Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
TEROLON
Other than the wizard who’d spelled my walls to hide my refuge from the sight of others, no one but me had ever stepped foot—or set scale—in my garden.
Taking my shelshi from the cave and out to the garden was both a terrifying and spiritual experience.
Terrifying, because I didn’t know if she would remain with me, and every second we spent together felt precious.
Spiritual, because she was my mate, and for the first time, I truly understood what it meant to say all I had in this world belonged to her.
Despite my fears, my hearts warmed when Hazel let me take her hand to guide her along the passage that connected my summer cave to the outside world.
I must carve more places for lanterns, I thought as we moved slowly through the near-darkness.
I made sure she didn’t bump her shoulder or hit her tiny toes on any rocks that stuck out from the wall.
And keep this path swept clean, and install a sturdy rope along the wall so in case a lantern goes out she can still find her way—
Hazel’s gasp and the way her hand squeezed mine pulled my attention back to my sweet mate just as she let go of me and scampered like a young deer through the passage opening and out into the garden.
I missed her touch immediately, but my disappointment faded quickly once I joined her on the grass and saw how wide her lovely blue eyes had become.
“Oh, Terolon,” she breathed. She raced barefoot to the middle of the garden and up the steps to the center of my basking stones to spin in a circle, her arms outstretched. Her shift fluttered carelessly around her bare calves. “This is…this is incredible!”
I would have sworn on every holy scripture ever written that I had never known true joy before this very moment.
Before I could find my voice to reply, she was down the steps again and flitting from flower to flower, plant to plant, and tree to tree like a butterfly, chattering to herself and exclaiming when she discovered something unique or unexpected.
I followed in her wake, listening as she named every growing thing, even a few of the plants that were native to my homeland, and caressed their leaves as lovingly as if they were her own children.
I’d thought her beautiful before, but in the garden, her radiance outshone the sun.
What I had not accounted for when I’d agreed to bring her here, however, was how from certain angles the light went straight through her thin garment, revealing her body in silhouette.
Immediately, my sartras stirred and hardened within my body, the breeding rings swelling once again. I stifled a groan and turned away so she wouldn’t see the bulge beneath my scales.
I’d spent much of the past day in such a state.
While I’d healed my mate’s injuries, washed her tenderly, and left her in my nest only as long as it took for me to find her little bag of possessions near the road, my focus had been solely on her recovery. I’d ignored her nudity and kept my gaze respectfully averted as much as possible.
But once I’d dressed her in the threadbare cotton shift I’d found in the bag and settled her in my coils to sleep, her scent had truly begun soaking through my scales, and my sartras had become utterly unruly.
Earlier, Hazel had gently challenged me on how I knew she was my shelshi and whether I was simply attracted to her as I would be any other female.
I could not quite bring myself yet to tell her my sartras had never engorged nearly so quickly as they did in her presence, or that my breeding rings throbbed in a way they never had before, aching to anchor themselves inside her.
As for my seed pouch, it radiated heat like a stone in the summer sun.
I was much too old to feel as desperate as a male who’d just reached maturity, but that truth did not spare me from the reality of my predicament.
I certainly did not let my imagination stray to the possibility of seeing her sweet body rounded with our basilings, lest my sartras refuse to stay hidden inside my slit.
Everything between Hazel and I felt precarious.
And even if it didn’t, offending or frightening my shelshi was the very last thing I wanted to do.
A little prickle of warmth ran across my shoulders.
I turned to find my sweet mate sitting cross-legged on the grass in the midst of my flowering crimson ramblers.
The golden sunlight of late afternoon made her lovely long hair shine.
I had washed it twice last night in hot water from the cave springs, carefully removed all the bits of twigs and thorns that had gotten caught in its lush waves, and brushed it with the brush I found in her bag to a high sheen.
Whether or not Hazel stayed with me, I would have paid a great deal for an artist to paint this scene so I might preserve this moment forever.
I was so beguiled by the sight that it took me nearly half a minute to realize the crimson ramblers were all leaning toward my shelshi, and one of their vines was coiling around her outstretched hand.
Wonder stole the breath from my lungs.
Something warm and pleasantly effervescent traveled through the grass beneath me in gentle waves. Throughout the garden, plants swayed, leaves danced, and even the trees seemed to sigh. Flowers that only bloomed in the morning burst open and tilted their faces to the late-afternoon sun.
To my left, my bed of prized flame azollas, which were among the plants I’d brought from Izaelon that required the most tending because they struggled to thrive here in the different soil and dry inland air, swelled from thin stalks into healthy thick stems before my disbelieving eyes.
A branch of the apple tree above her head bent down and gently deposited a ripe red fruit into her hand.
When I met Hazel’s gaze, her eyes shimmered as if dusted with flakes of gold.
If I’d had knees, I would have fallen to them in awe. Instead, I sank down on my coils like a supplicant before a divine being.
“I am blessed by the Goddess,” my shelshi said as a crimson rambler bloom bigger than her hand bent to caress her shoulder.
The vine around her other arm had budded and burst into bloom as well.
“This is my magic, Terolon. All my life I’ve been beaten for it, and threatened, and cursed at, and forced to hide my gifts.
My grandmother had it too, but she was always afraid she would be discovered and worked in secret.
My mother was grateful she didn’t get the gift—or curse, as she called it. And she was very angry that I did.”
She took a bite of her apple and admired the rambler blooms on her arm.
“One of my earliest memories is being slapped for making our neighbor’s roses healthy after they began to die of blight.
I think I was four years old. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, but I understood pain. Pain, I know very well.”
Rage burned inside me, hot as the lava that flowed near the coast of my homeland.
Hearing her speak of her mother as if she were dead—and the need to stay and listen to my mate speak her truth—were the only things preventing from hunting down this person who’d harmed such a wondrous and goddess-blessed female.
“When you found me, you must have seen the manacle on my wrist,” Hazel said.
“Yes.” I hissed. “It was a foul thing. I broke it and freed you. Later, I went back and buried it there in the ravine.”
“Its purpose is to suppress the magic of witches. The men who tried to hurt me put it on me when I called upon the forest for help and protection. They planned to violate me—all of them—and cut off my head. Or so they said.” She smiled, but the expression held no humor.
“I’m quite sure they lied and would have made a spectacle of my death.
That’s the way in this land of ignorance and superstition.
Instead, the trees gave me a weapon and I used it to free myself. ”
I thought of the blood on her dress and silently said a prayer of thanks to the forest.
“As I lay at the bottom of that ravine, I felt peace in the arms of the Goddess’s creation,” Hazel continued. “I hated the manacle on my wrist, but I felt great comfort thinking my body would return to the earth.”
“And now that you’ve survived instead?” I asked, my hearts pounding in my chest.
“Now, the Goddess has granted me clarity.” Her fiery gaze stirred my sartras once more.
“I won’t be condemned for my gift anymore.
I won’t be hurt for it and I won’t be shamed.
So if my magic displeases you, or angers you, or stokes fear or disgust in your hearts, I’ll go away now and you won’t need to ever think of me again. ”
Slowly, I approached my shelshi. The warmth of her magic was all around me now, infusing the plants and the soil and even sweetening the breeze, or so I fancied. Perhaps that was just all the blooms that had opened to bask in the sunlight.
For myself, I felt as if I no longer needed to bask in the sun. If she would have me, Hazel would be my warmth, and I’d do all in my power to be everything she needed in return.
“I believe you are the most magnificent, the most beautiful, and the most wondrous female in all of the goddesses’ creation,” I said. “Your magic astounds me.”
She stared at me, her expression equal parts hopeful and disbelieving.
“This garden and everything in it is yours to do with as you please, as are my caves.” I spread my hands wide to indicate the entirety of my refuge.
“I would be honored for you to practice your craft here in safety, and to protect you whenever you should need or want to go into the forest.” My chest heated and the tip of my tail vibrated with my agitation.
“Anyone who attempts to raise a hand against you or speak a single word of condemnation will suffer all my wrath, my shelshi. For you are Goddess-born, you are my light, and you are divine.”