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  I snorted and made him sit up to drink more soup.

  “Do you think I can’t provide for myself? How long have I held the souls of the Tan Muark in my hands?”

  He caught my hand at those words, held it, struggled for words as he had so many times before. We stood in that silence that always spoke best for us. And then he squeezed my hand and closed his eyes and sighed one last time, as though wondering what I’d be doing later on and not entirely convinced it was the best notion.

  ***

  A few of the mages came for the funeral, summoned by the messenger I sent two days ago. Only a few of the ones that fought beside him so long ago –not cranky Enaias, or stone-hearted Gerrol. But Shauvia was there – roused from her labors of rebuilding Kere, burned to the ground so many years ago, great brown-skinned Shauvia, looking as though she had stepped out of a cliff face. She wept, and wept, far more than I ever could.

  “K-k-kal,” she mourned, touching my arm. I stroked her massive fingers.

  Dalaran was dead, else he might have been there. I’d gone to him, so many years ago, and said I would come no longer. Perhaps he blamed it on Kal. But the truth was that I’d heard him talking with the other mages.

  “A plump desert fruit,” one said, and another laughed, “How sweet is its juice?”

  “Sweet enough!” Dalaran said, and the bragging edge to his voice made me frown. “Sweet and young enough not to know any better.”

  And yet when I’d come to him, he’d trembled in my arms, like a child frightened by a thunderstorm and when at last he cried out his pleasure, he wept afterward and lay there tracing my chin, my cheek, my face for hours. How many years had he been on the run, exiled from his home in the south?

  I told him and his boasting words to go away, and he did, returned to Allanak, and killed as many of the templarate there as he could. Afterwards, another mage brought me the two silver rings Dalaran had left with him, carved with the elements, so old that the symbols were nearly worn away. He’d wanted me to have them. Why? Who can understand the minds of men? Kal always hated the fact that I wore them.

  I can feel the tribe wondering now what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll begin summoning some djinn up at night for its supple, immortal embrace. Would that be infidelity? That was never what love was about for me.

  The tattooist added yellow roses to my arms. The inks were fresh and painful on my skin in the hot desert wind on this side of the village. On this little rise, I could see most of Tyn Dashra, the buildings of adobe brick and scavenged wood that I helped build as a child.

  What life lies before me now, unlike the life claimed by the tribe before I’d even started to dance its steps?

  I light the funeral fire but I do not stand back. Instead I lean close to the fire, feeling its heat, the heat of my heart, my grief, as my center, my lodestone burns. My life, this life given me by a freak of fate, spun wildly, and where its numbers might lead to, no one knows.

  About the Author

  Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches in the Pacific Northwest, with occasional excursions elsewhere. Her 200+ fiction publications include over 150 original stories, as well as audio and foreign reprints in over a dozen languages. She has been nominated for the Nebula and World Fantasy Award, and has served as the editor of award-winning Fantasy Magazine. She is the current Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and once won a hula contest judged by Neil Gaiman. Find out more about Cat, her work, and her online classes at http://www.kittywumpus.net

  Other books & stories by this author

  Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books and stories by Cat Rambo:

  Books:

  Near + Far (SF collection)

  Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight (fantasy collection)

  A Seed on the Wind (SF novella)

  A Halloween Quartet (fantasy collection)

  Creating An Online Presence for Writers (nonfiction)

  Short Story Series:

  Altered America (steampunk)

  Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart

  Rappacini’s Crow

  Clockwork Fairies

  Rare Pears and Greengages

  The Towering Monarch of His Mighty Race

  Snakes on A Train

  Closer Than You Think (near future SF)

  Peaches of Immortality

  English Muffin, Devotion on the Side

  Tortoiseshell Cats Are Not Refundable

  Zeppelin Follies

  Therapy Buddha

  Flicka

  All the Pretty Little Mermaids

  Memories of Moments, Bright As Falling Stars

  On the Bigfisted Circuit

  A Man and His Parasite

  Boys and Grlz Come Out To Play

  Legends of the Gone

  Mother’s World

  Not Waving, Drowning

  RealFur

  The Mermaids Singing, Each to Each

  Farther Than Tomorrow (slipstream & space opera)

  Bus Ride to Mars

  Grandmother

  Elsewhen, Within, Elsewhen

  Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain

  Angry Rose’s Lament

  Seeking Nothing

  Surrogates

  Fire on the Water’s Heart

  A Querulous Flute of Bone

  Superlives (superheroes)

  Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut

  Superhero Art

  Acquainted with the Night/TickTock Girl

  Tales of Tabat (secondary world fantasy)

  Narrative of a Beast’s Life

  How Dogs Came to the New Continent

  Events at Fort Plentitude

  Sugar

  Love, Resurrected

  A Frame of Mother-Of-Pearl

  In the Lesser Southern Isles

  A Brooch of Bone, a Hint of Tooth

  I’ll Gnaw Your Bones, the Manticore Said

  Pippa’s Smiles

  A Twine of Flame

  The Bumblety’s Marble

  The Silent Familiar

  Twicefar Station (far future SF)

  Kallakak’s Cousins

  Amid the Words of War

  I Come From the Dark Universe

  Timesnip

  On TwiceFar Station, As the Ships Come and Go

  Bots d’Amor

  Villa Encantada (urban fantasy/horror)

  Eagle-haunted Lake Sammammish

  Villa Encantada

  2611 (forthcoming)

  Women of Zalanthas (secondary world fantasy)

  Aquila’s Ring

  Mirabai the Twice-lived

  Karaluvian Fale

  The World Beside Us (dak fantasy/ horror)

  Jaco Tours

  Can You Hear the Moon?

  So Glad We Had This Time Together

  Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane

  Small Demons

  Heart in a Box

  Magnificent Pigs

  The Dew Drop Coffee Lounge

  Centzon Totochin

  Fisherman’s Child

  Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know

  Close Your Eyes

  A Connection to Beyond

  Eggs Of Stone

  Swamp Gas

  Connect with Cat Rambo

  I really appreciate you reading my book! Here are my social media coordinates:

  Find out what I’m bookmarking on Delicious: https://delicious.com/catrambo

  Friend me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/catrambo

  Add me to a circle on G+: https://plus.google.com/+CatRambo/posts

  See pictures of my world on Instagram: http://instagram.com/specfic/

  Support me on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/catrambo

  Pin along with me on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catrambo/

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  Visit my website: http://www.kittywumpus.net

 

 

  Cat Rambo, Mirabai the Twice-Lived

 

 

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