experience he wrote ballads about.
He’d made a restrained exploration of her curves and angles, holding himself forcibly in check. A woman... a future, together... they could make babies...
“Bryar.” Ezra’s usually patient voice held an edge.
“Sorry.”
“You didn’t hear a word I said.”
He grinned. “No, probably not.”
“Where is your mind this morning?” He hesitated. “It’s Tai, isn’t it?”
Bryar nodded.
“I was afraid of this. Tai wouldn’t want it.”
The grin faded. “She does.” Her small body nestling into his, her bold hands...
Ezra turned away to pull out a stool and sit. The Old Man had enjoyed a period of strength and vigor for the last couple of nine-days, but Bryar’s statement seemed to deplete his energy. “That isn’t good. She at least appreciates the seriousness of our work here.”
“And you think I don’t?” Bryar bristled at the criticism, but the memories overwhelmed his touchiness, softening his reply. “I feel ready for anything. She’s...” He struggled for the right words. “Living like we do, moving around constantly... even with Willow, I never knew.”
“Weavers. We live in our insular world. Love is everywhere, but we avoid it. Your timing is inconvenient.”
Bryar sobered. “I just need a day or two-”
“We don’t have a day or two,” Ezra snapped. “There’s far too much to do still.”
His own ire burst forth. “There are six or seven nine-days before spring. The cell isn’t moving. No one knows where Kiril is, assuming he’s got the thing. I’m fit and your protocol works, it just needs refinement-”
“Which I’d hoped to pursue today. But I need your focused attention.”
“I want a couple of days off.”
“You’re not a sixteen-year-old.”
“You should remember that,” Bryar said, his voice cold. “I’m a man grown. I make my own decisions.”
Ezra pounded the workbench, then sighed. “Lovesick puppy. You’re no good to me this way. But Bryar...”
He met Ezra’s gaze. What he saw there chilled him.
“If this continues to interfere with our work, I’ll send Tai away. You have a job to do. I expect you to do it. Tai’s future is as much at stake as yours or anyone’s. Don’t forget that.”
“I’m not likely to.” Just a day or two, that’s all he asked, time to hang out with Tai, complete the song growing in his head, kiss her some more... He didn’t let his thoughts go to what came after the kissing. That would happen in its own good time.
“Since you’re useless today, I suggest you exercise this morning.” Ezra reeled off a list of drills. “That should keep your libido in check, and I’m concerned that your left ankle needs strengthening.”
Bryar lifted his leg and rotated the foot. “I broke it, years ago. It’ll always be weaker.”
“Do it anyway. Go.”
Glad to escape the disapproval, Bryar made for the training arena in the barn. Tai might come watch, or even spar with him. Although how he was supposed to fight her, hold a wooden sword to her throat, after last night... He stripped out of his tunic and got to work.
~~
TAI DIDN’T APPEAR FOR lunch. He wondered, but she took off on her own regularly. Scribe, he told himself. Scribes devoted their lives to learning. Tai followed her curiosity and instincts, wherever they led.
He had good tracking skills. He’d find her.
Rebecca was quiet over the meal and kept shooting him these motherly, concerned looks. Possibly she sensed the tension between him and Ezra, who was tight-lipped. Rebecca, he gathered from Tai, had been a drop-out, one of the handful of apprentices every year whose connection, when put to the test, proved insufficient to allow her to become a Weaver. But during her time at the Motherhouse she met Ezra.
And had been his mainstay ever since, Bryar thought, watching the restrained interactions between the two elderly people. Ezra built his power on the foundation of her quiet strength.
After lunch Bryar donned coat and boots and set out to find Tai. The weather had turned mild over the last few days, resulting in muddy trails and dripping trees; even from the compound he heard the river as it raged over shattered ice. Ezra predicted a hard freeze that night, locking everything up again.
He followed her prints to the clearing by the river. The maelstrom of the current had drowned her quiet refuge on the other side. But Tai had more sense than to go anywhere near the river today; even he wouldn’t dare-
Tai’s boots lay propped against a nearby tree trunk.
He found no other signs. No indication she had slipped and fallen in. No other articles of clothing. Nothing. Just her boots.
When he shouted her name, the surrounding hills seemed to vibrate to the timbre of his voice, but here was no answer.
His heart thudding in his throat, he took the trail downriver, scanning the torrent, every rapid and eddy, stopping regularly to search. To cry out. After an hour he reversed the journey, always watching, listening for any sign of Tai.
When Bryar returned to the clearing, Ezra stood on the bank staring at the boots. When the other man looked up, he said, “She’s not – I’m going in. See where the current might have-”
“No.” Ezra’s hand gripped his arm, hard, then the Old Man collapsed, clinging to Bryar’s arm. “Even you can’t go into that. It would be suicide.”
“But Tai...” Bryar helped Ezra toward a tree for support, the two of them alone on the wet bank.
Alone.
He released Ezra and approached the river, as close as he dared. “Tai!” he screamed. The single, lonely word came back to him from the surrounding hills, hollow and inhuman.
“Take me home,” Ezra whispered.
Beyond comprehension, he surveyed the river one last time. Then he stooped and lifted the Old Man into his arms, and staggered toward the compound.
~~
THAT NIGHT REBECCA gave him a spicy tisane with honey for his raw throat. Nobody spoke much, although Rebecca did say, more than once, “Tai isn’t gone. I would know it.” Bryar put it down to a grandmother’s wishful thinking.
That night he plunged into an ague, his body gripped in shivering fits, dragging him between burning fever and icy cold. Rebecca dosed him with her vile-tasting remedies. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Nothing would ever help. Tai was gone. What was the point of it all, with Tai gone?
~~
WHEN THE AGUE LESSENED its grip, Ezra sat beside his bed as he finished a bowl of chicken soup, his first nourishment for days. “I’m sorry,” Ezra said. “I pushed you too hard. Your body rebelled.”
“Tai,” he said. His voice barely worked, more croak than baritone.
“If Rebecca says she’s alive, then she is. But where or why? I don’t know.”
Bryar allowed Ezra to take the bowl from his shaking hands. “She’d need her boots. But there was no trace. She didn’t walk away from that bank.”
“Never underestimate her. Even I don’t fully understand all she’s capable of.”
He collapsed back on his pillows. Despite Ezra’s words, Rebecca’s confidence, he forced himself to face the truth. The one person in the Midland who completed him – a line from the partially composed song – was gone.
~~
IT WAS FIVE DAYS BEFORE Bryar could to do more than sit by the fire with Ezra and Rebecca, and almost two nine-days before he resumed his training. That afternoon he walked again to the river, scouring the bank, looking for any trace of Tai. As he half expected, half dreaded, he found nothing.
The extent of his anger and bitterness astounded him. Even in his darkest moments he had never experienced this level of pure hatred for the Aura, for life itself.
Although it took him days to build up his strength again, he threw himself into the training with a fury, ready to destroy. He was distant with Rebecca, surly with Ezra, locked in his own aggressive need to pummel something, anything, for taking Tai away from him.