"The good news is we skipped south of the Cjherthuin which cuts at least three weeks from our journey, making up for the time we spent with the Lowlandians." It was a few days later and finally Theo was talking to her again

"They do not like to be called that Theo; it is derogatory."

He met her gaze. "I did not think you cared for them."

"I don’t; but by using derogatory terminology you belittle yourself."

"Very well," He acknowledged her correction with a nod. "The Hill People it is."

Dani could barely contain her agitation. She felt ready to jump out of her own skin. She maintained a cordial, yet distant attitude toward Theo. She hoped it annoyed him as much as it annoyed her, but she doubted it.

Since their argument and Dani’s unfortunate, callous words, Theo had kept busy mapping a route that would take them around Dredyndral (Dreyden’s domain) and to Cjhylriifyn (chill-ree-vin/ lit. great rushing water/ or, Great River) by the quickest possible route. The day before, Theo had taken her down the mountain and around the westward lee of its slopes where a valley separated the higher mountain from a series of forested foothills. The mountain water emptied into this bowl making a lake surrounded by deep tracts of swampland within the perimeter of the low hills. Theo knew there was a lake, he claimed though it could not be seen, because the top foliage of the Fugharim that grew out of the lake reflected a glassy purple sheen. Theo identified the best grass for the strongest chord and demonstrated to Dani how to harvest it. He handed her a small knife with a carved wooden handle and a six inch blade of obsidian.

"For you." He said.

"Another one?" She tested the very thin edge of the new blade by running it lightly across the ridge of her thumbnail and wondered when he had made it.

"Sharp." She said more to herself than to Theo.

"It is always wise to have a back up. When the newth pelts are tanned I will show you how to construct a belt and scabbard from them to carry this safely and within easy reach."

They spent the remainder of the afternoon gathering tall grass and when they returned to their shelter, Theo showed Dani how to pound the fibers with a rock in order to split them into bunches of hairy strands, and then he worked at rolling the strands into string that he rolled again into three stranded rope. He had to splice smaller lengths of chord together to create a long length of chord, satisfied to have a ten foot length.

“We will add to it as we travel,” he said. “And pray to God we will not need it until it is long enough.”

“What do we need a rope for?”

“An escape route,” was his brusque answer.

Scant conversation and Theo’s detached instructions had been the limit of their conversation all that day and most of the current one. Now he seemed a bit more relaxed. If only Dani could relax.

Their first day into the interior wilderness of Rhydar it was nearly dark before they got around the southwestern edge of the swamp traveling southeast and found the brook Theo wanted to follow to the Cjhylriifyn. In a lightly wooded area near the tributary Theo located a rock shelf to set up camp very near the base of a cluster of several Fhugari. He said the intermittent flair of the Fhugarim lights would help mask the light of their fire as they made camp. After a light meal they worked some of the grasses they had gathered that morning along the way into more rope, and then settled in for another slow reading of Mama’s journal by firelight. As the cold set in they lay together each wearing only their second skins, sharing their body heat under the combined Mylar sheet and the green cloak. It was not perhaps the best arrangement but without skins to wrap in, it was necessary

Sleep would not come to Dani.

“Danielle.” Theo growled her name in warning. “Stop fidgeting.”

“I can’t.” Why was she so suddenly restless and agitated? She had abstained from sex for longer periods than this, so what was the problem? Before her tryst with the doe-eyed Nancy she had handled several months of abstinence, while Maris dallied with Alex, without so much as a twinge. She lingered for several moments on her last half hour with the French honey….

“Danielle! Can you not think of something else?”

“Give me some privacy will you?”

“If only.” He muttered, and shifted looking for a position where he was not in direct contact with her squirming butt the effort made impossible because of the spooning position they had assumed. A steady diet of Theo laying on top of her in the prairie dress dream left her wondering what was the fuss? Was it a guy thing? Jordan had told her once that guys have an erection about every five minutes. Or was it fives time an hour? Or maybe it was every five seconds.

“Danielle!” He said through gritted teeth.

After another couple of minutes struggling to get comfortable, Theo got up and removed himself to a safe spot on the other side of the fire, and sat slouched over arms braced on his raised knees. The problem with that was that he took his body heat with him. If only they could use the tent, but Theo had adamantly refused saying the bright orange color would act as a beacon for every miscreant within range so Dani had separated the mylar sheet from the tent, discarded the poles and repacked both.

Dani sat up. “I haven’t gotten laid in months, Theo.”

“Months? Try three years.”

“Three years? You haven’t had sex in three years? What have you been doing?”

“Hiding out.”

“But Theo, how did you manage it and not go insane with lust?”

Before he answered, she could tell the last thing he wanted was to discuss his sex life.

“The first winter was difficult but as time passed I hardly thought about it at all until you showed up”

Dani failed to see how it was her fault but he had cracked the door open to his personal life so instead of complaining about his implied accusation she said the first thing that popped into her head and felt embarrassment heat her cheeks as it expressed a naiveté in its simplicity that she did not feel.

“Because I’m a girl.”

“Yeah.”

And then she did it again.

“And because you went without for so long.”

“Stop talking about it.”

“Why?”

“Stop thinking about it.”

“How?”

“Think of something to distract you.”

But she couldn’t. She wondered at Theo’s ability to resist temptation again and again. She marveled at his ability to carry on in spite….

“Danielle! Conjugate some verbs!”

“I tried that already and it didn’t work.” Not when she started conjugating the word s-e-x repeating, “I will have sex,” in every language she knew a dozen different ways each.

“You have no trouble hiding how you knew about Lone Mountain, but you cannot block these personal thoughts?”

What did he mean? Dani was not aware that she was blocking anything.

“How did you know about Lone Mountain?” He sounded irritated enough to toss her into the nearby creek. Maybe a dunking in cold water would help?

“Tell me, Danielle. Who told you about Lone Mountain?”

Why did it matter? How did she know? Then all at once her mind opened and the answer was right there, every detail of her last Mommy-dream. Until then she had only recalled random thoughts about Ruby’s hazel eyes; the smell of Felder intimately connected to the missing letter and a rare October snow day; the name Mark and gray eyes full of hard won wisdom and the promise of joy. Always these thoughts had come with a nagging uncertainty about where the knowledge had come from.

“Oh.” She said. “The King said that’s where we were.”

Theo’s voice sharpened considerably. “The King? When did you speak to the King?”

“I didn’t. I had a dream. Mama and the King were in a shuttle talking about you.”

 She gave him an edited version of the dream leaving out the parts about Rhany and Ruby, and described how her sudden outburst had drawn their attention to her.

“Mama wanted to know where I was, so the King touched his sapphire and got the Keeper to tell him. At least I think that’s what he meant.”

Dani stopped as the exact words the King had used returned and she wondered again, just as she had in the dream, what he had meant by them.

“Meant about what?” Theo prompted.

“He said, ‘Theo must be unconscious he is not blocking the signal.’ What did he mean by that?”

Theo did not answer immediately.

“What did he mean? I know you know.”

“Give me a minute.”

“Give you a minute to come up with a convincing lie?’ She added a choice four-letter expletive for good measure.

“Such colorful language, Danielle, is unbecoming.” Theo seemed hell bent on goading her. He took the time to build the fire up and soon heat radiated out, but Dani suspected he was keeping her waiting just for the hell of it. He made a great business of returning to his former posture, leaning over his knees but looking less dejected in the scant light of the low fire.

“It was there in the note: ‘Keep this always close to your heart and I will never be far away.’ You thought it was an expression of affection but he meant it literally.”

Understanding dawned. “My sapphire and his sapphire are connected? He’s spying on us?”

Theo disabused her of that possibility while she pulled Anthony’s cloak more tightly around her shoulders. Apparently he was capable of interfering with the connection as the King himself had attested and Dani was relieved to hear that Theo continued obstructing it. The last thing she wanted was the King spying on them. It was clear Theo had not just now learned about the connection. “You have known about this for how long?”

“I suspected from the first. When the King’s scouts showed up near the wintering cave the same day the storm gave out – they must have followed the storm, likely to some degree traveled in it -- a link between the stones is the only explanation for the timing, I suppose the King and Queen likely knew the moment you arrived.”

“You took the stone so they couldn’t find me.” It was more a complaint than an accusation. It was hard to get upset about it when she had figured that part out long ago, but hearing him confess to it and understanding it from this new angle came as a shock.

“I told myself I took it for its safekeeping and yours, seeing as how it is a stone of power and given your connection to the King, but the truth is I thought only of myself.”

“If the sapphire was what you wanted why drag me along? The King’s scouts were right there. Why not just take the stone, leave and let them find me? You were home free. I don’t understand, Theo. If all I am is a burden to you, it makes no sense that you would take me along unless Maddie was right about you, that you hoped to use me to ingratiate yourself to the King.”

“I needed the sapphire but I could not steal it. As long as I kept in your company I could justify keeping it. I could tell myself it was for your good.”

“My good? That day on the pinnacle when you first told me we were being followed, was that for my good? You could have left me then and they would have picked me up. Instead you manipulated me; you misrepresented yourself by keeping your possession of the stone a secret while appearing to offer me a chance to reunite with Mama immediately.

Theo’s tone and demeanor changed instantly.

“That was an entirely different set of circumstances.”

“Oh? How so?”

“I pushed hard that first day out from the wintering cave in order to put distance between us and the King’s scouts; I would have liked to lose them entirely if I could. I was so determined I pushed without thinking how it affected you. I could have killed you, pushing you so hard before you were acclimated. I needed the Stone but not at the cost of your life.”

“Omitting pertinent information in order to manipulate a certain outcome is still as good as an outright lie. You allowed me to believe I had a choice to either go with the troop or go with you when in fact I had no choice. I had to go with you or lose the sapphire.”

“I know you well enough, Danielle, to know if you had decided to join your mother, you would have demanded that I return the sapphire.”

“You didn’t know me that well at the time.”

He bristled at that.

“You made a decision that day too, Danielle. As I remember it, you said you were not ready to meet the Queen, or were you lying?”

She had wanted to put distance between her and Mama. For all her bravado and determination she had not felt ready to confront Mama, she still did not feel ready but had she decided to stay she would have demanded the stone be returned to her.

“That does not change the fact that you deceived me, Theo. A lie of omission is still a lie.”

He shrugged and rocked a bit forward. “Guilty.” But he did not sound the least contrite. “I needed to keep you in order to justify keeping the stone.”

“Theo, that is so twisted.”

He shrugged again and turned the shrug into a brief gesture and then tucked his hands under his arms for warmth. His breath pronounced itself in vaporous clouds. Reminded of the cold, Dani tugged the green cloak around her knees and rubbed the tip of her nose with her fingers.

It was queer to feel jealous of a gemstone the size of a quarter, but Dani was jealous. The medallion mattered more to Theo than Dani, evidently since his plans depended so much on him having it in his possession that he considered towing her along a necessary evil. She had played right into his hands by making him her In Between. But she was not sorry about that because she knew the duty was a burden to him, a well deserved burden, she thought.

“What about the sapphire is so important you are willing to lie and steal to have it?”

Dani expected the question to receive a rebuke about how that was none of her business, but Theo surprised her.

“It is a Stone of Power, it will open doors for me that would otherwise remain closed.”

“What doors?”

“I have answered enough questions.”

Dani wanted to push for an answer, but feeling the lateness of the hour on top of the effects of the back breaking labor of the day plus traveling catch up to her she gave in. She yawned, curled up close to the small fire, and through sleepy eyes watched Theo still seated across the fire with his shoulders hunched, body folded up tightly and his hands buried under his arms. It was impossible to read his expression. But it was obvious he was beginning to feel the cold.

“For heaven’s sake, Theo, use the Mylar or come back over here and share the warmth.”

“I will, in a bit.”

“Are you going to tell me, Theo, what doors the sapphire will open for you?”

“No.”

She did not for a moment doubt that he was telling the truth.

�}3���K

Next Chapter: Chapter 29