Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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palm had gently laid on the back of her hand had sent a lightning-bolt through her, she'd soon got used to
it, though some part of her went on thinking it was vaguely perverse of him to do it, and her to not object.
Then, somehow, their hands had stayed linked, even when he was just listening.
Is this love? She knew that whenever she saw his face come into the ring of firelight, she'd feel a lifting in
her chest, a catch of her breath and her heart beating faster. When he didn't come, she'd feel the
disappointment of denial sharper than she'd ever felt since what she counted as her childhood, the time
before she'd been taken from her old home.I want him here , she thought. But she'd heard of something
called infatuation too, and that it could feel no less passionate, often more, yet not be the true thing. She'd
askedzhymata how she could tell: "Only time can say," was the answer.
He wants us to go into the bushes, she thought now,like khyd-hirdand Chevenga just did . An old
voice, her birth-mother's, grated in her ear.Men only want one thing .
If I just go into the bushes to be with him, does that make me a doxy? A slut? In her new home,
she'd been taught the injustice of those terms, to be applied only to women, while men who did the same
were to be admired.
He wants to ruin me. The old Thanish phrasing came easily. Behind those friendly light brown eyes,
Fehuund lurked, too subtle to see, wrapping his evil temptation as always in hope and warmth and
yearning.But , she thought,I trust him . And overlaid on the old were the ethics of her new home: go with
him into the bushes, tumble, take some birth-herb, and do the same tomorrow night, untouched; it's just
sex, how can it change you? Her older concerns she would never admit tokhyd-hird , for fear of laughter
or a sharp "Don't you knowanything ?" But that was no answer, to the touch of Echera-e's big tender
hands, to the thought, that kept pressing into her imagination, of how they would feel touching her
elsewhere, and to knowing that the pleasurable itch between her legs had something to do with it all.
The wineskin came around; she took a long draught.I know what khyd-hirdwould do in this situation:
what she just did. But that definitely is notmy style, and besides he's probably too heavy …
Maybe I'm wrong, she thought, after a while.Maybe he doesn't want to. After all, he hasn't tried
anything, he hasn't carried me off or kissed me or even said anything . He'd put his arm around her
shoulder; but that was something friends could do.He hasn't even looked at me thatway. Yet he can't
think I'm ugly, or he wouldn't keep holding my hand, or smiling, or saying I'm beautiful. What's he
going to do ?
Nothing, it seemed; the night ground on, and her nervousness over what might happen in the bushes gave
way for what might not. I wantto. Does that make me a doxy? I don't feellike someone bad.
Francosz learned on the river, two years ago. He looked so happy after. It's not fair that girls
shouldn't get to do what boys do. There's nothing wrong with sex, nothing evil about it, and I
won't get pregnant as long as I take some birth-herb. I won't be ruined, no decent Thanish family
would marry me to their son anyway, and there's no such thing as being ruined by sex . Knyd-hird
isn't a slut —she'd take off anyone's head who called her that—and look whatshedoes …
Suddenly Echera-e excused himself to go to the latrine, and one of the Slaughterers, a man of about
thirty or so who had seemed to be trying to catch the youth's eye, happened to get up at the same time.I
miss him , she thought,even when he's gone only a few steps. Is this normal? Is this what people
mean when they say "lovesick"? And why , she thought, sometime later,have the two of them been
gone so long ? Sudden terrors filled her, of traitors in disguise and knives in the dark; the thought of him
dead was suddenly horrifyingly huge and unbearable. But then he was there, as if he a never been gone.