Hearts and Stones (Celta HeartMate) Read online

  We don't cost much! Meserve's whiskers tickled Holm's right ear. Holm wondered how his Fam knew about gilt and expenses, where he'd learned of it.

  Slowly, Holm straightened and his HeartMate continued to rub his back in a soothing manner. Easy to recall that she'd been estranged from her own FirstFamily GreatLord father, married a commoner and lived with that commoner husband outside the Family Residence while they both worked at HealingHalls.

  Lark had handled all the details of this little family's move. So she'd help him get through this, and teach him.

  He stiffened his spine, but kept his knees loose and ready to respond to any threat. Plucking Phyll from his left shoulder, he handed the Fam to Lark. With a controlled pivot, he scanned the room. "This will do very well." But he wondered how much it would cost to shield the mirrors, and the expenses of getting a business up and running. Another thing he had no notion about.

  Lark nodded. "A good and simple space." She patted Phyll and his purr filled the room, augmented by his Flair-magic. So Meserve purred too, in competition, bouncing the warm sound off the mirrors.

  "Enough!" Lark laughed and put her cat down on the floor. Holm dropped Meserve, who landed lightly.

  But the three of them had worked together to ease his anxiety, and the very fact that they knew he was anxious irritated him. Reminded him of the recent past.

  He'd thought he'd gotten over having to be perfect as the golden boy of the Hollys, the HollyHeir, fulfilling all such expectations of that status.

  Perhaps so, but he'd discovered a new and unwelcome negative emotion seeded inside him.

  Feeling useless. Worthless. Like his father had made him feel when he'd been disowned. His whole life and purpose ripped away.

  Yes, he'd have to follow plans he'd made but hadn't accepted at an emotional level. He'd have to accept help just to survive, let alone flourish, and do that gracefully. He'd have to grow and become Holm Apple.

  Also accept he'd create his new life here, in Gael City.

  Sucking in a deep breath, he cast a final glance around the main room. He'd check out the dressing rooms ... and the plumbing! ... later.

  "Yes, I think this will do very well." Holm forced a smile. "I'm sure The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon started out small, too." Though the beginnings of that generational Family enterprise was lost in history and legend.

  "I'm sure," Lark smiled at him, and he felt her supreme confidence in him. He swallowed.

  Tag, you're IT! shrieked Meserve and hit the door with enough acceleration to go through and his brother zoomed after him before it swung shut. The front door slammed open with Flair.

  Lark shrieked, "The street!" and bolted after them.

  Holm hurried out. Not much glider traffic here, but anti-grav hauling sleds and beasts and carts from the countryside, even on this last day of the weekend. Holm figured the Fams could dodge or teleport or—but tell that to a Healer who often saw the worst.

  So there they stood, all three, on the sidewalk with Lark shaking her finger at the cats and them ignoring her.

  Holm dismissed the lightspells in the building, locked up with key and passcode, and left. Then paused and looked at the small, ordinary structure he hoped to rent and build a business in, somehow. He wondered whether he could make a successful enterprise with only himself as proprietor and single trainer. The task seemed overwhelming.

  And how long it would take. A month? A year? Five?

  Holm took Lark's hand to walk home. Time to experience the city where he'd be living. Since she'd dismissed the HealingHall glider, they sauntered through the sunshine of late summer through the compact area of the city's downtown business sector — Holm's studio was not on one of the two main streets —and past the Temple and the round green across from it. He sensed the slower and more casual atmosphere of the people around him, sensed more open friendliness.

  Let out a breath.

  They reached the home Lark's father had given them to live in until ... perhaps their whole lives. The young cats scampered to the overgrown side yard high with plumed grass, where they could hide and pounce on each other.

  Lark tugged on Holm's hand and they circled the two-story pale goldish stone house to the back and the smooth green grassyard bordered with fully mature splashy flower gardens.

  She hummed with pleasure and set her arm around his waist. He felt her pleasure at the floral show and she smiled up at him, stroked her hand down his chest as if checking on the tenseness of his muscles. Yes, returning to a new private sanctuary eased him.

  Pulling away, Lark translocated a basket and a ritual knife, walked over to a thick patch of ivy and murmured a prayer, then cut several stalks, sealing the wounds with a touch. Ivy—in the language of flowers, wedded love, fidelity, friendship and affection. All of which she sent him down their bond, and he returned. Then she crossed the yard to the rose garden.

  He turned and stared at the modest house, not a huge intelligent Residence modeled like an Earthan castle like he—and Lark—had grown up in. The dimensions and proportions pleased him. A two and a half story house of pale yellow stone stood, showing four windows on each side and one above the double door. All of the windows on the upper story had small greeniron balconies that echoed the tint of the roof.

  The half story revealed one large center multi-paned window and two small dormer windows on each side. Each included a fancy molding frame that repeated the arty rectangular designs along the wall under the roof.

  He smiled, glanced over to Lark who sat on the ground deftly fashioning a wreath from the herbs and flowers she'd harvested, being climbed on by the young cats. Another pleasing picture.

  As he watched, she wove in white heather, a symbol of her mother's Family, meaning protection.

  His brows dipped when he sensed she made another wreath for him.

  Then Meserve shot over to Holm, pounced on his boots. Train, we haven't done a drill today!

  "You're speaking for yourself, cat," Holm said. He'd done plenty of fighting patterns, katas and drills, today. Morning exercise ... though he'd missed the opportunity to test out the floor of his new space. Too broody.

  A fighting pattern—including tumbling—would banish dark-thought cobwebs.

  He gauged the space needed and backed up. Deciding on a rarely practiced set of springs and rolls and falls, he began, keeping an eye out for the leaping Meserve.

  When he ended, he did feel better. Meserve seemed to be toning up some ... without Holm's Mama and other Hollys slipping him table tidbits.

  Holm looked over to his HeartMate. She'd tidied up her work, and now stood.

  With a deep breath, she flung out her arms and spun, and Holm felt the heavy scents of the flowers mix in the wind, then wrap around him. He let the fragrance fill him and eased into his emotional balance.

  But when she finished spinning and faced him, her expression didn't show exaltation, but narrowed-eyed Healer consideration. Uh-oh.

  Walking over to him, she placed the wreath on his head. The sturdy green frame of ivy mixed with sprigs of white heather, but deep crimson roses intertwined with that. Mourning.

  The wreath hurt. Not the negligible weight of it, and no woody stems poked his scalp, but among the heather and the ivy were apple leaves, and despite the roses, that was the odor that stayed in his nostrils.

  "Mourning, truly?" he asked.

  She opened his arms and stepped against him, stroking his face. "There are hurts within you that must be acknowledged."

  "Ever the Healer." He sighed, closed his eyes and let sweat cool on his body, smelled the apple wreath, and the lingering floral breeze, and the herbal spell of his garments that wicked away sweat. "What hurts do you mean? I'd rather deal with them here, outside, than in our home."

  Her head nodded against his chest. "Very well. It's an abscess that needs to be lanced."

  "Excellent image," he muttered, not wanting to visualize some big yellow pus sack inside himself.

  "But we ca
n speak of our new home first," she said with a faint smile that showed she wanted to give him a nice feeling before ...

  "I like it very much," he said, "Your father obviously worked on this piece of property for us."

  "With mature gardens for me. I like the house, too, but it seems he anticipated what kind of dwelling you'd prefer. Of course, he's lived in a tall gray stone castle Residence all his life just as you have."

  Lark had not. She'd been estranged from her father, lived outside the sentient T'Hawthorn Residence first as the wife of a commoner, then as a widow in an actual apartment building.

  "I like the house," Holm repeated. Opened his eyes to look at it's good proportions and symmetry, then reached up to touch the dark red roses. "Nothing to mourn for there."

  "No. It's a lovely house. But you must mourn for your Residence, the home you miss, as a being. It was as much a member of your Family as the rest of the Hollys. And you must mourn the loss of your Family. You lived with your parents and brother and cuzes all your life. You will have missed seeing your Family at meals, or ..." she made a hesitant gesture

  "training—"

  "Sparring with my father and brother and cuzes and G'Uncle Tab." The words came out roughly as the missing surged through him, whipping him raw with memory-images. He had to sink into his balance, and she came with him, steadied him, his HeartMate, as he shuddered, breathed through both nose and mouth as the grief stormed. Couldn't ignore that he wouldn't be returning to his Residence at the end of the day, or the end of the next day. Whatever Hollys still supported him, he wouldn't see often. They lived north and distant, across mountains.

  He drew in a shuddering breath and stretched cramping muscles. The beautiful wreath fell to his feet. He kicked it to fly and disintegrate. Then flinched. He'd destroyed a gift from his HeartMate. He turned to apologize, but she placed her fingers on his lips.

  "The wreath served its purpose." Linking her arm with his, she began strolling toward the house. "I want special food from the no-time. Feast-day food, from Samhain celebrating New Year and new beginnings."

  Samhain was over two months away, in the autumn.

  Holm grunted, "Fine. I need to take a waterfall, I'll join you in a few minutes." He hoped there weren't any more pockets of pain within him that she'd feel needed dealt with.

  Accompanied by both cats, he trudged through the back door. As soon as they entered the small tiled entryway, lightspells came on and not only in this room, but throughout the house.

  A welcoming place. This place, this house would eventually become a Residence over a couple of centuries, if greatly Flaired people lived here and made it—loved it—as a home.

  So far Holm had only addressed the house once or twice as "Residence" and asked for something, then stood a few seconds waiting for the being to respond before realizing he'd have to take care of the chore himself.

  A fresh energy, maybe a whiff of a scent he couldn't place, seemed to imbue the atmosphere with not only that trace of odor but a ... a delight, a cheerfulness.

  Lark stopped, sniffed. "What's that?"

  He found his shoulders dipping in relief, a smile touching his lips. "I think it's Clam." Now he moved quickly, through the back mudroom into the kitchen, then down a short hall to the mainspace where a large salt water tank held Clam—really a pearl mollusk—and the sea life he preferred.

  The changes of tanks, underwater scenery and the move had invigorated Clam. He'd produced several stunning pearls in various forms that Holm forwarded to his friend T'Ash— jeweler and blacksmith. Clam Apple, an artist who fit in well with all the other creative Apples.

  The notion curved Holm's mouth. Holm had always considered Clam a ... neutral or pessimistic being, but the move had brought him joy that he shared with his Family. Holm thought it to be the location in the busy mainspace of the house, but for all he knew, there'd been new nutrients in his tank.

  As Holm considered this, he could only pray to the Lady and Lord that this new environment of Gael City would be rich with nutrients for him—students, friends, experiences.

  Focus on the positive. He had managed to cobble together a self made out of essential experiences: he'd won his HeartMate, he had good friends in the highest status that he'd made himself, as well as a former brother and G'Uncle who loved him.

  He vowed his new life would be positive.

  Her HeartMate came to bed, and Lark rolled to hold him. Unlike nights before, his body and mind didn't hum with tension, and she sensed a slight positive note. She matched her resting energy with his, let her calmer thoughts cycle to him.

  And a few moments later, he slept, and, she thought, settled into the first good sleep since their move.

  So she allowed tears for him, warm and silent tears, to fall. And banished the wetness as it crept down her cheeks.

  Who would have thought that her father, once the greatest man on the whole of Celta, would have been more forgiving than Holm's father?

  Now and then she caught Holm's expression of complete confusion.

  Not defeat, not desolation, not despair. Utter shock.

  But then the feud had been terrible. Her father's hubris in believing he could win against the Holly warriors. The terrible accidental knifing by her nephew of Holm's mother. The loss of her estranged brother, her father's revenge ... blood red events tumbled through her mind.

  Finally, her father, T'Hawthorn, had come to his senses and surrendered to the Hollys, reconciled with his remaining relatives. Worked at being a good and loving man.

  Her thoughts turned from that awful feud back to her newly discovered HeartMate, her beloved Holm. She had no doubt he'd master this new world he'd been thrown into because he'd already proven how incredibly he could grow, by changing enough in this very lifetime to become her HeartMate.

  Life tested him, her Holm ... Apple. But she'd stand with him. Help him as much as she could, push him to deal with his issues, but he'd have to continue to do hard emotional work himself—to grow.

  And when she felt him fall into sour dreams she woke him with a sure and passionate touch and stoked the fire between them until he took her fiercely like a warrior.

  They finished breakfast, their third morning meal together in their own home, and Holm liked the healthy and nutritional food. So did Lark and her young cat, Phyll, but Holm's own ginger tabby grumbled at the mixture of meat and greens with no human table scraps as he'd gotten before.

  Continuing to solidify habits in this new life, Holm stood and went to Lark's chair to slide it back for her, and she took their dishes to the cleanser. He'd cleaned his plate. Little by little, he'd begun eating as much as he had before he'd been disinherited.

  When she came back, she wrapped her arms around Holm, hugged. He sensed she wanted to rock together so did that—otherwise she couldn't move him. "My first full day as Head of Gael City HealingHall, I'm nervous," she murmured.

  She fudged the truth. She'd applied for the position months ago, had been planning on changing her life in a large way before the Hawthorn-Holly feud, and anticipated the job with rising satisfaction. If he hadn't been disinherited, she'd have lived with him in T'Holly Residence with the rest of his Family and continued her career at Druida City HealingHalls.

  So, though her life had altered dramatically, she welcomed it more, and the move, too. Altogether more sanguine and serene, his Lark. He stepped even closer until their lengths pressed together. She'd become his anchor in the storm his life had become.

  Then two young cats landed on Holm's shoulders, draped over his and Lark’s. We are going to the HealingHall today! Phyll, Lark’s cat said. We will be Healing Cats, I will teach Meserve more.

  Meserve hissed and leapt down, his brother followed. They tussled from the kitchen to the main space where they stopped and stared at a wall. Hello, Clam! shouted Meserve. Hello, Clam! echoed Phyll.

  A watery sense of satisfaction wafted through the house. Greeting enough, Holm supposed. He stepped away from Lark, took her hands,
inhaled deeply and said, "I'd like to sign the rental contract for the building housing my studio salon and get started on refurbishing the space. Can I draw gilt from your account?"

  Her head tilted, her eyes softened and welled with tears.

  Holm squeezed her fingers. "What?"

  "I know that cost you in pride. But you asked. You are my HeartMate, we are partners, now and forever." She clasped his fingers tightly, the golden bond between them cycled with deep love for several moments, smiling at him as she did no one else. "I added you to all my accounts at Cascara Bank the evening we acknowledged we were HeartMates."

  "You did that for me?" He'd had no such thought for her.

  Her brows raised. "Of course. We're HeartMates, linked emotionally, we could not betray each other."

  "No." He couldn't even grasp that concept. Not when he'd lived with his HeartMated parents who stood as a solid unit. "I'll ride in the HealingHall glider with you, and walk to CityCenter to sign the lease for the building."

  Standing on the walk outside Gael City HealingHall, he kissed Lark and petted each FamCat, watched as they entered the place. Then Holm walked to the office of the owner of the building, and spoke with the man's assistant. At no time in his previous business life had he dealt with an assistant instead of the principal of a business. But everything went smoothly and he left detailed notes about how he planned to shield the windows and mirrored wall at his own expense. He'd gotten a recommendation for such an expert and made an appointment for the afternoon, then transferred gilt from Lark's—their—account for a deposit and three months’ rent.

  A deposit and three months’ rent. The amount, two months ago, would have felt insignificant. Today, when he had no gilt, doling it out made his gut churn.

  The first gilt spent on his own business. He didn't feel excitement and anticipation, but low-level anxiety.

  Despite emotional and spiritual work, Holm still loathed failing. Creating, growing a successful business—something totally new he could fail at.