Chapter 7
The women sat together in a line and watched Donen, Caleb, and Renier talking at the base of the hill. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
“I sure hope it’s the peace negotiation,” Anna remarked. “I hate to think of them discussing the weather at a time like this.”
“They are discussing the peace negotiation,” Emily told them. “That’s why Faruk and Menlo and Turk weren’t invited. They wanted to discuss it between themselves, just the Alphas, without anybody else.”
“And without us,” Marissa pointed out. “They didn’t want to give the impression anybody was influencing their decisions.”
“What are they going to do about Aquilla?” Chris asked.
“I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re discussing,” Emily replied. “Without him, this peace negotiation doesn’t exist.”
“Not necessarily,” Anna told her. “That’s three factions in agreement over there. A few years ago, no one could have anticipated this. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. Even if we walk away from here without bringing Aquilla around, we’ve still achieved an enormous victory for the Angondran people. At least our three factions will live in peace with each other.”
Aimee sighed and sat back in her seat. Her mind hadn’t stopped working since last night. Emily studied her. “You’re very quiet this morning. What’s on your mind?”
“If I knew that,” Aimee replied, “I wouldn’t have to be quiet about it.”
“You were right about one thing,” Aria told her. “You were right about us talking to our mates about peace.”
“What do you mean?” Aimee asked.
“I talked to Donen last night,” Aria replied. “He said some things about the Avitras that made me think maybe Aquilla is right not to trust this negotiation. What you said yesterday kept coming back to me. Even if they agree to peace here, the old prejudices still exist below the surface, waiting to flare up.”
The group sat in silence for a while. Then Marissa spoke up in such a low murmur the others could barely hear her. “Caleb is the same. He’s not ready to make peace with......well, with anybody.”
Chris spun around. “What do you mean by that? I thought he supported this negotiation.”
“He does,” Marissa replied. “He sees the logic of disarming the borders, since none of the factions have the resources to guard them anymore. But he doesn’t trust any of the other factions. It isn’t just the Avitras. He doesn’t trust the Felsite or the Ursidreans, either.”
“But they’re standing together right over there.” Chris pointed across the land at the three men.
“That’s one Felsite and one Ursidrean,” Marissa replied. “One man is easy to talk to. A whole faction is something else entirely, and the Avitras are openly hostile to all of us. Guarding the Avitras border would still put a strain on the Lycaon we can’t afford.”
“So what are we going to do?” Emily asked. “Those prejudices could take generations to fade.”
“They won’t fade,” Aimee told her. “They’ll continue to be handed down from one generation to the next, and as long as the prejudice remains, the wars will continue.” She stood up and stretched. Then she turned away.
“Hey!” Chris called after her. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going for a walk.” She didn’t look back.
She didn’t go straight up the hill. That would be too obvious. She walked along the base of the Divide until a pile of rocks hid her from her friends’ view. Then and only then did she veer off and strike out for the mountain.
The farther she walked, the faster her heart beat. The physical exertion of climbing the slope didn’t faze her at all. She’d run up steeper mountains than this many times, but the memory of Piwaka kept her moving with a shiver of excitement. Would she meet him again somewhere between the trees?
What was she doing, coming up here to look for him like a giddy schoolgirl? Maybe he didn’t feel the same way about her. Maybe he didn’t think about her at all. He might laugh in her face if he met her coming to look for him.
She shook those doubts out of her head. She couldn’t rest until she found out for certain if her fevered vision had any basis in reality. Had she imagined the magnetic charge passing between them? Was he something special, something she’d searched for her whole life and only just wakened to find, or was he just a charming man with a persuasive way of talking to people? She had to find out. She wouldn’t go back until she put this demon to rest. If he laughed her down the mountain, at least she’d know she imagined the whole thing.
She came back to the same tree, but she didn’t climb it. She ought to go back before he spotted her. She walked away from the tree, but she didn’t go down the mountain. She headed for the big rock where the Avitras pitched their camp. A ways down the hill from the rock, she scaled another tree. To her surprise, not one Avitras remained on the rock. It was completely deserted. The Avitras had retreated into their own territory. There would be no negotiation with them for a long time, if ever.
Her heart pounded in her head. What would the other Alphas do when they found out? She swung around the tree trunk to climb down, but at that moment, a gust of wind shook the treetop. The trunk swayed, and a winged creature swooped at Aimee’s face. She threw up her arm to protect herself, but when she looked again, she found Piwaka balanced on the branch in front of her. “Were you looking for me?”
Aimee stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find out if you were looking for me,” he replied.
She pointed toward the rock. “There’s no one here. I thought you were gone. Where are all the Avitras?”
“We aren’t gone. We camp in trees, not on the ground.” He pointed to the forest beyond the rock. “We’re camped over there.” He squatted on the branch, and the feathers along the sides of his arms and down his legs lay down flat. “I’m glad you’re here, because I want you to carry a message to your friends down there.”
Aimee frowned. “What is it?”
“Aquilla wants to talk to the other Alphas,” he told her. “Not about peace, you understand. He wants to discuss the disposition of the borders. It seems there’s some confusion about where Avitras territory ends and Ursidrean territory begins. He thinks there may be discrepancies with the other borders as well. This may be what’s causing all these wars.”
“And you believe that?” Aimee shot back.
He cocked his head and blinked at her with his big iridescent eyes. “I’m surprised at you. I thought you were more astute than that.”
“Than what?” she asked. “More astute than thinking Aquilla would concoct this pathetic excuse to lure the other Alphas into some mock negotiation over the borders? I wouldn’t stoop so low as to carry that message back to them. I’ll tell them Aquilla is trying to manipulate the borders, and he wants to draw them into some kind of trap with this invitation to talk?”
He sighed and shook his head. “You’ve been listening to your friend Anna too much—excuse me, your cousin—and her mate Menlo. Aquilla is not trying to draw anyone into a trap.”
“How can I be sure of that?” she asked. “Why should I carry a message from him when he’s trying to subvert our peace process with his ridiculous demands?”
“Because, Aimee,” Piwaka replied, “I am the one who suggested this discussion to him. Do you think he could come up with something like this on his own? This is the best way I could convince him to enter into a rational dialogue with the other Alphas. You have to admit there is some misunderstanding about the location of this border. It only makes sense that, after generations of hostility, other discrepancies exist on the other borders as well. If the other Alphas don’t address them now, they are bound to stumble into another conflict later in spite of any peace negotiation.”
She stared at him. “You....you suggested it?”
“Of course I did,” he told her. “I told you I would play on Aquilla’s need to remain sovereign within his own faction to bring him to the negotiation. Did you think I was just talking to hear my own voice? I wouldn’t say I was going to do it unless I planned to follow it through.”
She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry for doubting you. I should have known you would come up with something like this.”
“If I hadn’t,” he went on, “Aquilla would have ordered all the Guard back to our villages. He never would have talked to the other Alphas about anything. He never would have shown his face to them again except in war.”
She stole a glance at him. “Is that what you came here to tell me—that you want me to carry the message?”
He nodded. “I told you I consider you instrumental in sealing this peace process. You’re the only one who could carry the message.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked. “Any of the others could carry it.”
He studied her with his intense flickering eyes. “And which of the others would come up here to talk to me—or any other Avitras—to get the message to carry it? None of them. Only you would come up here.”
“The only reason I came up here....” she began, but she didn’t finish.
He waited and watched her. “Did you come up here looking for me?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Did you come because of what I said about you aiding the negotiation?” he asked.
“No,” she replied.
A hint of uncertainty flashed across his face and disappeared just as fast. “Did one of the Alphas send you up here to find me?”
She snorted. “No. None of the Alphas knows I’m having anything to do with you.”
He frowned. “Then why did you come?”
“To see you, of course,” she blurted out. “You know that.”
His eyes flew open. Then he regained his composure and settled lower on the branch. He inched closer to her. “I thought we would be able to talk to each other.”
“We are talking to each other,” she told him. “What else would we be doing?”
He studied her. “For someone who came up here to see me, you don’t seem very happy about it.”
Her anger flared. “What are you doing to me? I didn’t come along on this trip to find a mate.”
“No one ever said you did,” he replied.
She waved her hand. “Then why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” he asked.
She pointed at him. “Like that. You keep looking at me like... like you can see right through me. You keep looking at me like I’m not even there.”
“Oh, you’re there, all right,” he returned. “You are very there. There’s no doubt about that.”
“You know what I mean,” she shot back. “You keep looking at me like the person everyone thinks is there, isn’t there, and the person you think is there, no one else knows is there.” She glared at him. “I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense,” he replied. “What else do I do by looking at you?”
Her words tumbled out of her. “It isn’t just everybody else. You keep looking at me like the person I think I am isn’t there, and the person you think is there, I didn’t know was there.”
He listened to all that gibberish with a perfectly straight face. “But it was there. The person I think is there, is there. You might not have known it was there, but it was, and now you can’t hide from it. Or rather, I should say, you can’t deny that she is there. Is that about the size of it?”
Her eyes flashed. “How can you be so nonchalant about this? This is my...my soul we’re talking about. How can you say what I don’t think is there, is there, and what I think is there, isn’t there? Confound you, will you stop looking at me like that?”
He didn’t answer, and he stopped looking at her like that. In a heartbeat, he sailed across the branch and kissed her. She didn’t even hear the rustle of his feathers. Her mind exploded, and the rest of her world crumbled at the seams.