“And he used to sleep with her, too.”
Jerusha looked down. “I don’t know.”
“He says so,” she whispered. “Is that why Mama hates Arienrhod?”
“No. Not entirely.” Jerusha rubbed her arms. “They both loved your father They couldn’t help it.”
“Because they’re the same person,” Ariele said, her voice turning flat and strained.
“It isn’t that simple,” Jerusha repeated. “They wanted the same things—your father, and this world’s freedom from the Hegemony—but not in the same way.”
Ariele shook her head, her face twisting with disgust, and Jerusha knew that they had lost her. She started away down the pier, her bare feet splashing. As she reached the shore she began to run, disappearing down the diminishing strand of beach.
Ariele slowed again when she knew that she was beyond earshot of anyone calling after her. She stopped, looking out at the bay, waiting for the sight of Silky’s head. She whistled shrilly, calling the mer to her. Silky came out of the water, moving awkwardly up the beach on her wide, flat flippers, her neck weaving in curiosity. Ariele leaned down, nuzzling her; feeling the cold space inside her heart fill with warmth and love, feeling her mind fill with thoughts that held brightness and promise, a future not bound up in anyone else’s past.
“Come on, sweet Silky, you hear that?” she asked. “My fishbrained brother trying to make your music with his flute. Let’s go sing him some real music—” She began to walk again, slowing her pace this time so that the mer could keep up with her. She watched the shining sand under her feet, stooping to pick up an occasional agate pebble from the flotsam of stones and weed and shells underfoot.
Ahead of them was a steep hummock of eroded sandstone, almost like a castle. They had always called it the Castle, pretending it was something out of the stories that Jerusha had told them when they were children. Tammis still liked to sit up there in its sun-warmed crannies (and sometimes even she did) and play his flute, the way he was doing now. Merovy was probably up there too, hanging on every note, on his every word, like the infatuated little idiot she was.
They had all been happy enough as playmates when they were children. But Ariele had long since lost patience with the younger girl, just as she had lost patience with her cautious, moody brother and his obsession with his music. She was sure he only played to impress Da, but he would never impress Da, not until he stopped being such a whining bore.
She stopped at the foot of the Castle, listening to her brother’s music, which reached her purely and clearly now: a mix of old traditional Summer tunes and freeform improvisation on some of the mersong fragments she had taught him, all of it flowing together into a surprisingly coherent and—though she hated to admit it—beautiful whole. Silky raised her head and began a low singsong in response; breaking off, her head swaying, starting up again, as if she wanted to continue the music, but was uncertain of its pattern.
Ariele began to sing and whistle, encouraging her, until a head peered over the top of the rock far above them. Ariele looked up, seeing Merovy’s long, curly brown hair, her pale face and gray eyes framed by its thick waves. Her face disappeared again, and the music stopped.
Tammis looked down now, the sunlight glinting red-gold off the highlights in his darker brown hair, his expression caught between annoyance and concentration as he listened to their music. The expression turned completely annoyed as he realized she was only parroting back his own song. “Go away,” he said. “You’re interrupting me.”
“Oh—?” Ariele cocked her head. “Really? And I thought you were just playing with your flute.” She laughed, making her own face into a travesty of romantic longing, wriggling suggestively. “Come on, Silky, we’ll leave the lovesick birds in their nest. …” She sauntered away down the shore, picking up agates and carbuncles, with Silky trailing reluctantly behind her.
“Lady’s Eyes!” Tammis settled back into the warm palm of stone where he had been lying beside Merovy with his head in her.lap, playing his music for her. He felt his face burning with anger and embarrassment as he looked away from his sister’s retreating back; back into Merovy’s gray, calm gaze. “Sorry,” he said, looking away again. “I just wish she’d leave me alone. She always has to ruin everything.” He looked at his flute, with the memory of how she had tried to take it from him, years ago, still as fresh as the way she had taunted him just now. The memory of how their father would have let her; how, when their mother had stopped it, Da had given her his very own flute. She had hardly touched it since, as far as he knew; while he had practiced and practiced. But the only time his father listened to him was when he had discovered a new fragment of mersong to play….
He dropped his flute irritably, heard it clatter on the stone behind him.
“Oh, don’t—” Merovy leaned over and picked it up with quick hands, brushing off the sand, checking it for fractures. She held it out to him. “Here, it’s all right.…”
He grimaced, shaking his head. “I don’t care—nobody else does.”
She looked at him.
“Sorry.” He sighed, sitting back down under the gentle censure of her gaze. He took the flute from her; held on to her hands as he did, drawing her close. She settled into the curve of his body, putting her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. He stroked her hair, turned his face to kiss her on the mouth, a little selfconsciously; feeling the sudden giddy rush of heat inside him, the sudden uncomfortable pressure against the fastenings of his pants. He pulled back, catching his breath, still half-afraid of his body’s unexpected and unpredictable responses to things that excited it. But at least this time it was a girl’s body he was excited by, and this time it was not simply because she was a girl, and touching him, but because she was Merovy… .
What he felt for her ran far deeper than newly awakened sexual desire, far beyond the shared memories of old friendship. Because when he looked into Merovy’s eyes as he did now, he saw only himself reflected there, and not the son of the Summer Queen; not prestige or power or superstition or anything else. Only deep, unquestioning trust, and unspoken yearning. Shy and soft-spoken, half Winter and half Summer, she was lost in the casual wit and flash of their usual crowd of city acquaintances. But out here in the peace and silence, he saw her real beauty.
And, trusting her as she trusted him, he drew her down beside him into the warm hollow of the rock. He kissed her again with sudden longing, his hands touching her, cupping her breasts through the soft cloth of her shirt with gentle insistence. She let him, as she had let him before, only kissing him more passionately, her lips soft and open against his. She made no move to stop him as he loosened his shirt and then her own, slipping his hands up under it, dazzled by the softness of her skin, while her own hands caressed his face, his chest, the muscles of his back; never daring to wander below his waist. He felt himself aching for her to do it, to touch him there. … He let his own hands leave her breasts and slide down, loosening her pants, curving around the soft lines of her thighs and hips, in between, as her knees tightened, resisting, then loosened again.
They had done this much before, exploring each other tentatively, achingly; but always she had stopped him from going further, and always, afraid of hurting her or driving her away, he had been content to stop. There were girls he knew in the city who were more than ready, who had tried to make him feel what he suddenly felt now, as Merovy’s hands abruptly tried to push his own away. He had not given in to them, wanting it to happen with her, only with her; an act of love, not just the impulse he felt when he had looked at those other lithe, willing young bodies, both the girls and the boys….