Finn turned and looked over his shoulder, considering for a moment calling Wahirangi; but the dragon would never fit in here and quite possibly would destroy any clues that Putorae might have left. Still, he eased his hand down to his boot-sheath and took out one of his long hunting knives. It could be just a case of a virulent rat infestation.
He went on more cautiously, trying to minimize the sound of his own footfalls. Behind doors, both intact and otherwise, he found a collection of what must have been elegant rooms. It was hard not to imagine the strains of music and laughter in the damp, crumbling salons and mirrored rooms he found, but it was one room in particular that made him stop.
Up a narrow flight of stairs, he found a smaller bedroom. On moth-eaten carpets he picked up a clutter of strange wooden lumps. Taking them to the window, Finn twisted them around in the moonlight until he was able to make out that they were in fact small toys; carved remains of little animals. His heart leapt—so it was a child’s room, then.
On closer examination, Finn found curled ancient leaves of paper lying scattered all about, though he couldn’t make out what might have once been drawn there. One thing among the papers caught his eye. Finn bent and picked up a curl of purple string. It was looped, so without thinking he threaded it between his fingers and pulled it taut into a perfect cats-cradle.
“Ysel,” he whispered, his head shooting up as if the boy would appear over his shoulder, but it was only the moon sliding out from a cloud that had caught the corner of his eye. They were in the right place, of that he was now absolutely sure. Questions remained, though: where had they gone, and why?
A breeze whispered past his ankles, chilling and unexpected. He stood and looked around him as the tattered curtains fluttered in the moonlight and the skeletons of dead leaves skittered through the room. They were all blowing in one direction, and on instinct he followed them, the thread dangling from his fingertips.
Some way off he could hear Wahirangi’s call, like a distant trumpet with no real meaning to him, as he went back down the stairs. The swirling papers danced on the wind in front of him as he walked through a set of double doors with their mullioned windows smashed to pieces, and into a room that once must have been a ballroom. It seemed to his talespinner eyes that he could almost discern the ghosts of laughing dancers whirling over the broken wooden floor, and hear the strains of music. Perhaps that was his Vaerli blood, looking back into the past. It was hard to tell.
“What is this place?” he whispered to himself as he picked his way through the shadows toward the darkness of the far wall. This palace looked as if it had been abandoned decades ago, but it was still more magnificent on the inside than he could have imagined. Surely, he would have heard of such a place before. He thought he knew all of Conhaero and her stories.
Finn shivered and tugged his thin coat tighter. The wind swirled and danced before a large marble mantelpiece, and the artistry in it made the talespinner blink. Creatures of chaos were carved in relief on each side of where the fire would have stood, but above them all, with her arms spread wide, was a woman looking out into the room. Her hair was beautifully curled, and wrapped around her face and shoulders, but it was her eyes that commanded attention.
It was Putorae, the last Seer of the Vaerli, and his mother. She had spoken to Finn when he was within the Bastion, and she had told him there were other portions of herself tucked away all over Conhaero. There had been no time for him to gather details.
The wind around him suddenly stopped, the leaves and papers frozen in their dance across the shattered floor. Finn knew what that meant. He turned his head toward the face in the marble. He was not surprised when she moved, blinked, and came alive. It was the face of a seer, beautiful but aloof. She was not the mother that he might have wished for, yet he could feel the connection tugging him.
“Son,” she breathed, her voice eerily failing to echo in this large space, “you have come too late, your brother is gone.”
Finn was beginning to feel a little testy. “Yes, Mother, I am aware of that.” He held up the string before him. “But instead of going haring off after him, I am not moving until you answer some more questions. Tell me how I can possibly have a brother so much younger than myself, if you please.”
The shade flickered, full of moonlight and mystery. Perhaps she was surprised that he was almost literally putting his foot down.
“Tell me, or I go no further,” Finn said, calmly. “I will take Wahirangi and fly off to my own affairs.”
For a moment he worried that this sliver of Putorae was overwhelmed by his questions; he did not know the limits of this construct. “You and your brother were born together on the very edge of my death,” she spoke finally, her eyes not meeting his. “And on the very edge of the revelation to me. I knew the only way to save you was to send you to different places and times. It was important that you were separated and hidden.”
Finn was not impressed. A dragon, a tangle with the most dangerous woman in Conhaero, and he was not going to settle for a seer’s prevarications. His mother—or at least the trapped memory of her—floated across the ballroom floor, her feet never quite meeting the solid surface. He waited.
Her arms swept out in an abrupt gesture, and suddenly he could see the ghosts he had only imagined. Finn’s eyes widened as he watched the long-dead Vaerli dance and spin around a smooth floor, in dresses seemingly made of spider-silk. The women all reminded him of Talyn. The men that he saw were lithe, handsome and smiling; in such a situation he would have been the same, himself.
Strains of music whispered in the corners, and he saw creatures among them that must have been Named Kindred: fauns, centaurs, and patterned snakes. It was a beautiful if unusual scene.
“I thought,” he said through a dry throat, his eyes never leaving the scene Putorae conjured, “that the Vaerli did not make places. The chaos of the land surely makes such buildings . . .”
“There are places kept aside for us,” his mother replied, and her translucent eyes also seemed lost in the vision. “Places such as V’nae Rae were made for the government of our people, but others were made for the celebration of our gifts. Here, we danced and sang.”
Even the shifting shadow of it was beautiful, and Finn felt an ache lodge in his chest. It was wrapped in melancholy and loss, and those bittersweet moments were the stuff that talespinners dined on. He had never felt able to make his own stories, only ever repeating the traditional ones, but in this moment and place the urge came over him. He wanted to create their tales; these lost people who were unraveling in front of him like yesterday’s dreams.
Yet, this was not the most important thing—not for the moment at least. He did not know how long he had his mother for. “I don’t understand,” he pressed. “How did you save Ysel here, when you have been dead for a thousand years?” Once the words were out of his mouth he wished them back again; it seemed very rude to point that out to her.
She did not seem to mind. She simply raised one hand, as if she might be able to touch his face. “The Kindred do not know time. In the deep wells of this world, they live apart from it. When you and Ysel were born, that is where they kept you. You remained suspended in that state until they brought you here, Ysel they also returned, but a fraction later. When you . . . when they feared you would not suit their task.”
Her long-dead eyes were locked with his. “You know, deep down, when that time was. When you found another, different purpose.”
Finn knew. He didn’t have to think overly on it. He licked his lips before replying, “When I met Talyn, when I fell in love with her. That was the moment they lost faith in me?” The haunting strains of the music grew fainter now, and the lines of the dancers grew sketchier, as a child’s drawing that was being erased.
“Yes,” Putorae said, and though her silvery ghostly form could not breathe or sigh, it somehow conveyed a great disappointment. “They brought Ysel up from the chaos, and he grew through childhood here. No one could have guesse
d the connection you still shared, or how you would find each other.”
Finn glanced down at the yarn in his hand, wondering at it himself. Ysel had been trying to learn the same small gifts his brother had developed. It hurt him deeply that he’d not been able to find him and help him with that.
He’d always been the talespinner, the troublemaker, and had known that he was not important. The message was all-important, not the speaker of it. It would take some getting used this new condition where he did matter, dragon aside.
“What is the point?” he asked, staring down at the floor, not wanting to see it all dissolve away before him. “Why did the Kindred protect us like this?”
The unfair spirit did not answer him; there was so little of her left here. “Go to where you were most happy, beloved son. They already know. Your brother does, too. Find me there once more . . .”
Then she was gone, now a memory too. Finn was left standing among the gray dust and the debris, his hands clenched in angry fists, his mind already darting to where she was sending him. He knew where he had been the happiest in his life. The sea. It had been with the sound of the ocean in his ears.
Finn had never wanted to go back there. Now, however, he knew he would have to.
“Well, I must say that this is a lot cooler than I imagined,” Pelanor said as she turned and smiled at Byreniko. The scarlet flame that contained them described a circle of about twelve feet—a circle that gave off absolutely no heat. Byre waited in the middle of it, crouched down, hands on his thighs, content to see what would happen.
“You could at least say thank you,” Pelanor growled, tossing her long dark hair over one shoulder. The Blood Witch always lingered on the edge of anger, ready to boil over into action. It was that blatant and simmering danger that made her even more attractive than Byre would admit to anyone. Letting out a long slow sigh he folded his hands together.
The last thing he should be considering at this moment was how Pelanor drew his eye. He’d just seen his father murdered by the Caisah and had entered the world of the Kindred, the place of trial for his ancestor Ellyria Dragonsoul. Primitive sexual emotions were not something that he could entertain at this point.
Ellyria—that was who he should be thinking of now, since she had been the only other of the Vaerli to enter into the realm of the Kindred as they just had. The tales of the terror and pain she had endured were not very comforting.
“I should mention that I don’t like being ignored.” Byre was always surprised how quickly the Witch moved—and almost as silently as the Vaerli once had. She now sat with her face only a few inches from his own. Her eyes flicked from green to blinding gold, like a cat’s caught in the light.
“I can see that,” he replied quietly, watching her more carefully. He’d thought that the Kindred were the creatures that he would have to watch for. His sister Talyn’s gift of the Blood Witch was an added complication, but she had saved his life when the Caisah had appeared, so he owed her something. “I am not ignoring you. I am simply examining our situation.”
Her eyes flickered over his face, and he realized that she was young indeed for one of her kind. Most Blood Witches were studies in composure, from what he’d heard—but his one seemed constantly on a knife-edge.
Pelanor tilted her head, and something changed behind her dark eyes. “I miss my gewalt,” she said it simply, and the longing in her voice ran deep.
Byre glanced down, twin slivers of white fangs rested delicately against her full lower lip. The Phaerkorn relied on blood, preferably the blood of their gewalt—but in an emergency another would do.
A stir of eroticism roused his contrary body, which obviously did not know the difference between passion and danger. The twitch of Pelanor’s smile told him it had not gone unnoticed; Phaerkorn could smell even better than a hound. Yet Byre wasn’t about to say anything about that. Instead he reached up, tucked his hair back behind his ear and turned his head away from her. “Then drink from me. We will both need our strength for whatever is ahead.”
She let out a little gasp which sounded hopeful and shocked. For an instant Pelanor leaned forward a fraction, but then her face clouded over and she leapt back as if she’d been burnt. Her hand was shaking as she wiped the back of it over her mouth. “You don’t know what you’re . . . you shouldn’t . . .” She stopped suddenly, as her eyes remained fixed on Byre’s exposed throat and the racing pulse there.
The confident and powerful Witch was gone, revealing a shaking and very young Phaerkorn. She was holding herself still, as if afraid that movement would break her composure.
Byre sighed and turned his gaze on her. “Think of it, Pelanor; they left us here and we haven’t seen them for . . . well, however long it has been. It’s impossible to tell time in their realm. What if this is the test? Sooner or later you will have to eat, and if you leave it too long you may not be able to control yourself.”
She looked down at her small brown hands that were shaking. Clenching them into fists, the Witch’s gaze narrowed and her lip pulled back from her fangs. “You are as ignorant as everyone else in Conhaero! It is not just a matter of you opening a vein for me. You are not my gewalt, so the only time when feeding is simple is when I kill someone. If not, there is . . . there is a bond formed.”
Byre sat back on his heels. Everywhere in Conhaero there were pacts, geasa and bonds, but nothing between Vaerli and Phaerkorn. The Blood Witches were killers. Everyone feared them. Was it a wise move to align himself with them as his own long-lost sister had done?
His sister—the one everyone knew as Talyn the Hunter—had sent Pelanor to protect him, and Byre had to believe that it meant something.
Holding out his slightly trembling hand to the Witch, he smiled as reassuringly as possible. “There is already a bond, Pelanor. Talyn saw to that, and I trust her. I trust you.”
“You trust me?” She slid across the rocky floor toward the Vaerli. Her eyes were now exclusively gold, the tip of her tongue pressed against those sharp canine teeth. She reminded him of a child being offered a boiled sweet by a stranger; all cautious anticipation but also strangely ready for flight.
Byre forced a smile onto his face. “I know you want to live through this as much as I do, Pelanor, and to get through it we will need each other.”
The Blood Witch ran her tongue over her upper lip and considered for a moment.
“You,” she whispered, kneeling before him, “are quite remarkable, Byreniko of the Vaerli, and a much better person than your sister.” The Witch’s fingers rubbed lightly against the stubble of his goatee beard, tracing the line of his jaw.
Knowing she was playing with him, Byre caught her fingers in a vise-like grip. Her changeable eyes flared wide in shock; Phaerkorn were not used to anyone else having faster reflexes or being stronger than they were.
“Just go ahead and feed,” Byre said with a hiss, giving her hand a sharp squeeze to emphasize his own strength. “No need to play games with me.”
Her gaze narrowed for an instant, and then she moved. Byre couldn’t help a small grunt of surprise as she launched herself forward. He’d been expecting her to latch onto his neck, but thinking of it, that would have killed him, most likely. One of the Caisah’s torturers had tested the limits of the Vaerli healing gift, but she had not been trying to kill him. Pelanor might be young, but she knew the ways to feed. The places where it was best.
All these thoughts sped through his mind as she ripped the top two buttons off of his shirt in her haste to take up his offer. Byre steeled himself, but after what he’d suffered in the Rutilian Guards’ fortress he knew he could withstand any pain.
Certainly there was a little; a sting just below his collarbone as she drew her teeth across his skin there. Then there was a drowsy enjoyment, and a thrust of pleasure down his spine as her tongue lapped delicately at the wound. Byre drew in his breath shakily as his body mixed signals of delight with the frisson of pain. The long slip of her tongue over his skin was delicious,
and though he tried to keep his jaw closed a sliver of a groan escaped him. She made no move that indicated she had heard him.
Pelanor drank as delicately as a cat licking up cream, and Byre felt something unfolding within him; something more profound than just the desire of the flesh. A sound like the roar of a storm entered his head, as if from a long way off a woman was howling in rage and despair. His body felt as though it were falling away from him, spinning into nothingness with only the feeling of his blood entering Pelanor holding him awake. Then he felt the plunge of something metallic go through him, sharp, sudden and deadly.
When Byre finally did find his way back to his body it was to Pelanor’s lips and sharp teeth against his, breathing into him and kissing him at the same time. He tasted the iron of his own blood, but he could also feel his own strength flowing through her. The spiral of desire and need for blood was heady, and Byre could feel himself drowning in it.
With a groan he pushed her away and struggled upright. She stayed where she was, legs folded, looking up at him, wiping the line of scarlet slowly from the corner of her mouth. For an uncomfortable moment they stared across at each other in silence as she licked the remains from her fingers.
Byre cleared his throat. “Is that what you wanted all along, Pelanor? More Vaerli blood?”
She sighed. “You offered, Byre. Your sister gave hers willingly to seal our deal, but her blood is not as powerful as yours.” Pelanor got to her feet, walked to him, pressed against his chest and traced the bottom of his lip. “You are nearly Vaerli as they once were, full of power and Gifts.” Leaning back she fixed him with a smug look. “Tasting you is like tasting the past, and I like it very much.”
Whatever smart words Byre could have summoned died away when he became aware of a figure in the flames behind the Witch. The Kindred was part of the fire: an alien shape, tall with a great curved head, but otherwise formless as a statue before the carver set to work. Byre had only seen it because in the moving fires it was utterly still, a black shadow in so much brightness.
Kindred and Wings Page 3