At times Deynas could hear weeping from some of those gathered, or a soft cough, but they all respected the rite. No one spoke. For his part, tears ran down his cheeks at first, drying fast in the heat of the day. Then he simply waited, trying hard to only remember Misa in that time and not wonder about Argus or the Keeper, though both forced their way into his thoughts.
He wanted to hate the Keeper, but he couldn’t hate Argus and, from what she said, Argus still existed within that body and was at least partly aware. Aware enough that she now knew he loved her. In a million years, he couldn’t have dreamed up a more convoluted way for her to find that out. He itched to know more even while he dreaded what that knowledge might teach him. Did Argus have any control or was she simply a passenger in her body? Should he think of her as alive or was it better to try to go on as if she were dead?
The thoughts made his head hurt and his chest tighten. The only thing that made sense was to stay away from her. How could he though, when there were so many questions and so few answers?
Eventually, Kochan rose and everyone else rose with him, joints cracking with stiffness from kneeling so long on the hard ground. The case held mostly ashes now. The public portion of the rite was complete. The four of them took the sides of the litter and carried it back down to the temple. Those gathered stopped outside the temple doors and went their own ways while the bearers took Misa’s remains back to a chamber deep within the temple where Kochan and other elders would tend to them.
Kochan turned to them once their shared burden had been set down upon a stone table in the candlelit room. “I have other rites to complete, but, after the events of this day, I think it important that I speak with all three of you before you leave. I ask that you remain here tonight as my guests. Settek, a room will be found for you within the temple if you will take it, but I must request that you remain apart from the tribe here in the temple.”
Settek’s gold eyes flashed with temper, but he nodded after a moment.
“Good.” Kochan beckoned one of the elders over and asked him to show Settek to a room. As soon as they were gone, he continued. “Naago-ra and Deynas-ra, you will also remain apart from the tribe for now, though you may wander the grounds between the temple and your huts. A proper dinner will be served to you in one of the private rooms within the temple. We will speak upon the morrow. Go now.”
Naago bowed and left. Deynas hesitated a moment, struggling not to show his surprise. Kochan ushered him out with no further guidance and shut the door behind him. They didn’t speak, but rather left the temple and retreated to their appointed huts.
Deynas sorted through his belongings for a while, creating a pile of needed and not needed things, which eventually sprouted a third pile of things he could live without if he had to. Then he tried to sleep for a while, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the Keeper lying on his bed. He would have given much to have Argus there, but she wasn’t Argus, she just looked like her. Or was she?
Eventually, he left the hut and turned toward Naago’s temporary residence, running into the man in the street halfway there.
Naago leaned close, keeping his voice low. “I take it she’s not in your hut?”
Deynas shook his head.
“We should try to find her?”
Deynas glanced around to see if anyone was in earshot before speaking. “Do you think she’s still here?”
“She could have gone back, but I doubt it. If she wanted to let Argus die, she wouldn’t have answered your call.”
Deynas stiffened. “Let Argus die?”
Naago rubbed his forehead as if it hurt and nodded. “She told me that the Keeper needed a new host because the umahk-ra and thoughts of the Endless woman were too active. The last time she left, I didn’t expect to see her in that body again, but she apparently had second thoughts, and not a moment too soon judging from her condition when she appeared to you.”
Deynas stared after a patrol flyer that had just swept overhead. Perhaps he could hate the Keeper. Then again, she hadn’t gone through with it, not this time. Next time might be different.
“How can we look for someone who doesn’t have to be seen if she doesn’t want to?”
“Indulge me. Where would Argus be right now?”
Deynas didn’t have to think about that for long. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Keeper stood at the edge of the cliff within sight of the Table of Returning. The sun was already creeping down on the far horizon and, as weak as she still was, the gusts in the early evening wind were nearly enough to topple her. The fall would kill this flesh, though neither she nor the Endless woman cared much right then. Walking from the hut to the temple and then up here had sapped all of her energy. The rest of the mourners had gone back down some time ago. She stood and waited while the wind played through her hair. What she waited for she couldn’t say. The call to keep perhaps, or for someone to come for her, someone who could help her rationalize her behavior.
An incessant summons from the Blooded nagged in the back of her mind. She didn’t have to answer it, but they would find a way to get to her eventually. That she didn’t doubt. Maybe it would be easier just to get it over with. And yet…
Individually, you and I are both remarkable beings, Endless. Together we make one complete fool.
There was an unsettling glimmer of amusement from the mind within the flesh. The separation between them had grown weaker still. Sharing of thought and personal memory remained diluted and unclear, like trying to communicate with someone underwater, but emotions were beginning to separate out and gain power much like the physical memories of flying and intimacy had. It was because of this place and the people, the one called Deynas especially.
The strongest emotion was the desire to continue living within this body. That had to be mostly the Endless woman, though it felt like the desire belonged to the Keeper and it stopped her from answering the persistent summons from the Blooded Women the same way it had compelled her to answer Deynas and flee her fate.
The Keeper stepped closer to the cliff, lining her toes up at the edge of the rock like a reckless child.
Why was there no childhood in her memory? Everything had a beginning.
Everything has an end too.
She looked down hundreds of feet to the desert below. One quick step and this would end. She would be born into another host by the Blooded Women and all of the emotions that tormented her in this flesh would disappear.
The one whose purpose it is to remember has forgotten herself.
Deynas and Naago came up the path then. She stepped back from the edge and watched them approach. They both glanced around, looking for her perhaps. They stopped at the stone table and Deynas stared down at it, his brows pinching together and a glisten of moisture showing in his eyes.
“She’s not here,” Naago muttered. He sounded disappointed. Then he took note of the other man’s intense focus and lowered his gaze, waiting silently.
The Keeper walked up to the opposite side of the table. Her chest ached with the desire to comfort Deynas, a desire best ignored. When the two men started to turn away, her breath caught. She didn’t want to be alone again, left here with no one but the Endless woman. Or was it the Endless woman who didn’t want to be left alone?
She let them see her.
Naago exhaled, his shoulders sinking as he smiled in relief. Deynas glanced at her and away again. He looked, if anything, more distraught than before. Naago walked around the table and she turned slightly toward him, keeping her eyes on Deynas. When he got within a friendly distance, she shifted one foot away and he stopped there.
“I didn’t expect to see you again, not like…this.” Naago gestured at her body.
She forced her gaze away from Deynas. “The Endless woman wants to live.”
“Argus.”
The Keeper started at the forcefulness in Deynas’s tone. He was glaring at her now.
“She has a name. Taking her body from
her doesn’t change that.”
“I am aware of that, Deynas-ra.” She saw him flinch at her sharp tone, but he didn’t back down.
“Can’t you show her enough respect to use it?”
“No.” He didn’t understand that to acknowledge the woman by name would give her that much more power. Somehow, it didn’t seem wise to explain that to him. She met his blue eyes, holding his gaze until he finally turned away. It hurt him to look at her, she knew, and she didn’t like hurting him, but he needed to remember that she would never be the woman he loved.
Someone else was coming up the path. The Keeper went unseen to all of them and watched as the newcomer summoned them down to dine in the temple. Naago glanced at where she’d been and scowled, then followed Deynas and the other man back down. The Keeper followed as well. Deynas excused himself to get something from his room and she waited in silence with Naago at the temple entrance. Deynas returned a few minutes later with a bottle of something that he carried into the temple.
Before they entered the private dining room, Naago asked for an extra plate. Anticipating or possibly just hoping that she would join them. They pushed through a warm wave of rich aromas into a small room with a low table surrounded by cushions. Settek was there and she felt a sudden rise in tension from the two Endless as they entered.
The crossbreed gave a slight nod of greeting, getting the equivalent in return from Naago. Deynas only narrowed his eyes and situated himself in the corner farthest from the crossbreed. Naago sat toward the center of the table. The man who’d led them there handed him the extra plate and bowed out, closing the door. Naago set the plate down next to him. Settek gave it a curious look, then the Keeper became seen and he started, his gold eyes widening.
She slid the plate down the table to put more space between herself and Naago before sitting. Then she looked up at the crossbreed. “Did you think the Keeper wouldn’t need to eat?”
Settek shook himself and lowered his gaze. “I apologize for staring, Keeper, but I didn’t expect you to be Endless.”
“I am not Endless. I am the Keeper. Only this body is Endless.”
Deynas made an offensive sound in his throat and she pursed her lips, trying not to let it bother her.
Settek dared another glance at her face, eyes burning with curiosity. “Why are you—?”
“It’s a long story,” Naago interrupted.
She gave Naago a chastising look. “Although rude, Naago-ra is right. That is not a tale for this evening.”
Naago shrugged off her comment and began to serve her, which she knew wasn’t going to improve Deynas’s mood, but she didn’t see a graceful way out of it. Deynas and Settek began to fill their plates as well, then Deynas filled their cups from the bottle he’d brought. Naago drew a flask out of one pocket and poured a sparing bit of the contents into his cup. When he started to put the lid back on, Deynas gave him a look and nodded towards his own cup. Naago complied, sharing some of the strong smelling alcohol, then capped the flask and set it on the table.
After washing his first bite down with a swig of the alcohol, Deynas glanced shrewdly at Settek. “How did you know we were Endless and where to find us?”
Settek took a long drink from his cup and smirked at it. Then he gave Naago a meaningful look and the elder Endless grudgingly opened his flask again and poured some into the crossbreed’s cup. Settek took another drink and nodded approval before answering. “My sister, Kaira, came to me after you left the city.”
Both Naago and Deynas stopped eating.
“She’s your sister?” Deynas asked.
Settek nodded. “She told me that you were working for our father and convinced me to go speak with him about what happened.”
The two men paled and Naago set his utensils down. “Your father being?”
“Warlord Kato,” he stated as if it should have been obvious. “He told me that I should follow you and offer myself as a bearer for the girl.”
“Misa,” Deynas snapped.
“Yes.” Settek continued, unruffled. For one who had been so hot-tempered before, he was remarkably composed now. “He said it would be the right thing to do and that it would honor my mother’s memory.”
“I assume your mother was banished from her tribe for having relations with a demon.” Naago remarked with more than a little bitterness.
Settek’s composure faltered for a second, his lip lifting in a disgusted sneer that he quickly schooled away, though the darkening of his mane betrayed his ongoing displeasure. “Yes, but she was always Endless in her heart, even if her people refused to understand her.”
“How the hell did Kato know where to find us,” Deynas demanded, giving Naago a sharp look.
Naago glared back. “I didn’t tell him.”
Settek’s mane flickered, shading from a dark maroon to a bright orange-red as he chuckled at them. “Father doesn’t need to be told. He knows everything.”
“That must make your life interesting,” the Keeper remarked.
“You have no idea. I can’t get away with anything.” Settek grinned at her then as if she had, in that moment, become just another companion.
It was nice. She made herself smile back, ignoring the sour looks from Naago and Deynas who appeared to disapprove of her chatting with the crossbreed.
Settek’s expression turned serious then and he inclined his head to her. “Thank you, Keeper, for defending my right to bear this morning.”
More meddling she shouldn’t have done. “Your intentions were good and your claim legitimate. I simply validated that for those who would not see it.”
“Had she not defended you,” Deynas remarked, “you might have been killed.”
“And would I have deserved any less?” Settek’s composure faltered, a pained look twisting his features for a moment and the Keeper felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Whatever his father’s intentions, the youth truly regretted the outcome of his actions. “My father tried to warn me many times that my arrogance and hot temper would have a terrible price, but I was too arrogant to hear him.”
Naago snorted. “You tried to stab me in the back. Pardon me if I’m underwhelmed by your show of regret.”
Settek’s features closed up, the candid emotion retreating. “I lost my temper, though I’m still not convinced it was a bad idea.”
Deynas muffled a chuckle with a mouthful of food, though he didn’t quite manage to hold back a grin.
The only sign that Naago noticed was a slight narrowing of his eyes. “How many did your temper kill before me?”
“None. I never lost before you and I never went into a duel with any intention of killing my opponent.”
“Empty threats,” Naago muttered before taking a long drink from his cup.
The Keeper followed his lead and took a drink, finding that the light alcohol Deynas brought wasn’t so unpleasant after all.
Settek’s gaze moved between the two men. “I don’t feel so bad about being bested now, knowing I faced Endless.”
“You should learn to accept defeat more graciously,” Deynas snapped.
Those brilliant gold eyes dimmed and Settek looked stared at his plate. “Father said the same.”
The Keeper searched her mind for another way to lift the mood, but Naago was there ahead of her.
“You have considerable combat skill, crossbreed. With some discipline and real training, you would do well.”
The comment triggered a long discussion about sword technique between Naago and Settek. Deynas ate in morose silence and refilled his glass several times, refusing to contribute to the discussion. The Keeper watched them and listened. When Deynas stood and excused himself, she followed. The other two fell silent, watching them leave, but neither said a word to stop them or tried to follow.
There were many people out still and the sound of music rose up from the lower part of the village. Misa’s death was a tragedy, but the release of her spirit was something to celebrate and they did a fine job of it. The Keeper
followed Deynas up the path to the Table of Returning, remaining unseen to all except him. A few of those out nodded to him, but none gave him any more attention than that. When he reached the top, he walked to the edge, standing in almost exactly the same spot she’d been standing earlier. She walked up beside him. The few others up on the plateau moved to the opposite edge or started down the path after she gave their spirits a nudge of encouragement to do so.
“I don’t want you here,” he stated.
“But you do want her.”
The muscles in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth. He swallowed hard. “I can’t have her.”
She stared out into the night. The stars seemed impossibly far away and cold. “I’m sorry.”
He turned toward her and she faced him in turn, moving in perfect synchronicity as if she’d predicted him.
A light breeze played through his long black hair. His blue eyes narrowed. “Are you? Are you truly sorry?”
Her throat tightened when she looked into his eyes and saw the pain within him. It wasn’t only the Endless woman’s feelings for him that made her eyes sting and her chest ache and she didn’t know how to react to that. Was the Keeper supposed to feel like this?
“Yes. I am sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, Deynas.”
He searched her face for a several seconds, the distress behind his eyes magnifying the pain in her chest. “Is that the Keeper saying that or is it Argus’s influence?”
“Both.”
Unthinking, she brought her hand up to his face. He jerked back and her hand hung awkward in the air between them. Then the summons from the Blooded went silent and a chill swept through her. She put up her hood and turned.
“Something’s wrong.” She closed her eyes.
There was a bright flash as the spirit of the demon appeared and she snapped her eyes open. The demon materialized on the plateau, a massive black beast with legs twice the size of a man. It sent two men and woman standing together near the far edge over the cliff with a sweep of one great paw. Their screams faded quickly. Then it turned to her and Deynas. It spread its leathery wings and opened the four-pronged outer mandibles of its jaws, shrieking an earsplitting challenge.
The Keeper (The Endless Chronicles Book 1) Page 15