Heart Fate by Robin D. Owens

freezing. The snow hadn’t collected the way she thought it would, and was now melting into the ground. It would be a good, mild day. She couldn’t wait to explore the gardens.
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The Healers had rearranged the tests again. Tinne didn’t know what order the examinations should have been in, but when he’d arrived at the pink room there was already tension in the air, as if D’Sea and T’Heather had disagreed.
    The first examination—of his communication energy—like the previous ones, didn’t seem to go well. D’Sea and T’Heather’s muttering confirmed that he had problems in that area, too.
    He hadn’t wanted to teleport Genista to them, couldn’t form a good image of her without blazing emotions around her. He hadn’t wanted to talk to her. When they asked him what he might say to her, his voice had locked in his throat, because he wanted to rage and whimper and scream. When they’d asked him to consider the same tasks using his brother, Holm, he’d had no problems. All of which certainly indicated that his relationship with his wife was . . . not good.
    He was allowed a little break in the cleansing room, said a prayer that the next tests would be less wrenching, and was glad that his clothes were indeed soaking up his sweat. Pitiful that he’d begun to cherish the small moments of privacy here.
    Looking at himself in the mirror, he noted that he hadn’t appeared so wretched since . . .
    He squared his shoulders. Since he and Genista had lost the child a year and three months ago. The loss of the babe would always haunt him. As, it seemed, the loss of his wife would. He just couldn’t seem to stop the crash of their relationship.
    He’d given up trying to hide his true feelings from the tests. Any chance of manipulating them was far beyond his powers. The whole ordeal was such that only the most determined of people would continue through it and he grudgingly admired that Genista had endured the tests. It would have been so much easier for her to request separate living arrangements.
    But the Hollys wouldn’t have allowed that. Every single one of them would have tried to “fix” the problem. Forever. She’d known them well enough to understand that. She was an intelligent, sexy woman, and it didn’t seem like she was his woman anymore.
    â€œTinne?” called D’Sea from the other room.
    He wiped the cooling droplets he’d splashed on his face away with an incredibly soft towel, gave his reflection a half smile and salute, and opened the door to new suffering.
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Lahsin spent a happy morning, exploring some of the wonderful, secret garden. There was no doubt that it was the lost FirstGrove. There was the Healing pool, hot and filled with efficacious minerals as well as the remnants of herbal water plants, still imbued with potent Healing spells. The unexpected dip in it yesterday had helped soothe her emotional ills and perhaps even out and replenish her Flair. On one side of the pool was a stone terrace, and Lahsin got the impression that there had been outside “rooms” of canvas where the Healers had worked. She hadn’t seen a permanent HealingHall, but there was a water conduit toward the northeast from the natural pool to someplace else.
    On the other side of the pool, the side the garden shed was on, was a series of benches and a long arbor covered with grapevines.
    She walked down stone paths nearly covered with moss, found a gazebo with two bathing pools nearby, almost as warm as the springs but not containing Healing spells. It was evident that other people and creatures had found this place from time to time.
    The land dipped and mounded, and she found herself strolling north along the western wall that curved inward. The trees and plants fascinated her—old Earthan trees and plants mingled with Celtan ones—and hybrids. It gave credence to the supposition that