Destiny's Lovers by Flora Speer Page A

people she had known all her life. With his face
healed of its scrapes and bruises, and his beard gone thanks to one
of Osiyar’s razors, she could see how strong and masculine his
features were.
    She often caught him looking at her while she
stood behind Tamat’s chair in the small audience chamber off the
central room. She believed Tamat knew they looked at each other -
how could Tamat not know? - but the High Priestess ignored the
glances Reid and Janina cast when each thought the other’s
attention was elsewhere. And from the second time Sidra had caught
them talking in the courtyard, after which she had subjected Janina
to a long and very thorough tongue-lashing and hours of extra work,
Janina had been careful never to speak to Reid when no one else was
with her, nor to remain in private with him for even an instant -
not until the day when Reid followed her into one of the smaller
buildings behind the temple.
    “What is this place?” he asked. “Osiyar told
me all the smaller buildings not used for dwellings are storehouses
for grain.”
    “They are.” Janina gestured toward the casks
neatly arrayed in rows along the wall, then to the vat in the
center of the room. “You might say this is another way to store
grain, for it keeps indefinitely. It’s batreen.”
    “Never heard of it.” Reid suddenly grinned at
her. “But I have a fair idea of what it is just by the smell.”
    “The grain is fermented into a rather potent
drink.” Janina picked up a long wooden paddle and began to stir the
contents of the vat. “It is used at the twin moons festivals. This
batch is almost ready.”
    She looked down into the vat, unable to meet
Reid’s eyes lest he see in hers her bitter despair over what
awaited him at the next festival. She knew of two women who had
spoken freely of their desire to bed Reid in order to discover if
he was any different from the village men.
    “Do all the villagers become inebriated?”
Reid asked. “Do you drink it, too?”
    “I don’t like the taste,” Janina answered. “I
only drink one cup, because it is required, but the villagers love
it.”
    “All of them?” Reid asked. “Do they all drink
far into the night? The priestesses and Osiyar, too?”
    “All of them, except Tamat and me. Because of
her age, Tamat stays only for the ritual and the first part of the
feast. I always retire with her.”
    “But the others remain in the feasting area
and drink heartily along with the villagers?” When Janina admitted
this was so, Reid asked, “Don’t they all have sick heads the next
day?”
    “For a while,” Janina told him, “but the
discomfort wears off quickly, and the drink has no dangerous
aftereffect. In fact, it is quite nutritious. Why are you so
interested in batreen?”
    “I’m only trying to learn all I can about the
life here, since it seems I’m fated to remain either in the temple
or the village.”
    “Staying in Ruthlen won’t be as bad as the
alternative.” He looked so unhappy that Janina could not help
herself; she had to put down the wooden paddle and place both her
hands on his arm. She thought he must be missing his friends, and
while she had never had any friends to care about, anything that
made Reid unhappy, made her unhappy. His hand came down on top of
hers and she trembled at the contact of flesh with warm flesh.
    “What is the alternative?” he asked. “What
would they do to me if they decided not to let me live here any
more?”
    “You would be set adrift.” Her voice was low.
It was too horrible to speak about, so no one ever did. But in his
ignorance, Reid had no qualms.
    “Adrift? What do you mean? With no
provisions?”
    “Without sail, or oars, or rudder,” she said,
reciting from memory the most terrible punishment decreed by the
Chosen Way. “It is against the law to take a life, because there
are too few of us to waste life. But occasionally, if someone does
something truly unforgivable, that person is set adrift. There