what’s going on in a few short hours.”
Rubbing her temples, Calli didn’t answer—but something else was telling her she might not be in a dream. “Is there a toilet around here?”
The Circlets smiled. Marian said, “We don’t know the Castle well, there’s one in Alexa’s guest suite and in the Circlets’ Apartments, both in the Keep.” She cleared her throat. “You’ll be staying there tonight. The medica recommended you be close, and both Alexa and I would like to talk to you.”
Indoctrinate her. “I’m not staying.” If she was really here. Still, her bladder was full…but she’d had dreams about that, too.
“It took all the Marshalls and the Chevaliers to bring you here. How do you think you’ll get back?” asked Jaquar.
Calli could feel her expression set into pure stubbornness. She didn’t care.
What could these dream people do to hurt her? She shifted. She didn’t want to know, but confidence and fearlessness were as important in relation to people as they were to horses. “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.” A thought struck and her smile widened. Horses didn’t lie in any of their body language and she believed volarans couldn’t either. “And I can double-check anything you tell me with the volarans, can’t I?”
Jaquar’s eyes twinkled. “That you can.”
“I promise you I won’t ever lie to you,” Marian said. Her aura throbbed with what Calli sensed was pure truth.
“Okay,” Calli said.
“On my word of honor,” Marian said.
Calli nodded. “Right.” She turned to the door.
“One moment,” Jaquar said. An extra lilt in his voice caught Calli’s attention. He sure was learning English quickly. She glanced at him.
“Behold,” he said.
Marian coughed.
He waved and huge chunks of the map went golden yellow. “These are the unoccupied and unclaimed estates of Lladrana. Many are very prosperous. You will be allowed your choice.”
Breath caught in her chest, Calli stared. Land of her own. Everything in the mountains of the north seemed empty, but so did a bunch of other places in the real “green” part of the land. Big pieces of land.
Walking to the map, Marian pointed. “This is where Alexa and Bastien live. Her estate was vacant. She’s very wealthy now. As am I.”
“Money’s not everything,” Calli muttered.
“Alexa wanted a real home. She has that, and a man she loves. I have a husband and a tower I built myself with magic. I have great magical ability—Power. I’m free to research whatever I want, whenever I want and I’ll be founding a school in the future.
“What do you want? I’m sure whatever it is, we can accommodate you,” Marian asked.
They couldn’t give her children. No one could do that. Calli wanted to whirl on her heel and walk away, but her gaze was still stuck to the map. She wanted a spread of her own…and look at all that land! Part of her dream could come true. But land was the least of what she truly wanted. She wanted family. And her family, what there was of it, was back on Earth and had rejected her.
Now the watery gob in her throat was more from sadness than surprise and dazzled greed. “I gotta pee,” she said. She headed out the door and across the courtyard to the keep building. The Circlets paced her.
“What’s your vocation?” Marian asked and Calli knew she meant it in the widest sense of the word, what job really drew her.
With a lift of her chin, she replied, “I’m a horse trainer.” She’d meant to be. When she returned to Colorado, she would find a way to make that dream come true.
Marian smiled. “I bet you’re more of a ‘horse whisperer.’ But you can do that here. And I’m sure volarans need to be trained, too.” Marian waved a hand. “Or people and volarans need to learn how to partner each other better.” She glanced back at the Map Room. “To better vanquish the Dark. The Marshalls and Chevaliers and Circlets are working on that.” Marian looked at Jaquar. He lifted and dropped a shoulder. Calli smiled. Obviously academics. Didn’t look at all like nerds or geeks or whatever, but they sure were more interested in more brainy things than physical.
“The volarans talk to some others, too, most primarily Bastien. He’ll know what Chevalier-Volaran needs are,” Marian said.
A few minutes later, Calli was checking out the large round guest suite in Alexa’s tower. There was a toilet, one of the old kind with the tank on the top, and a shower. She yearned for the shower but wasn’t about to take her clothes off. The way this day was going, anything could happen and she wasn’t about to be naked and vulnerable if it did.
When she returned to the main room, the Circlets smiled at her with identical gleams in their eyes and Calli didn’t like it. Especially when she saw Jaquar shaking a dark purple bottle about two inches high. “What’s that?”
“The language potion,” they said in unison.
“Nope.”
Jaquar sent her a winning smile. “You see how it worked for me.”
“Like a charm,” Marian said.
“Nope.” Calli wanted to slip her hands in her pockets but thought she should keep her hands free.
“You could try just one drop,” Marian said. “That would be temporary.”
Again shaking the bottle, Jaquar said, “There’s about three months’ worth of potion in here. The magical properties fade with time, so you learn the language gradually. After three months, you should know Lladranan.”
“So you know English now, but if you don’t use the language every day, it will fade away?” asked Calli, intrigued.
Jaquar frowned as if he didn’t like the idea of losing a skill. “True.”
“Pillow talk,” Marian said. “And if you marry a Lladranan and bond with him mind to mind, you also learn the language, the more, ah, intimate you are.”
“Many pathways are opened during sex.” Jaquar grinned again.
That sounded even more frightening. “Absolutely not.” Calli smiled herself. “I’m not convinced this isn’t a dream.” She looked around at the color of the furnishings. “Though there’s more purple than usual in my dreams.”
“That’s the heraldic color assigned to Exotiques, especially Marshalls. Alexa’s suite was mostly purple, she’s switched out a lot of furniture from there to here.”
“Purple is not my color,” Calli said.
At that moment a triangle rang. Calli sensed an inrush of bright and healthy volaran minds.
“The Marshalls and Chevaliers have returned!” Marian said. Jaquar stood and pocketed the bottle.
Calli ran to the window where she’d caught sight of beating wings. The whole army swooped down to the landing field out of her sight.
I am here, too, Thunder called.
Calli exited the opulent rooms without a backward look, running down the tower stairs to the outside door. She flung it open only to face the tall hedges of a maze.
6
A young woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in buff-colored Chevalier leathers, but obviously not a fighter, hovered between the hedges. Shifting from foot to foot, she smiled and bowed to Calli, then pressing her fingers to her chest, she said, “Seeva Hallard.”
Calli nodded, probably a relation to Lady Hallard, daughter maybe. “Hey, Seeva.”
Seeva swept a hand toward