Pursued by Evangeline Anderson Page B

talking about?” Rast had made Lissa the high priestess after the old one had been demoted by none other than the Goddess herself. It had been a spur of the moment decision but Nadiah felt in her gut that it was right. So why was Lissa saying otherwise? “Why would you say that—think that?” she urged softly when the young priestess was still silent.
    “I…I have had impure thoughts,” Lissa said in a rush. “Thoughts which I cannot deny or purge though I have tried over and over.” She looked down at her hands, her dark blonde hair, streaked with jade green that matched her eyes, falling around her flushed cheeks. “Forgive me, my Lady.”
    “There’s nothing to forgive.” Gently, Nadiah raised her chin and saw that Lissa’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “We all have those kinds of thoughts from time to time,” she said. “You don’t have to feel bad about it.”
    “You don’t know the whole of it.” Lissa’s face was anguished as she spoke. “It is not only the thoughts themselves but the person I have been thinking of. He…he is my brother .” She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, the shame! I have tried so hard to bury my feelings for him, to cast them into the sands of the Rainbow Desert and be rid of them forever but I cannot…I cannot .”
    “Wait a minute,” Nadiah said reasonably. “Now, if I remember correctly, when you say ‘brother’ you just mean someone who was born into your own clan, is that right? There isn’t really any blood relation between you, you just happen to come from the same ‘home town’ as my friend, Sophie, would say.”
    Lissa nodded but her eyes were still troubled. “If that was all there was to my story, it would be bad enough. The kinship ties of the clan, the fact that we bear the same mark…” She turned to Nadiah and lifted the hem of her simple white robe to show what she meant. There, high on her left inner thigh, Nadiah saw what looked like a ritual tattoo—a circle about as big as a coin surrounded by wavy lines. “I am a member of the Sun Clan of the Touch Kindred,” Lissa said softly. “As such, I could have been mated to a male of the Moon Clan or the Star Clan with honor. I could even have chosen a male from the Wind or Water or Fire Clan, though they are considered beneath us as they have almost no Touch ability.”
    “So you fell in love with a male within your own clan with the same marking,” Nadiah said, trying to understand. “But you still aren’t related by blood, are you?”
    “No. But what I did was more shameful than even that,” Lissa murmured. “I…I broke a sacred trust. You see, my parents—my true parents—were traders to the stars. So even though they were members of the Sun Clan, we didn’t often see the others in our clan because we were always off trading. Then when I was twelve cycles old, our ship was taken by pirates. A passing Kindred freighter responded to the distress signal my father managed to set off but by the time they came it was too late, my parents and little brother had all been killed.”
    She spoke calmly enough, relating the terrible tale, but Nadiah thought she could still see the hurt and terror that twelve year old girl must have felt, watching her parents and brother being butchered in front of her. “Oh, Lissa,” she murmured, pressing the other girl’s hand gently.
    “It was a long time ago.” Lissa sighed. “Though dreams of it still haunt me sometimes.”
    “What happened to you?” Nadiah asked. “Were you adopted by another family in your clan?”
    Lissa nodded. “Indeed—by none other than the Over Chief’s family. The chief of the Sun Clan is also the head of all the Touch Kindred,” she explained. “It was a great and unexpected honor but the Over Chief had been very close to my mother when they were children growing up together.”
    “So…but if your real mother was of the Sun Clan, your real father…”
    “Was of the Moon Clan.