Intimate Enemies by Shana Abé

Author:Shana Abé
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-20T08:13:14.688000+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

SHE WAS HAVING A DREAM of sunny places, open fields and warm skies, and the clouds were pearls and the trees had leaves of sparkling emeralds. Swans floated by in lapis-blue ponds, with onyx eyes and smiling beaks of gold. The sun was a rounded cabochon of topaz, glowing with light.

Lauren felt safe and comfortable here, despite the fantastic surroundings. She slept in a meadow of soft grass and heather. She drank nectar from flowers with long, elegant stems.

Arion was here. He offered her the nectar, said her name in whisper tones, touched her face and smiled at her as she looked up at him.

What a vivid dream, the nicest one she had ever had. Lauren settled back into the welcoming grass—smelling of cleanness, sweet and fresh—and closed her eyes again, deciding to nap beneath the bright sun.

Time passed. She didn't know how long. Long enough so that the sky faded away and became a canopy of cloth above her, and the grass became a blanket wrapped around her, with furs by her head.

Only the sun and the swans and the clouds and the trees stayed the same: topaz and onyx, pearls and emeralds, all carefully sewn into a tapestry that hung nearby, a brilliant pastoral scene that fooled the eye with its detailed richness.

It gradually came to Lauren that she was lying in a bed that was not her own, in a room that was not her own. When she turned her head to see why this might be, a terrible stab of lightning exploded though her, blinding her, nearly killing her, and she moaned with the pain of it.

“Don't move,” said a voice to her left, where she could not see. “You need to stay still, Lauren.”

She knew who that was. Lauren tried again to turn her head, back to the left, but this time the lightning blocked out everything else, and she actually felt herself slide into oblivion as it happened.

No dreams now, only that discontinuation of time and life; everything empty, everything gone.

When she looked up again, the canopy above her had not changed. It hung from wooden beams that had been polished and carved into long, twisting lines, as if the tree had grown into one of the braids she had made of the sage. The cloth against it was slate and silver, cool winter colors that soothed the pounding ache in her head.

Lauren moved very slowly, expecting the lightning but getting only more of the ache. She searched the darkened corners of the room, and found a shadow that shifted and then separated from the rest.

Arion came toward her, reached out a hand and lifted her own, bringing it to his lips. She felt the new growth of his beard rasp her there, brief and prickling.

“You look terrible,” she said, but her voice was so slight even she barely heard it. Nevertheless, he smiled down at her, still holding her hand.

“So do you,” he replied cordially.

Lauren carefully managed to turn her head again, away from him, looking around at the rest of the room.

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