Fractal Mode

Chapter 13

Could she? He had made it seem like an endearment, as jf kissing her ear. In the process he had eliminated both sight and sound, because not even a magic spy could hear such a faint sound beyond her ear or see the motions of his lips against it. Yet suppose he merely wanted to learn something about her, so as to curry favor with the despots by telling them? She could not risk it.

"Nona," he breathed.

She jumped. He had spoken her true name! But no villager knew that. Not even her father knew it, and if he suspected, he would never have told.

Then, to cover her reaction, she spoke. "You bit my ear!" "A love bite," he said. "Isn"t this what we came here for?"

"I"m not sure." Indeed, she was in doubt. Was he going to require her favor, in return for his silence? She did not see him as that type of man, but he had already expressed interest in her body. This could be a dangerous game.

He drew her slowly in, and kissed her. This time she was the unresponsive one. He pretended not to notice, then moved back to her ear. "Can you hear me?"

That much she could admit to. She tightened her arms around him, once.

"Then listen," his lips said almost soundlessly into her ear. "I am the other changeling."

Again she jumped. "Will you stop that?" she said aloud. "I need that ear." The other changeling? The baby they switched with her? The true child of her parents?

"But it tastes so good," he protested in his normal voice.

They kissed and clinched a third time. This time she held herself still for the whole of what he had to say.

"I thought I was the eighth and last child in my family," he continued into her ear. "But my mother let slip once that she had lost one. I thought she meant the baby had died. But later I learned from another slip that it had been given away to skew the count. For my mother was the eighth child of her family, and had been required to marry young, lest she have magic. She was the eighth generation. That meant I was the ninth of the ninth, masked as the eighth to save my life from the despots. It applies only to females, but the despots tend to act first if there is any doubt."

They changed position, and kissed a few times in case there were watchers. Cougar settled down a short distance away; he did not find kissing as much fun as fetching, but he could tolerate it. The dog had learned that sometimes kissing led to more interesting activity. Then Stave sat on the ground and she joined him, pulling up her tunic so as not to soil it, though this meant that her bare bottom was on his lap. Had he drawn up his own tunic-but fortunately he did not. He was after all not pursuing her that way, though at this point that was a mixed relief. He ran one hand along her bare