Herta's hands gripped the porch railing as she watched Mikhail drive off. She had the feeling he'd be back, though, with another insultingly low offer to buy the house. Or worse, a marriage proposal. After she'd explained the terms of Hans' will, Mikhail had changed his tack, speaking of his admiration for independent women in general and her in particular.
Herta didn't believe him for a moment. This house was fast becoming special to her, almost a home and she wasn't about to surrender it.
A familiar tingle ran through her. Without turning her head, she asked bitterly, "What do you want now, Turan?"
"What did he want?"
She sighed, suddenly tired. "The same as you. Me out of this house." She turned. "The only difference was that he offered me enough money to return to Canada and get on with my life."
Turan growled and his fists clenched, but he didn't touch her. "You are mine!"
"In a pig's eye! I am not a parcel to be handed around Turan. I am a human being with all the attendant rights thereof," Herta spat. "And if you've come to start in on me again--"
"I came to apologize, Fräulein."
Herta stared.
Turan nodded. "And we need to talk."
There was something different about Turan, Herta noticed. Almost as if he were afraid. She huffed her disgust at her own weakness. "Oh, all right." She led the way into the house, turning into the formality of the parlour, rather than the comfort of the kitchen. Flinging herself into an armchair, she asked, "What is it this time?"
Turan paused at the doorway for a moment before taking a cautious seat on the sofa. He wasn't sure where to start a THE NEED was creeping upon him again, making coherent thought difficult.
"Well?"
He took a deep breath and stared at his hands, clasped between his knees. "I am sorry about our misunderstanding yesterday. I did not explain things clearly enough."
Herta sniffed.
"It is not necessary for you to remain in my world after the ceremony has been completed."
"Ceremony?"
Turan rubbed a hand across his face. "Ceremony. It is merely a formal recognition that I am a whole being and, as such, am a fit leader for my people."
"I thought you already had that job."
Turan shook his head, ignoring her sarcasm. "Up until now I was more co-regent than leader. Dahila rules as the other half of my soul until I formally bond with my soulmate."
"So I'm supposed to hand you my soul so you can become the boss, is that it?"
"No!" Turan lowered his voice. "No. You don't understand. The bonding is more..." He stumbled for the explanation. "It's more a sharing of souls than a taking of them. We both will have a soul at the end of it."
"So you get to rule your people and I get to live here?"
Turan nodded, relieved that she finally understood.
"Not a chance."
Turan raised his eyes to Herta's angry ones, astonished.
"If you think I'm going to give up my soul so you and Dahlia--"
"Dahila," Turan corrected automatically and then gasped as Herta's emotions finally made sense to him. "You're jealous," he said. He started to grin.
Herta stood up, her face set, her emotions hidden from him again. "I'd like you to leave." She turned her back to him, staring out the window. Dismissing him.
Turan rose and stepped behind her. He was missing something, obviously. "Talk to me, Herta. Tell me what's wrong. We can work it out together." He made the mistake of touching her shoulder and THE NEED overwhelmed him.
Herta gasped as she was spun to face a different Turan than she'd seen before. She couldn't identify his expression, but his mouth descending on hers was warning enough. "No!" she managed before he kissed her.
This wasn't the same feeling, a part of her noticed, as when he kissed her in that woods of that other place.. This was more ferocious, more elemental. More terrifying. Strangely enough, she wasn't afraid. It was as if there were two of her, one being savagely kissed by Turan, the other a dispassionate observer.
That observer watched as Herta and Turan melded into one being. How naive and trusting did he think she was? His first mistake was to assume that she had a soul to give him. That particular commodity, she thought, got traded for a couple of hours extra sleep and a hot meal somewhere back in her third year of university.
She looked around the room, waiting for Turan and the other Herta to finish, and frowned. The colours were slightly off, lines skewed a bit. It was if they had moved to a time and a place that was just a bit out of sync with the world she knew. A side effect of the bonding? She shrugged. Not that it really mattered.
The single entity separated and became Herta and Turan, individuals, again. Turan raised his head, suddenly conscious of being watched. His eyes widened. He looked down at the Herta in his arms and back to that other one.
She nodded.
His Herta, the one he held in his arms, saw his distraction and turned to face the newcomer as well. The awareness snapped to a different viewpoint and she looked at herself. Is this how others saw her? Cold. Aloof. Almost arrogant. She blushed. What was going on?
"There have always been two of us, Herta."
"The Good and the...?"
A soft chuckle. "No, nothing quite so drastic." A shrug. "More like one-who-is and one-who-wants-to-be. There are times when you desire to be more like me, and times when I wish..." She shook her head. "Not that it matters right now."
"You mean, like a split personality? I have a split personality?" There was an edge of panic to her voice.
"No. Not exactly."
"Two souls in one body?" Turan guessed.
"No, we are the same person. Two faces of the same coin, if you like. Neither of whom trusts the other completely, I'm afraid." She shrugged again.
Turan looked to his Herta for confirmation. She was frowning.
"We work together," she said slowly. "When we don't agree on a course of action, we... argue." She looked up to her other self. "You're the reason I feel ill just before I do something stupid."
The other Herta nodded. "And you're the reason I get sick just before I refuse to do something because, as you say, it's my duty."
"But why show up now? I mean, Turan has kissed me before and-- " She stopped, noticing her surroundings for the first time. "Where are we? This is almost like the woods, but..." She looked to Turan for her answers, but it was the other Herta who spoke.
"I think it's a side effect of the bonding. There's obviously more to it than we've been led to believe." She cocked a challenging eyebrow at Turan.
Turan lifted his chin, meeting her arrogance with his own. "I have told the truth on all matters."
The other chuckled. "I meant no insult, Turan. But there has been an omission nonetheless."
Turan scowled. "I did not--"
"Turan, you understand what is happening, or about to happen. We do not. Would you be so kind as to explain it to us?"
Turan glared at the other Herta and she laughed, a hard, mocking sound.
"You expect us to trust you implicitly but you don't trust us enough to tell us the entire truth?"
"It's not that," Turan began. He was thoroughly confused now. Nothing of what he had been taught had prepared him for this.
"You don't trust us to understand?" It wasn't quite a question, and Turan wasn't sure who had spoken.
His Herta pulled away from him. "Turan, you've been taught what needs to be done for a bonding, haven't you? You knew what to expect. Could it be that my lack of training is what caused this split? I mean..." She sighed. "You know, I'm not sure what I mean. She glared at the other Herta. "And you standing there looking so bloody smug and arrogant doesn't help any."
The other Herta raised her eyebrows, her only comment to the tirade. "That humans don't have the same mental disciplines as your people, Turan, might be an explanation for the reports of madness after a bonding," she observed.
Turan's brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. "But it normally takes us years - decades - to learn. You want me to teach you this is only a few hours? That's impossible! And I don't have the time. I must be bonded within a season of THE NEED and that time is almost up. I have waited several months already."
The other Herta tipped her head. "Then you'd better talk fast, hadn't you?"
"Have faith, Turan," his Herta said. He looked down at her, seeing her faith in him in her eyes.
He sighed. "You are a most perverse female." He ignored their joint laughter. "Very well. You know of the original People?"
"Two heads, four arms, four legs, one soul."
"Divided and doomed to all eternity to search for the other half of their souls."
Turan nodded. "And you know that each half-soul must join with its mate or both will be destroyed?"
The other Herta straightened as something occured to her, but she kept silent.
"The joining of the souls is almost automatic and usually painless," he continued.
His Herta started. She looked towards the other in silent communication. The other's eyes widened as she, too, understood something.
"What? What do you know?"
After a long silence, his Herta spoke. "Mind, Body and Soul. Bodies join in the act of procreation."
"Souls join in the act of friendship," the other murmured.
"And minds join where there is trust and respect."
"That's impossible," Turan protested. "It doesn't work like that. Besides, we've already joined minds."
"That may not be true in your world, but it is in ours. Our bodies may desire the touch of another, and our souls may govern our emotions regarding that other, but it is our minds that decide whether or not we trust the other enough to speak of both our desires and our emotions."
"Besides, Turan," his Herta said, "You kissed me after we'd escaped those men. Much has happened since then."
He shook his head.
The other Herta took up the conversation. "You demanded that I bond with you, implying that I must either do as you say and leave my life here, abandon all that I know and find familiar for a life in a world that I have never heard of until two days ago, or live the rest of my life alone. By refusing my help yesterday, you have tacitly declared that my life and all that I hold dear is of less value than yours."
Turan stepped away from the women, folded his arms and glared at them.
"And there is still the matter of the men who tried to kill us. And Frau Horst."
Turan snorted. "Frau Horst is dead."
The women nodded. "How?"
Turan lifted his chin. "I didn't kill her."
His Herta - no, not his any more, he thought - the woman touched his arm.
"We know that, Turan. You are too honourable to stoop to murder. But we do need to know who killed her."
"And why."
"Why?"
"Because I need to know that her death wasn't because of me."
"But you didn't even know her. Why would you kill her?"
Herta smiled ruefully. "No, I didn't. But she collapsed when she saw me in the bank. I need to know why."
Turan ran a hand over his face. "You're not making sense," he complained.
The other Herta spoke. Her voice could have matched Dahila's - or Turan's - for pride and arrogance. "Turan, I am der Reizen. I have a responsibility to my people as well as yours. Frau Horst's death is part of that responsibility, coming as it did, shortly after my arrival."
Turan stared.
"Or are your responsibilities of more value than mine because you are of the People and I am only human?"
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