“Cohabiting without difficulty, for the moment. When the farmsteaders have time to think, they may spend it considering how best to avoid the Sisters.” He grinned briefly. “Though the woman strikes me as willing to face anything, including whores.”
Ilona opened her mouth to say something more, but broke it off as she marked the sudden altering of Rhuan’s expression. She turned her head, following his gaze, and saw the other Shoia, Brodhi, waiting but paces away from the road. Next to him stood a woman.
Not the woman who had been with him the night before. That one had been black-haired; this one’s hair was a brilliant red-gold, markedly more flamboyant than the quieter dark copper of Rhuan’s oiled and beaded braids. In the fullness of the sun, she glowed with a vibrancy that commanded the eye. The woman the night before had faded into darkness.
It crossed Ilona’s mind fleetingly to be startled and curious that Brodhi, ordinarily so private, had allowed himself to be seen in public with two different women. But her attention returned to Rhuan. His expression was odd. “What is it?”
Clearly distracted, he glanced briefly at her but did not answer. Instead he sent his horse through the opening between Ilona’s wagon and the one ahead, cutting through the karavan.
The wagons, this early in the day, this early in the journey, did not move so quickly that Ilona could not watch the meeting of Rhuan, his kinsman, and the red-haired woman. She saw him rein in, say something, and after a momentary but telling stillness, he dropped off his mount.
They were nearly of a height, Rhuan and Brodhi, and usually very alike in posture as well. From a distance, one might not be able to tell them apart; she had herself mistaken Brodhi for Rhuan recently. But Brodhi wore the bright blue courier’s mantle across one shoulder, and his body was unaccountably stiff. Ilona was a hand-reader, but she knew enough of the language of the rest of the body to recognize that Rhuan’s kinsman was not at ease. It was unusual to see them together, and wholly unheard of for Brodhi to come so near the karavan twice in as many days.
The red-haired woman shot a glance at Brodhi that Ilona could not interpret because of the distance, but she sensed something akin to impatience. And then the woman deliberately placed herself between the two Shoia and made a brief, fluent gesture. Rhuan, after a hesitation, bowed his head as if in assent.
As if, Ilona realized, he gave precedence to her.
The woman put out a hand and drew Rhuan’s knife. She took his right hand, his heart-hand, into her left, turned it palm up—Ilona was reminded of her own reading rituals—and sliced the blade across his flesh.
Chapter 17
RHUAN SHUT HIS teeth with a click as the knife cut into his palm. Blood welled thick and hot—always hot, his blood—running into the lines in his hand, then spilled between his fingers to drip onto the earth. Instincts cried out to stop the flow, to keep his blood from touching anything living, but he knew better. Not when Ferize had begun the binding renewal.
He looked hard at Brodhi, expecting familiar arrogance, but Brodhi appeared no more settled than Rhuan himself. He merely watched, brown eyes hooded, as Ferize cleaned the blade on the hem of her long tunic, then returned the knife home to its sheath at Rhuan’s belt.
She turned then to Brodhi and, without speaking, drew his knife and repeated the ritual, cleaning and sheathing the weapon once the cut in his hand was made. When the blood ran freely, she looked from one to the other, waiting.
Rhuan was aware the last of the wagons had passed. No one now, neither Ilona nor the farmsteaders, would be able to see what was shielded by their bodies. Only that they moved, that they clasped hands in what might appear to be friendly greetings or farewells exchanged. No one would witness that paces away from the verge of the road, where grass grew thickly, their blood dripped onto the earth. No one would see that sod crisped, burned, turned to ash.
“Do it,” Ferize said.
When they did not, sharing only a hard, fixed stare of dominance challenge, she grasped their wrists tightly and slapped the palms together.
“Let be,” she commanded. “For once, let be. Neither of you loses should the other win. You share the blood of your sires, but nothing more. Be what you are required to be, by the bindings of the vows.”
Brodhi’s teeth showed briefly, but it was not a true smile. “These vows,” he said through a thickened throat, still holding Rhuan’s gaze, “are more than a little taxing.”
“And so they should be,” Ferize agreed.
Rhuan said through a throat equally tight, “We wish different things.”
“That matters so little as to be irrelevant.” Ferize’s arrogance, when slipped free of self-control, was far more biting than Brodhi’s. “Do you think the primaries care? They have so many offspring they cannot count them all. Don’t place yourselves, either one of you, so highly in their esteem that it blinds you to what is real and what is merely wished for. Yes, you may become more than you are at present, depending on your goals, but until then you are but insignificant infants mewling for food when it isn’t in the least convenient to feed you.”
“Well.” Brodhi’s tone, after a pause, lightened to something akin to his usual irony. “That does effectively underscore our value, does it not?”
Rhuan’s mouth twisted in sour humor. “Somewhat.”
“It’s done.” Ferize closed fingers around their wrists again and pulled them apart. “Darmuth and I cannot be held responsible for you every moment of the day or night. The binding is necessary, and its renewal.”
Rhuan looked at his hand. The blood was gone, as was the knife cut. The touch of flesh on flesh, blood on blood, had once again replenished that which within them was kinship. And, to employ Ferize’s word, it was irrelevant that they were as different in spirit as they were in desires, he and Brodhi. Here, in this place, among powerless humans—equally insignificant infants mewling for food, though they knew it not—shared blood mattered more than mutual dislike.
Rhuan summoned a careless smile for Brodhi, knowing it would annoy him. “Blame our sires.”
The comment told in the tightening of flesh at the corners of Brodhi’s eyes. For a moment, a passing moment only, a reddish haze flickered across the sclera. Then Brodhi once again donned the habitual mask he wore in place of his face.
“They were fools,” he said, “guided by base lusts. I will do better. But you, I do know, are very like them.”
The brief blood-forced truce was broken. Rhuan turned abruptly back to his horse and swung up. As he gathered the reins, he ignored Brodhi entirely and looked only at Ferize. “Why do you bother? Do you believe the blood-bond will make us friends as well as kin?”
“No,” she answered. “I believe it may keep you both unharmed in a place that is dangerous to your kind.”
Rhuan flicked a glance at Brodhi. He suspected his own face mirrored the rejection of that reasoning. But it was done, the binding. Neither of them could hide from one another, even were they thousands of miles apart.
But neither could they hide from the knowledge of their begetting.
EVEN AS RHUAN turned his horse to depart, Brodhi strode jerkily away from him as well as from Ferize. But he sensed her with every hair on his body as she easily caught up. Anger flared anew, tingling deep in his abdomen and kindling in his genitals. His eyes felt hot, hot enough to burst. “You intended it all along. The binding.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t about wishing farewell to my kinsman.” “No. That was merely a ruse.”
He could barely keep the word from exploding out of his mouth. “Why?”
“Because you are an utter fool when it comes to Rhuan.”
“You lied.”
“In this instance I merely avoided the details of the truth,” she clarified. “Though it pleases me to lie when necessary.”
“I would expect that of you, yes, when it pleases you. But to me?”
Striding beside him, she cast him a glance that could have burned away the grass even as his blood had. �
�You have your vows. I have mine.”
“You are my mate.”
“Here, I am your keeper.”
Though the wound had sealed itself, Brodhi felt the flame in his hand kindle once again. Keeper, indeed. Centuries older than he, infinitely more powerful, owing service to many others before serving him. And he was, she had said, insignificant.
He stopped short. Reached out. Grabbed a handful of shining hair and pulled her around to face him. His vision grew red.
She gave up a foot in height and nearly one hundred pounds in weight. Were she human, he could break her spine, snap her neck, crush her skull. But she was not human. Her pupils, slitted now in the face of his anger, and the scale pattern awakening in her flesh were visible reminders of who, and what, she was.
She placed one hand upon his wrist. He felt the nails altering to claws, tips pressing into his skin. Saw the shape of her mouth changing as teeth elongated.
His throat was full and tight. “Go back,” he managed. “Go back to Alisanos. Go back where you belong, for surely it isn’t here.”
She reached up, took his earlobe into her fingers, and pierced it with a thumbclaw. She grinned at him as he hissed, displaying her fangs. “I could say the same to you.”
Her departure heated the air. He felt at his earlobe, wincing. Blood smeared his fingertips. He shut his eyes a moment, seeking self-control. Once regained, he allowed it to carry him back toward the tent-city, where he thought the foul liquor humans called whiskey might do for a meal.
THE KARAVAN WAS ahead of him now; Rhuan hastened to catch up. But as he did so a rider fell out of line and waited for him. Darmuth. He brought his horse alongside Rhuan’s as they met and fell in together some distance behind the karavan. This time Darmuth rode a horse of flesh and bone, not a mount conjured out of moonlight.
Something flared briefly in Darmuth’s pale eyes. Pupils slitted vertically. Then he grinned, gemstone flashing in his tooth, as his pupils regained their human roundness. “Trust Ferize to make it happen.”
Rhuan, still disgruntled by the binding ritual and not in the least interested in discussing it with Darmuth, shot him a scathing look.
But Darmuth merely found it amusing. His grin widened into laughter. “I can smell it on you,” he said. “What do the humans call it …hellfire and brimstone?”
Knees nearly touched as they rode side by side. Rhuan knew if he drew away, Darmuth would simply follow. “You’re the demon,” he retorted. “You should know.”
Darmuth inhaled a melodramatically noisy breath, then released it on a rapturous sigh. “Oh, I do so love that smell. Brimstone commingled with flesh. With blood for gravy.” He nodded, eyes closed, then looked intently at Rhuan. “Would you consider cutting off a toe for me tonight? It would be a kindness for a hungry demon.”
Rhuan stared at him. “You want to eat my toe?”
“You have ten of them. You can afford to spare me one.”
“I’m not giving you a toe!”
“If you’re squeamish, I could do it myself.”
“I’m not cutting off a toe, and you’re not cutting off a toe.” He paused. “Unless it’s your own.”
“No, no, we don’t eat of our own bodies. That would be self-cannibalization. We may dine on others of our kind, but not ourselves.” Darmuth’s tone was bemused. “I’ve been saving you against starvation, should the need ever arise. It would be easy enough. I could kill you, then decapitate and quarter you before you resurrected. Surely there would be enough of you to last quite some time.” Pupils slitted again. “The arms and legs might be a bit tough because of the muscling. But there is no bone in the abdomen, and the organs nestling there are undoubtedly sweet.”
All manner of distressing images tumbled through Rhuan’s mind, as no doubt Darmuth intended. In reflex he put more distance between their knees and mounts. When he could sort out his thoughts again, he managed a small victory by keeping his tone light. “I suppose that would depend on whether you kept human form or took on your own.”
“That is true.” Darmuth considered it. “You wouldn’t make so much of a meal if I were in demon-form. I should have to keep this form.” He eyed Rhuan assessively, then grinned at his expression. “But not yet.”
Rhuan used a trace of Brodi’s habitual irony. “I do thank you for that.”
“So, Ferize forced the renewal of the blood-bond.”
Memory kindled into annoyance. “She did.”
“It would make life more comfortable if you and Brodhi buried the knife. It makes no sense for you to bicker so much.”
“It makes perfect sense for us to bicker so much,” Rhuan retorted. “We’re dioscuri. Worse, our sires are brothers.” “But you are here together on the same journey—” “We are not here together on the same journey,” Rhuan snapped, cutting him off. “Our destinations are incalculably different.”
“The ending of the journey, yes, should you both achieve your intentions. But not the beginning. And surely not while the journey is yet unfinished.”
Rhuan twisted his mouth. “I hold no enmity toward Brodhi. He is free to choose his future any way he pleases.
But he would do better not to view my choice with such derision.”
“Well,” Darmuth said reflectively, “it is somewhat of a character flaw, to be so stubborn.”
“And arrogant,” Rhuan added.
“And arrogant, yes.”
“And unforgiving.”
“That, too.”
“Rude.”
“Yes.”
“In fact, I believe I would run out of fingers and toes were I to count up the merest portion of Brodhi’s character flaws.”
Darmuth brightened. “Well, if your fingers and toes are so inadequate to the task, perhaps you could spare one for me. The smallest toe, only, I hasten to add …it doesn’t really do much, after all.”
Inside his boots, Rhuan’s toes curled. With effort he straightened them. “The last time I looked,” he said pointedly, “Jorda had seen to it we have plenty of food supplies for all.”
“Human food, yes.”
“In human form, one eats human food. Even you.”
“I’d rather eat humans than human food.”
“No eating!” Rhuan declared. “Not of my toes, and not of various portions of a human body!”
“Easy for you to say,” Darmuth retorted. “You’re not the one trying to fend off hunger an hour after eating.”
“Keep fending,” Rhuan suggested, and kicked his horse into a lope.
Chapter 18
OVER FIVE LONG days, Audrun had grown used to the karavan’s song, the constant creaking of wheels, the subtle tympani of kettles and pots clanking against one another, the crack of oilcloth in strong wind. But now, as she walked beside the wagon beneath the midday sun, the sound of hoofbeats coming from behind caught her attention.
Her first thought was for her children, all of whom had spread out, making their own individual paths next to the dust-clouded karavan road of twinned wheel ruts cutting through turf grass and sod. Ellica and Gillan were on the other side of the wagon and old enough to tend themselves, but the small ones weren’t; she turned, calling their names, and stretched out arms and spread-fingered hands to gather in Torvic and Megritte.
They came, if laggardly, scarves dropped and faces already dirty. By the time Audrun had them safely in tow close to the wagon, the rider was abreast of them. The guide, she saw; and then remembered he had ridden down the other side of the karavan some time before. He flicked a glance at the wagon with Davyn atop the seat.
Audrun pulled down the dust-scarf from her face and asked sharply, “Are we too slow?”
“No. No, you do well enough.” A graceful gesture dismissed her concern. “There may come a time, as I told you, when you must press the beasts to move more quickly, but not today. They’ve done well.”
Torvic and Megritte were trying to free their hands from her grasp. Admonishing them to stay out of the guide’s way and t
o pull up their face cloths, Audrun let them go, then turned her attention back to him. “And if they can go no faster?” She nodded her head toward the oxen. “They have had a hard journey from our farmstead.”
He studied the oxen. She knew what he saw; knew what she saw, suddenly, that she had not paid attention to for some time, being taken up with her children and the demands of travel. Taut flesh, the suggestion of jutting hipbones, coats without the glossy bloom of good health.
Alarm registered. He will say we must stop. He will tell the master. She opened her mouth to beg him not to do so, but clamped it shut again. She had fought her battle with the karavan-master with an understanding of the truths of karavan travel and stubborn insistence. She would not weaken her argument by begging now.
With an experienced eye the guide measured the distance between their wagon and the one before them, the one with its rich crimson oilcloth drawn over curving ribs, and the one before that conveyance. Judging their pace.
Audrun could no longer hold her tongue. She was in possession of yet another truth and no lessening of stubborn insistence. “I do understand you would have had us wait a season. But your female diviner gave us leave to come. You told us to trust her. Surely she would have seen in our hands if the oxen could not make it, yes?”
Amusement flickered across his face. “Very likely,” he agreed. “When you unhitch them for the night, lead them some distance away from the wagons, and wait.”
That was baffling. “Why?”
“I will have a word with them.”
She blinked in startlement. A word with oxen? “But taking them away puts them in danger from predators.”
He grinned. “Not so far as to risk them. But it wouldn’t be wise to let everyone in the karavan see what I do, or I will spend all of my days and nights tending everyone’s livestock instead of performing my own duties.”
That made sense, though Audrun still could not imagine how he could make the oxen move faster. “What will you do to them?”
“I told you. Have a word.”
It was perplexing, she thought, but also rude. Audrun stretched out a hand to indicate her youngest children running ahead. “I can’t ‘have a word’ with my own children and be certain they will obey. How can you expect oxen to obey?”
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