Dockalfar by PL Nunn Page A

foolishness would know the difference. There aren’t many Ciagenii. Not many at all. Only a very great lord would have one. What great lord wanted you?”
    Helplessly Victoria shrugged. “I don’t know. They were not very talkative.”
    “No, they wouldn’t be.” She clutched her hands behind her back again, which seemed a tendency when she was deep in thought. Her skin was ochre in the light filtering down through the leaves. Victoria was vaguely jealous of the smooth perfection of it.
    “I think,” Aloe finally said, “that I should take you to someone who knows more of your world than I.”
    “They still have him,” she whispered.
    “Who?”
    “Alex. How will I find him?”
    “If it matters, you will. The Four know. The Four are lenient to lovers.”
    Victoria blinked at her. Aloe smiled. “The world spirits. Mother Earth, Father Sky. Their children, Water and Flame. They look after as all.”
    “Oh.”
    “Who looks after you?” Aloe looked genuinely interested.
    “God.” A whisper. A prayer.
    “Just God? No name?”
    “Just God,” Victoria agreed.
    “I don’t think he has influence here,”
    Aloe stated dubiously.
    Victoria hoped desperately that he did.
    They slept in the bowl of a great tree, high among the branches in a bed layered with moss and dried leaves. Victoria curled with the cub, secure and lonely, while the sidhe took a higher perch.
    Victoria missed the warmth of Alex’s arms. She missed him lying to her and telling her that things would be all right.
    He was so rooted in his desire to shield her from the world. It was endearing and comforting and sometimes, just a little stifling. He tried so hard to protect her and be her rock of Gibraltar. He would die if he knew she stayed awake some nights listening to him whimper in his sleep.
    Reliving horrors of a war that so many young men had felt it their duty to participate in.
    Foolish. Women knew. Women knew the hopelessness of war. Women knew the scars their men tried to hide. And said nothing, because men were men and stubborn, and women were women and pliable. That was the difference, she thought, between the sexes. Women bent and changed under stress. They had to.
    Men stood rigid and either conquered it or broke from trying.
    She had a strange dream. One that should have warmed her, but instead left her uncertain and cold. She dreamed she was standing in a high place. A wonderful place that towered with the trees. She was crying. Out of love, out of relief. Alex stood before her, looking as if he were on the verge of doing the same. He embraced her. He loved her, he said. More than anything. He gave her a gift. A small bit of nothing that she could not exactly put a form to. He closed her fingers over it, holding her hand closed with his own. She felt joy, elation, for she wanted this gift more than she had ever wanted of anything and Alex had given it to her. He looked sad. He turned away from her and she cried out, clutching him, her cheek to his back. And he faded from her. She was alone. She opened her hand and looked….
    ….and woke up with Phoebe licking her face. Phoebe smelled of blood and fresh meat and looked suspiciously content. Victoria sat up and stretched. Her joints cracked. Her hair was matted with moss and leaves. Her belly complained for lack of food. Aloe was gone.
    She frowned and debated whether to stay in the tree or dare the ground. Her legs were so stiff and cramped, she decided on the ground. She climbed down and made a circuit of the tree, stepping over gnarled, upthrust roots. She picked debris from her hair as she did, watching with amusement as Phoebe made her way clumsily down to earth. Aloe appeared not long after, bearing an armful of fruit. She handed a few to Victoria. They were sweet, and juicy and entirely wonderful.
    She devoured them. Aloe laughed at her hunger.
    “You’re a very strange human woman,” the sidhe commented.
    Wiping her mouth on the back of her arm, Victoria arched a brow.