Clans of Luteri Ch. 10-11

"I am proud to bring you home with me, mi dutul," he said to her.

"Dutul?"

"My bond," he clarified softly.

He looked at the shoreline again.

"It will be stormy between us, Corsaire, because we are both very young to be bonded," he said a little absently. "It usually would have happened, if it did ever, when we were in our second life. You'll be sick of me in one hundred years or so."

He said the word—Corsaire—and she shivered. He called her that, and for him the emotions the word brought were very strong, most of them violent, like it opened a place of pain and rage in him that had no bottom. He kept those feelings separate from her entirely, walling them off, so there were two Corsaires.

But sometimes it bled a little across the barrier, an exciting tinge for him, her Corsaire heritage a source of lust, sexual desire, forbidden erotic attraction. Kane looked at her, his mouth crooking, conceding her knowledge of it. So much was unspoken between them, and what had happened to create their bond most of all.

"Wait," she said. "One hundred years? What is a second life?"

He rubbed his eyes and she felt his brief dismay. She realized he had forgotten what she didn't know. He glanced around himself.

"Luterians are more long-lived than many, Corsaire," he told her, switching to the Luterian language.

She felt his worry—that she would react poorly, and his regret—that he hadn't said it better, she guessed—and also excitement, that she know this.

"How long?"

"About three hundred years," he said. "I'm sorry. I should have found a way to say it more gently."

She watched him take in her feelings. Shock. Disbelief. Confusion, a spike of elation, disbelief again.

Fear. He drew her to him, strong and warm. She rested her head and hands on his chest, listening to the thud of his heart.

"I don't remember a time this wasn't something I knew and accepted," he said. "We call our first hundred years our first life—we are both early in it—and then our second, and then our third. It's not such a bad thing, is it? To live a long life with me?"

"Wait," she said, something else occurring to her now. "How old are you?"

He laughed.

"I am not so old. I was nineteen when I gave you my oath, Aslin, in the autumn, the tenth month in Luteri, Bethlor, on the 26th day. I'm fifteen years older than you. You are nineteen now, and you will be twenty in our fourth month, Althaine, on the sixth day. I'm thirty-four, or I will be soon."

What he said came in a series of waves. Married in autumn and Kane remembered it as a single day. He must have gone through the Luterian ceremony with her. She had no memory of it, being only five years old. She hadn't realized it was an actual thing he had done with her.

She was nineteen now—she had never known for sure—and Kane knew her birthday.

She looked at him. He looked like a young man in his twenties. She decided she would think about all of it later. He felt her withdrawal and instantly closed the bond.

"How long until we reach Minsk?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Not long, I would think. The harbor is just north of here. I will ask the Shipmaster, if you'd like."

She nodded, and he went and spoke to the man.

"Four days," he said, returning to her.

#

They gangway rattled, the harbor bustling and busy, many ships. They stood at the rail together, waiting for others to board and disembark, watching the people busying themselves, loading and unloading, loud calls, crates passed from hand to hand.

"I do not want word of your presence to reach the clans before I'm ready, Aslin," Kane said beside her, touching the bond. She opened it. He was excited and also tense and glad and other emotions in him that were difficult to sort, like he was remembering things he hadn't so much forgotten as set aside for a time. "You understand, I'm proud of you and I'm looking forward to introducing you to Tavishi, but I have to get you there."

"All right," she said.

He leaned forward, taking her face in his hands and kissing her, the bond like a caress on her body. He released her and smiled, desire in his eyes, also bottomless.

Then he reached, pulling off her cloak. He put it over his arm and took her long thick braid, putting it behind her back. He put the cloak back around her and pulling the hood of her cloak over her head. It was deep and generous, obscuring her face. He fastened it and stepped back, looking at her. For a moment, his changing eyes were obscured by the strong light and she couldn't read them.

"Welcome to Luteri, Corsaire."