“Will you,” she said, finally leaning back a little but still holding my arm, those green eyes glowing. “Is that why you’re so determined to rid yourself of Tammad? You don’t want to be rid of him, all you want to do is believe everything he tells you, but he has no place in the dream world you’re building except as a painful, once-beloved memory. When he’s gone you can relive the good times with him without risk, knowing he’ll never be any less yours, knowing he’ll never do anything to force you back to something you don’t believe you can deal with. You’ve just been through a lot of hurt, my darling, but you mustn’t believe that’s all life holds for you. You’re not alone any longer, and we’re going to see to it that you’re never alone again.”
Never alone again. I stared at her as I let that phrase repeat itself over and over in my mind, feeling exactly what it meant to me. When you set people into place in your mind and then let yourself join them, they always say and do just what you like and never exclude you from their company. You have the best time you’ve ever had, you know you’re loved and even liked, and all you have to do is be yourself to be witty, charming and completely accepted. Mistakes aren’t important, because if they happen you just wipe everything out and start again, this time doing it right. Ordinary people can hurt you at any time no matter how often they swear they won’t, but those who keep you company in your mind . . .
“It’s trust, isn’t it?” she said softly, sharing compassion with me. “All trusting people has gotten you so far is betrayal, and you’re really afraid to try it again. Well, you don’t have to, you know, at least not right away. We’re willing to let you sit back and wait until we prove we can be trusted, we don’t mind. After everything that’s happened, it’s the least we can do.”
Her smile was friendly and warm and real, as real as the offer shed made and just as sincere. It was also one of the oddest things I’d ever been told, and I got some idea of what my expression was like when her smile changed to a grin.
“With the rest of us taken care of, at least for a while, all you need to think about now is Tammad,” she said, the conversation immediately changing from serious to amused along with her mood. “You can pretend the rest of us are unreal as much as you like, but l’lendaa have a habit of not letting themselves be treated that way. What will you do if the next time he shows up he’s shielded?”
“He doesn’t know how to shield,” I said, making a face before finishing up the kimla in my cup. “And even if he happens to learn, didn’t you hear what Len said? I’ve developed the ability to get through shields, which is what I had to do to win against Farian and become Chama. I don’t expect to have any trouble with Tammad.”
“Ouch, there goes that depression again,” she said, making a face of her own. “With him it’s not just a matter of trust, is it? You really are afraid to take him back because you might lose him again, but in the strangest way you’re acting as if you already have lost him. I can feel disappointment, but you also seem to be blaming yourself as the cause of the disappointment. You’re disappointed in him, but whatever he’s done it isn’t his fault. Hmmm.”
Her sight went unfocused as her mind went into high gear, leaving me to reach for the kimla pitcher in an effort to keep my annoyance down. In a way Irin was behaving just the way Rissim had the night before, calmly deciding she had the right to mix into my life without once asking whether or not I minded. Considering the way Rimilian men were, his doing it wasn’t very surprising, but what gave her the right to . . .
“Aha, I think I have it!” she said with a small laugh, her self-satisfaction very clear. “I’m usually not all that good at figuring these things out, but this time it was almost easy. The key was in what you said about not expecting to have any trouble with l’lendaa, and also in your comment that Tammad was used to winning against you. You liked the idea of his being able to stand up to you, but now that you’ve come to terms with your mind strength you don’t think he’ll be able to do it any longer. That’s also why you’re not very worried at the thought of your father being annoyed with you, but where Tammad’s concerned you’re disappointed rather than unworried. You didn’t want to grow beyond him, but that didn’t stop it from happening.”
“He’s the sort of man who has to be in charge, and with me around he can’t be,” I said with a shrug, finding her guess close enough to the mark to make correction unnecessary. “He once admitted he’d always had trouble coping with me, and the way I am now he’d have more than trouble. I can’t trust him not to give me up one day for the sake of an ideal, and although he doesn’t realize it yet, he can’t trust me not to do things that will make him feel like less of a man. If it was just me I might take the chance, but knowing what it will do to him . . . What was that you said about reality being better than a dream world?”
“It is better, and you’ve got to believe that!” she said with intensity, no longer amused, her hand on my arm again. “Every time something like this happens you put up another layer of glass between you and the rest of us, but it’s not shutting us out, it’s locking you in! I’ll bet that even when you cry the tears aren’t real, not with the way you’re refusing to feel anything. If you keep going on like this you’ll be made of nothing but glass, and I don’t think you need to be told what usually happens to things made of glass.”
“For one, they seldom find themselves held in the arms of a man,” another voice said, one I really hadn’t been expecting. He shouldn’t have come back calm and under control, he should have been mad as hell! “All wendaa deserve to be held in the arms of the men who love them, so that together they may find a solution to their troubles.”
“Tammad, do sit down and have some kimla with us,” Irin said in delight, really enjoying playing the gracious hostess in the middle of a primitive world. “Did you sleep well last night?”
“Your hospitality was most appreciated,” the barbarian answered courteously as he came forward to sit crosslegged on my left, paying no attention to the fact that I wasn’t even looking at him. “What oddness I faced this morning stemmed from a source beyond the control of you and the l’lenda Rissim, and I must therefore apologize for having taken my leave without first having given you thanks for your courtesy.”
“Considering the fact that she is our daughter, apologies on your part are totally unnecessary,” Irin came back, giving him a commiserating smile. “If she weren’t already banded as yours, we would be the ones who needed to apologize. How much of our conversation did you hear?”
“Enough,” he said, a turn of his head letting me have the weight of his eyes. “I felt much the fool, to discover myself busily out and about a doing which was no longer mine alone. It was not difficult knowing my wenda was to blame, for Dallan had told me of the thrall under which he had been kept in Vediaster. To say my anger was great is to say one is mildly pleased when one is victorious in battle. ”
“But you don’t seem angry now,” Irin pointed out, reaching the pitcher of kimla over to fill the cup her guest had picked up. “Did you change your mind along the way, or did you first have to hear what we were saying?”
“The condition of my anger has not changed,” he said, the calm in his mind swirling as thickly as ever. “I had no wish to warn the woman of my approach, therefore did I cover what I felt before returning here. There will be punishment for what was done by her, yet now do I see the necessity for first assisting in returning her to that which she was. No man joys in having a woman without feeling. ”