Shelter of the Most High

by Connilyn Cossette

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. She is expendable if Raviv doesn’t get what he wants. Besides”—I pointed toward the homes, thinking of his girls—“there are women and children down there. I don’t want to put any of them at risk either.”

  “He’ll kill you, Eitan, and then he’ll kill Prezi anyway.”

  “I don’t plan to surrender until she is free.”

  He gripped the hilt of his sword, as if considering whether to pummel me with it. “There will be no surrendering. He’s my brother, I’m sure I can reason with him to release her.”

  “Your brother was involved with Nadir in a plot to kill the High Priest of Israel, using Sofea as their weapon. He is beyond reasoning.”

  Shock made a quick appearance on his face but just as quickly transformed to fiery determination. “Sacrificing yourself will not bring the boys back.”

  “That’s not what this is about. I am not punishing myself. Not anymore.” My hand instinctively skimmed my stubbled scalp, and Darek’s gaze followed the motion. “This is about saving Prezi.”

  I could see the questions about the ending of my vow written on his face, but since Chaim and his men might come over the ridge at any moment, explanations would have to wait. “I have to go. Hold them off until you see Prezi walk out the door.”

  “Eitan—” He grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into my skin with desperation.

  “You and Baz trained me well. Please. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you.” His fingers clenched tighter. “But I won’t lose you, son. We go in together, or not at all.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  Once within sight of the half-built home the girl had pointed out, Darek and I crawled on our bellies through the high weeds, taking shelter behind separate trees to avoid the roving eyes of the two heavily armed men who guarded the door.

  After indicating my plan to Darek with quick hand motions, I kept low to the ground as I extracted my sling from my belt and loaded it with one of the stones I’d gathered from the riverbank this morning. I kept two more tucked into my palm.

  Then, clinging to the vision of protective light I’d been given last night, I stood, circled the sling twice in the air with a practiced snap, and released.

  One guard fell backward, smacking his skull against the stone wall as he did. I reloaded and sent another missile flying toward the second man, who’d already begun to charge toward me. My second shot missed, but the third did not; the man toppled to the ground with a cry. Darek barreled toward the second guard, who’d already staggered to his feet, then slammed the butt of his sword against the man’s temple.

  Jamming my sling back into my belt, I sprinted to the threshold of the house. I used my full body weight against the wooden door, and the feeble latch splintered easily. The door crashed open to reveal Prezi sitting on the ground at the far end of a long open-air chamber, her hands and feet bound together but seemingly unharmed. Behind her stood Raviv, a dagger trained on her neck, triumph glowing in his eyes.

  I remembered him well, both from the day of the trial and from when I crouched in the shadows as he clutched one vomiting, convulsing son while the other lay still beside him. For the first time when thinking of that night, I felt only bone-deep pity for the man instead of shame over my mistake. How utterly helpless he must have felt as he watched them die.

  “At least my daughters are loyal,” he said, making it clear that the girls had alerted him to my presence. “Unlike the man I used to call my brother.”

  I lifted my hands in surrender. “Let her go, Raviv. I’m who you want.”

  “Indeed you are. Well . . . one of them at least.” He gestured to someone behind me. Two men appeared at my flanks, as if they’d been hiding on either side of the door I’d burst through. They swiftly divested me of my sword and dagger, each taking an arm and pushing me a few paces closer to Raviv. I did not struggle but kept my gaze intent on him. Prezi looked up at me, concern for her cousin bright in her teary eyes.

  “Your plot failed. Sofea saved Eleazar’s life,” I said, as much to calm her as to distract Raviv. “Nadir has been arrested.”

  He made a dismissive sound. “I had nothing to do with that. He was a fool. I doubted he would return anyhow.” With a sneer he pointed the tip of his knife toward me. “But you . . . I’ve been waiting eleven years to spill your blood.”

  “You may have the right to my blood, but not to Prezi’s. Let her go.”

  “I can’t get to that whore you pretend is your mother. Perhaps I’ll take this one instead.” He yanked on Prezi’s hair, jerking her head back to expose her throat to his dagger. “Perhaps you should watch her life ebb away, the way I watched my sons suffer in the dirt like animals.”

  Before I could respond that I too had witnessed that horror, a small voice cried out, “No, Abba!” All eyes lifted to the open space where the roof should be, taking in the sight of Raviv’s daughter perched high in a tree.

  “Don’t hurt her!” she shouted, and at the same moment, Darek hurtled through the open door, knocking aside the captor on my left. I crashed my fist into the jaw of the one on my right and yanked my arm free as I grabbed for the sling in my belt.

  Bellowing a curse, Raviv plowed over Prezi to lunge at me, dagger upraised. We clashed at the center of the room, my shoulder slamming into his chest as he brought his dagger down on my arm. Ignoring the ripping pain, I flipped one end of my sling into the air, where it looped over his forearm. I jabbed my elbow into his gut, grabbed hold of the free end of my sling, and yanked hard, hoping to disarm him.

  Instead, one of his men collided with me from behind, bringing me to the ground and pinning me beneath his sweaty bulk. Within moments, Raviv’s foot was planted on the side of my neck, smashing my face into the stone floor. The other man had both of my arms locked behind me, his full body weight anchoring me in place.

  From the corner she’d skittered into, Prezi locked gazes with me, trembling violently. Her face was streaked with tears and contorted with pain, her hands curled around her bad foot.

  “Raviv!” Darek shouted. “Let him go!” I could not see him, but I heard his struggle against whoever was preventing him from reaching me.

  Over my head Raviv seethed, spitting words through gritted teeth toward his brother. “You were there! You saw them vomit their lifeblood on the ground. You heard them plead for mercy. They were all I had left of her. . . .” His voice became a strangled roar. “How dare you choose this murderer over your own flesh and blood!”

  “He did not know what he was doing! He was nine!” shouted Darek. “And he is my son!”

  I tried to struggle against the brute who held me captive, sweat stinging my eyes as I made a futile attempt to twist my neck and catch a glimpse of Darek’s face. That was twice today he had called me his son.

  “No.” Raviv breathed the word as a curse, undoubtedly, like me, trying to weigh out what such a statement could mean.

  Darek’s response was equal parts apology and ironclad declaration. “He is legally my firstborn and will inherit my portion of this land when I die.”

  Jarred by the revelation, I went still. It had to be a pretense. I had stolen his nephews and ripped his family apart. Surely he would not honor me over Gidal, his rightful firstborn.

  Raviv’s heel dug harder against my throat, squeezing my air supply. His next words came out like shards of ice. “I will kill you, brother, before I will ever allow such defilement of our father’s legacy.”

  “Then do it.” A sword clattered to the ground. “Kill me. If it’s blood redemption you want so badly, then take mine.”

  Raviv went silent, and I desperately wished I could see what was passing between the two brothers above my head.

  “You are my brother, Raviv. The same blood flows in our veins.” His voice lowered, tinged by sorrow. “Our mother would be destroyed by the rift between us. My heart broke for the boys that day too, don’t you remember? I set off to Sheche
m with every intention of arresting Moriyah and bringing her to justice. But I quickly discovered how wrong I was. I did not choose her over you or the boys. I chose mercy.”

  Thinking of how desperately I loved Sofea, I could not imagine the agony of having to choose between her and either one of my brothers. It must have torn Darek to pieces.

  “And if you kill Eitan or Prezi,” he said, “you will be convicted of murder. Instead of your girls growing up to admire their father, to know you as the brave army commander and hero that you are, they will be forced to grieve you and bear your shame. Do not inflict an unjust verdict upon Eitan the way those men did to our mother, Raviv.”

  After a few silent moments, the pressure on my throat lessened ever so slightly, and I sucked in a painful breath.

  “My boys deserve to be avenged,” said Raviv. “Who pays the price for their suffering?”

  “Moriyah has been locked in a prison paying that price. She gladly accepted the blame and the punishment that came with it. She mourned your sons as if they were her own and bleeds for the chasm between you and me.”

  A strangled noise came from Raviv’s throat. “I won’t allow—”

  “I will give you the land,” Darek said, cutting him off. “I will sign my third of this land over to you, just as I had planned to do before I decided to marry Moriyah. Your new wife is young, you will have more children. Sons will come. They can inherit it all, in honor of Zeev and Yared. But please, let my son go free.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-ONE

  Baz propped me against a cedar on the ridge above Raviv’s home, but my legs wobbled and I slid to the ground, the bark scratching against my bare arms. My head was strangely light and my mouth seemed to be jammed full of raw wool.

  Baz, Chaim, Tal, and six soldiers from Kedesh had surrounded the house during the altercation with Raviv, but on Darek’s orders had not interfered. When I’d emerged, one arm bleeding profusely and the other around Prezi, they’d plowed through the door to ensure Darek’s safety as well.

  “You’ve lost a fair amount of blood,” Baz said gruffly as he used his knife to shear off a length of fabric from his mantle. “But I think you’ll survive. It’s not all that deep.”

  Chaim stood nearby, blocking the glare of the sun with his body, frowning as Baz wrapped the makeshift bandage around my arm three times and secured it with his bronze toggle pin. “You are lucky he didn’t jam that knife between your ribs.”

  Baz glared at me. “You deserved to be gutted like a deer for the way you ran in by yourself like that.”

  “Darek was with me.”

  His nostrils flared. “That wasn’t your plan though, was it?”

  “I did what I had to do.” I glanced over at Prezi. She was leaning against Tal, who’d carried her all the way from the house to the top of the ridge, her ankle swollen after being reinjured during the violent scuffle. But she was alive. And all I could think about was getting her back to Kedesh, to Sofea.

  Baz’s reply was closer to a snarl. “I taught you to be still for a reason.”

  “You were just curious to see how long I’d stand there in that courtyard.” I grinned, taunting him. “Admit it.”

  His lips twitched with a hint of reluctant humor, his eyes narrowing. “You cost me a week’s pay that day, boy.”

  “You bet against me? Who did you lose to?”

  “Me.” My father’s voice came from behind my right shoulder as he crested the ridge. “I knew you could last until sundown.” He had stayed behind as a scribe whom Raviv employed prepared a document declaring Darek’s intention to gift his portion of his father’s land to his brother. The inheritance that I’d never guessed had been destined for me was no more.

  Although thinking of Darek as my father was foreign, his impassioned plea for my life had convinced me that he had indeed formally declared me as his child. But when had he done it? And why had he kept me ignorant of such a thing?

  “Can you walk?” Darek asked. “Or does Baz need to carry you too?” His brow lifted with a hint of mockery.

  “I’d rather sit here and bleed out,” I said, and Baz and Chaim chuckled at my dry response.

  Darek laughed, sounding more relieved than amused. “Someone get Eitan some water. We’ll rest a while longer before we head to the city.”

  One of the soldiers offered me a skin-bag, and I sucked down half its contents before indicating he should pass it on to Prezi.

  Darek took a seat next to me, his own back propped against the cedar, and the rest of our companions moved to seek shade beneath their own trees. A smear of ink lined the edge of his thumb, and the grooves of his copper signet ring were stained as well. I’d made that ring for him five years ago, the first piece of jewelry I’d crafted alone in Yalon’s foundry. The fact that he rarely took it off held even more meaning for me now.

  I let my head fall back against the tree and scanned the fertile valley below us. “Why did you not tell me?”

  He released a slow sigh. “When I married Moriyah, you two had only been living in Kedesh for four months. You were still adjusting to life within the city walls after the trial. I did not want to push you into something you weren’t ready to comprehend. And, if you remember”—he tossed me a glance—“you were still fairly hostile to me then.”

  I did remember. I’d been so thrilled to finally have Moriyah as my mother, reveling in being the subject of her lavish attention during those four months, that when Darek married her I’d felt a sharp sting of jealousy.

  With so many empty rooms available in the inn, I’d been allowed my own sleeping chamber after the wedding, a luxury for any child, but all I’d wanted was to sleep on the floor near her. For months I’d regretted giving Darek my blessing to marry her, but as I came to understand that he truly cherished her, my resentment began to fade.

  “By the time you and I made peace,” he continued, “it seemed that perhaps you were too old to begin calling me Abba, so I said nothing. But that did not mean that I ever considered you anything less than my son. The fact that I’d signed a formal declaration naming you as my heir on our wedding day was a mere formality. I’d begun considering you my own the day I returned to Kedesh and you practically refused to let me go up the stairs to propose marriage to Moriyah.”

  I laughed, then winced at the spike of pain in my arm. “I was not about to let some stranger with no beard past me. No matter how much you said you loved her.”

  He nudged me with an elbow. “I believe a small bribe was all it took to allay your suspicions.”

  “Ah yes. That little obsidian knife. I still have it.” I’d carried that knife with me until I was sixteen and learned to make my own weapons.

  My gaze roved over the landscape again, taking in the far-reaching pastureland, the varicolored fields, the shimmering lake, and the blue hills in the distance. “Thank you. For what you did today.” I cleared the swell of heat in my throat. “For sacrificing all this.”

  “You mean your inheritance?”

  I huffed a low laugh. “But it was yours first. And it was your father’s legacy and should have been passed down to your generations, through the boys.”

  “You are my legacy, along with Gidal and Malakhi and the girls. And I will consider your children part of that legacy as well. With or without that land, you have every right as my firstborn son, and those rights can never be taken from you.”

  “Will the rift between you and Raviv ever be healed?”

  “I held to that hope for many years. And I suppose it’s possible that his heart will soften one day. He may have relinquished his lust for vengeance today, but bitterness still holds his soul captive.” He studied his palms, one finger tracing that smudge of black ink. “After I signed the document, he told me that he will honor the agreement by leaving you and Moriyah alone, but that he never wants to see me again.”

  A boulder of guilt crashed into my chest. “Forgive me—”

  “No.” He cut me off, his brown eyes blazing with
sincerity. “I meant what I said. I chose mercy eleven years ago. I have never blamed Moriyah and I don’t blame you—for the boys, or for Raviv. There is no debt between you and me.”

  A sensation of liberation, similar to the one I’d experienced in front of the Mishkan, sluiced over me, washing away the final remnants of shame that had been the wall between Darek and me. In its place was the freedom to accept the totality of the mercy I’d been given by both my father and my God.

  Swallowing the knot in my throat, I reached out to grasp his forearm, and he returned the gesture with a firm grip, emotion shimmering in his eyes. Remembering what he’d said about my own children, children that my blue-eyed wife would bear someday, I was infused with a rush of energy. I needed to see her, hold her. Now.

  I struggled to my feet, clutching my wounded arm close to my body. “Actually, Abba, you owe me a bride.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  Sofea

  The jug I’d been holding shattered on the ground, sending up a spray of juice and pottery that I completely ignored as I ran across the courtyard to my cousin. She tottered off balance as I threw my arms around her, crying out her name with a sob of relief.

  I pulled her tight, salty gratitude spilling down my face. “I’m so sorry for putting you in danger again. Please, please forgive me for being so easily fooled.”

  She ran her hand down my hair. “He deceived us both, Sofi. Do not punish yourself over such things.” She kissed my cheek. “All is well.”

  “Your cousin has reinjured her foot,” said Tal, making me realize that not only was he standing next to us, he also had an arm around Prezi’s waist. “Why don’t I help her find a place to sit before she tells you all that happened today?”

  “Oh! Yes!” I released her. She took two steps but wobbled, so without a word, Tal whisked her into his arms and carried her to the table, where he lowered her onto a large cushion and then propped another beneath her outstretched ankle.