Diplomacy of Wolves: Book 1 of the Secret Texts

by Lisle, Holly

  She coughed. Cleared her throat. “As for you, if you leave, do not come back. The Sabirs will beat off any pitiful army of the Scarred that girl raises without assistance from you. If you leave, you will become barzanne, and all hands of this Family and the allies of this Family will be turned against you. Your name will be removed from the Register of Births and you will cease to exist as a Sabir. Further, I will curse you, and will carry my curse to circle, and the curse we will bring to bear on you will be that of walking death—we will crush your spirit and steal your life, but your corpse will never rest. This, my son, I swear—if you will not stay and take the place of honor you deserve within this Family, you will cease to exist.”

  Worse than he had feared. Worse than he had imagined. To be made barzanne was to be declared not human. He had thought she might disown him; he had been prepared to some degree for that. But to realize that she would take from him his right to existence within any part of Ibera—that she would, in effect, declare him a target for every assassin and bounty hunter and unscrupulous profiteer—because he would not bow to her will, stunned him. He tried to imagine being marked. Being hunted. Or fleeing outside the realm of Ibera, never to return.

  To his knowledge, no mother in Ibera’s history had ever declared her son barzanne. Such a declaration was irrevocable. Once it was approved and made public, he would be walking dead for as long as he eluded capture—then dead. Then, if Imogene succeeded in the final part of her oath, dead walking.

  He closed his eyes and the girl he sought came within his reach once more. He could taste salt spray on his lips and smell sea air. He could feel the warmth of late-day sunshine on his upturned face and the roll of a deck beneath his feet. If he listened, he could hear the rich timbre of her voice, though he could not make out the words she said. She moved farther from him with every breath he took, and his body burned for her. His mind burned for her.

  But . . . barzanne.

  He had thought himself brave. He had thought himself unstoppable.

  I was wrong, he realized.

  “I’ll stay,” he told Imogene. “I’ll do what you want me to do.”

  A ship lay in harbor, his friends already waiting on it, supplies laid in. It would not sail, or if it sailed, it would do so without him.

  Chapter 20

  The captain’s cabin—small but private, elegantly appointed, furnished in rare and exotic woods inlaid with bone and semiprecious stones, draped in sheerest silks. Gold gleamed from odd corners: a small cat idol with jeweled eyes that perched in a nook of the writing desk; a medallion on an interwoven chain of heavy links that hung from an ebony hook; three signet rings in a partially open jewel case. Casual signs of wealth and success, more obvious but less telling than the row of books neatly shelved above the bunk: a well-bound edition of Two Hundred Tales of Kaline sitting next to the translated Philosophies and Meditations by Oorpatal, and beside that, lives of Braliere, Minon Draclas, Hahlen, and Shotokar.

  Kait took the room in with a practiced eye, and came to some conclusions that would have discomfited the captain, had he known of them. She decided that he was of high, possibly Familied, birth; that he was well educated but rebellious, perhaps an enemy of the privileged world that was his birthright, that he was vain and ambitious, that he indulged in piracy when more honest work failed to come his way.

  “I can’t permit my shipwright to be distressed,” the captain was saying. He paced the short path in front of the chair in which he’d bade her seat herself, his hands tucked behind his back, fingers interlinked, head down. “He’s vital to us on a long voyage. When we’re out to sea, we have to be able to make our own repairs—on the ship and its fittings, on the crew’s belongings . . .” He shrugged. “Occasionally we need to fabricate some new thing for a special situation. In any case, I can’t afford to have Hasmal threatened or distressed in any way. I’m not sure what your previous relationship was—”

  Kait held up a hand. “A moment, Captain.”

  He paused in his pacing and looked at her.

  “I cannot even claim to have properly met Hasmal. I know about him only these things: that he dealt in rare and ancient artifacts, that he was at a party I also attended, and that he was helpful to me and my cousin at that party. I never saw him before that night. I never saw him after, until today. I wanted only to thank him again for his assistance—my cousin became very drunk and behaved badly, and he helped me get her out of the building without drawing attention to her condition.” Not the whole truth, but surely close enough.

  The captain slid his hands into his pockets and leaned against his locker. “Then why did he faint when you spoke to him? I was under the impression that you had attempted to coerce him into marriage. Perhaps that you had threatened to claim assault on your maiden virtue unless he capitulated.”

  Kait’s shocked laughter erupted without warning. “My maiden virtue? Dear Captain, any assault on that was years in the past and is best left buried there.” She took a few deep breaths, giggled, shook her head disbelievingly. “My maiden virtue, if we’re going to be so . . . polite, was disposed of in a wholly voluntary and mutually agreeable manner and has not troubled me since. Nor have I ever felt the need to bother the disposer of it with threats; I am not yet ready to give up my autonomy to marriage and its rule by committee. My freedom was too hard-won.” The last of her amusement died away, replaced by puzzlement. “As for why Hasmal fainted . . .” She turned one hand palm up and shrugged slightly. “You know at least as much as I do.”

  They studied each other, looking for cues.

  “His reaction worried me,” the captain said. “Worries me.”

  “Of course. It shocked me. But I don’t know what caused it.”

  “Your appearance caused it.”

  Kait sighed. “Unless he succumbed to poison at that exact instant—which seems unlikely—I’m inclined to agree with you. But I truly don’t know why.”

  Draclas frowned suddenly. “That . . . the manuscript you mentioned . . . you say he was a dealer in antiquities?”

  “So he told me at the party.”

  “You didn’t by chance . . . buy it from him, did you?”

  “No.”

  “A dealer in antiquities . . .” His frown deepened. “He demonstrated his smithing to me before I took him on. His skills were excellent. But he claimed previous experience aboard ship. I had no reason to doubt him . . .” He stared down at his feet, speaking more to himself than to her. When he looked up again, it was to ask her, “Where did you meet him?”

  Kait considered her answer for a moment. She didn’t want to be too open about her past—her presence in Halles, if Draclas kept current on events, could help him pinpoint who she really was. But lies were hard to control, and lying about where she met Hasmal seemed risky, especially since she didn’t know why he’d reacted the way he did when he saw her. “In Halles,” she said.

  “Halles? That’s nowhere near the coast.”

  “That’s where I met him. He told me he worked with his father acquiring and selling antiquities. That’s all I knew about him, except that both he and his father were named Hasmal.”

  Draclas settled onto the edge of his bunk and gave her a hard look. “Halles. Why did you pause so long before telling me that?”

  “I’m not sure how much I want you to know about me. I was trying to decide if letting you know I was in Halles would tell you too much. I decided that it didn’t.”

  He snorted. “That sounds honest enough, anyway.”

  “It is.”

  “We’re going to have a hard time being friends, you and I, if you don’t trust me.”

  Kait arched an eyebrow. “If I don’t trust you? Captain, I suspect you have many more secrets than I do.” She glanced around the room, letting her gaze settle on the various treasures casually displayed. “I think that for now, at least, you and I would do well to keep our own confidences; I don’t think you’ll be any more eager to tell me your deepest secrets than I’l
l be to tell you mine.”

  She smiled when she said that, and he responded with a smile, but she didn’t miss the wariness that crept into his eyes. Certain she’d hit her mark, she rose. “If we’re finished here . . . ?”

  He rose, too. “I’d like to be your friend, Kait. You seem like you could use a friend.”

  “Perhaps I can. But not just yet. We’ll be . . . associates . . .” She tested the weight of the word, and decided it suited her needs. “Yes. Associates. For a time, at least. We share common goals, and possibly a common outlook. Friends, though . . . we’ll see. Friendship takes time.”

  He opened the door of his cabin for her, and she stepped out on deck. She walked to her own cabin, the pressure of his stare tickling along the back of her neck until she let herself into the room and closed—and locked—her door.

  * * *

  Hasmal crouched in his room, glaring at the Speaker who had come to his summons. “She’s here. Here. You knew this would happen. You lied to me.”

  From within her wall of blue flames, the Speaker chuckled. “My sister answered your call, and she told you only the truth.”

  “She told me that I could escape my doom.”

  “No. She told you that you could try.”

  “If I had stayed at home, I would have been safe. Instead, because of what she told me, I traveled half the length of Ibera and ended up trapped on a ship with the woman I tried so hard to avoid.”

  “If you had done nothing you would have been safe. But your safety is irrelevant to the larger scheme. While you have been trying to hide from your destiny, and unintentionally wrapping yourself deeper in it, whole worlds have stepped into the fray that is building.”

  Hasmal clenched his hands into tight fists, but forced himself to breathe slowly and to let his anger drain away. “Why did your sister mislead me? Why did she lead me to believe I needed to flee?”

  “Because you have something to do, Hasmal rann Dorchan, that will change your world, and affect ours, and perhaps even others more deeply embedded within the Veil. If you escape your fate, these worlds will be the worse for it. You matter, mortal, in a way that few ever matter—and while no one and no thing can force your actions along the right path, my sister could, and did, steer you in a direction that seemed most beneficial to us at the time.”

  “What am I expected to do?”

  “That isn’t the question. Your path is never cast in iron, your future never certain. The question is, ‘What may you do?’ And even that I cannot tell you, not because I wish to taunt you, but because I do not know. I only see the branching paths that mortal lives can take, and the ways they flow together and apart. I can see that you and Kait Galweigh, the woman you fear, have a powerful future if you are together, and that the two of you may do great good, or great evil, but that you will succeed at nothing if you are apart.”

  “But she’ll doom me and all I love.”

  “Your association with her leads to doom, and pain, and grief. Perhaps to great victory . . . and perhaps to your death. But all men die, Hasmal,” the spirit said. “Few ever live.”

  He sat in silence, watching the spirit disappear back into the Veil from which he had summoned her, watching as the last traces of cold flame burning on the surface of the mirror flickered out.

  The coldness inside of him spread from his core—from heart and gut and spirit—out to his fingers and toes. His flesh prickled, and he shivered, though the air in his room was stuffy and hot. She had quoted Vincalis at him, in what he was sure was an intentional paraphrase. The original speech had been:

  All men die, Antram. All men age and wither and creep at last into their dark graves, and from thence into the flames of Hell or cold oblivion, as their theology dictates. But to only a few men do the gods give a task, a burden, a road to greatness that can, if they take it, raise them above the thick clouds of complacency that blind most eyes and plug most ears. To only a few men do the gods give true pain, which removes the bloated cushion of softness and brings sharp awareness of the preciousness of life; which raises up heroes and strips cowards naked before the world. You, Antram, will do great things. You will see, you will feel, you will breathe and touch and revel in each moment you are given. And you will suffer great pain. And someday, whether soon or late, you will die.

  But all men die, Antram. Few ever live.

  * * *

  In Calimekka, in the center of Sabir House, in a silent room that opened onto a balcony that hung above a jasmine-scented garden, Ry Sabir paced. The room lay in darkness—not even a single candle burned—but that mattered little to him; he saw very well in light so low that normal men would have been blind. Back and forth along the tall bank of glass-paned doors he stalked, oblivious to the sweet scent of the night air, oblivious to the gentle breeze that set the gauzy drapes billowing.

  He was lost in the prison of his own mind, held to the pillory of the words he had said and the words he had left unsaid. And he could not find peace.

  “Wait for me,” he’d told Yanth. “I must attend my mother, to at least try to make her understand. But whether she gives me her blessing or not we’ll sail tonight.”

  And to Trev, who ever feared for his sisters, “I promise you that your sisters will in no way be dishonored by what we go to do. I won’t let that happen.”

  To the captain of the Sabir-owned ship, “I’ll pay you double your yearly wage, and a gift on top of that, if you’ll take me and my lieutenants wherever we need to go, and get us there safely, and not ask questions. This is Family business, and dangerous; you have my word as Sabir that you will have the honor of the entire Family for the service you do us.”

  And to his mother, “My friends were killed in the battle at Galweigh House. I travel alone.”

  And again to his mother, “I’ll stay. I’ll do what you want me to do.”

  Betrayal, the breaking of his word, the destruction of his honor upon a half-dozen rocky shores—no matter which way he turned, he would be lying to someone. Trev and Valard and Karyl and Jaim and Yanth had become, by his utterance, dead men, unable to return to their city or their homes under their own names; his mother would honor her word to treat their families well only if they were never seen again. When he’d faced an unknown journey, when he’d been sure he had the strength to defy her, his lie had seemed the only way that he could keep his promise to them not to drag their families into dishonor. He had intended to come back in glory, so that all would be forgiven.

  And the captain who waited for his arrival at that moment, certain that his future was assured because he served a Sabir who had vowed no less . . . what of him? Ry had promised him the honor of the Sabirs, and if the man were to tell any of the other Sabirs what he had been waiting for, they would undoubtedly treat him as the accomplice of a traitor.

  Only wild success in a journey that goes I know not where, and serves I know not what purpose, can give that man all I promised him, Ry realized. I intended to find a way to make good on the promise. But now?

  What of his own cowardice in the face of a threat he thought his mother would never make? Cowardice . . . he could call it nothing but that. She had held barzanne over his head, and he had capitulated; he could have taken his honor with him into exile, but instead he had given her his word that he would stay and uphold his duty as she defined it. His word. What worth did that have? What value would it ever have again?

  A pity he wasn’t dead. No one maintained expectations of the dead, or held them to their word; they became exempt from every promise they’d ever made.

  A pity he wasn’t dead.

  Such a pity.

  He stopped pacing and moved to the balcony. Out in the courtyard, in the beautiful night, only animals moved. He could smell them in the breeze: the mingled scents of cat and dog and peacock; the faintest hints of mouse and sparrow and owl; the musky perfume of the two fawns who would grace the courtyard until they became too large and unruly to live there, and who would then grace a banquet while
replacements brought in from the wilds became the new living ornaments. Leaves rustled, and the cat caught a mouse, and Ry listened to the frantic squeaking, quickly silenced, and smiled slowly.

  Better he were dead. Even better were he murdered and his body never found. Best of all if evidence existed that his death had come at the hands of the Hellspawn Trinity, for such evidence would turn Family sentiment against the trio’s bid for power harder and faster than anything else could. Murder had always been a way to forward one’s cause in the Family, but to be sloppy enough about it to get caught at it—no. The removal of one’s obstacles, if one wished to maintain respect, had to be accomplished with finesse. A certain grace. An air of . . . mystery.

  He could vanish, Ry realized. He could forward his mother’s cause by doing so, or at least become an embarrassment to her enemies. He could find the woman he sought, and perhaps find the thing that she sought at the same time.

  You can do all of those things. But only if you act quickly. Your opportunity will be lost if you wait until morning.

  That pressure in his skull was back, and with it the mental itch. He stiffened. The stranger’s voice had returned to his mind. This time it was only one voice, but he did not welcome one outsider into the privacy of his thoughts any more than he welcomed the babble that had erupted when he first woke after the Sabir Family’s disastrous attempt to take Galweigh House. He was a Wolf, and no Wolf would tolerate such an intrusion. He began to spin the magic that would force the intruder out, but as he did, the stranger stopped him with a soft phrase. Careful, little brother. You’re clever, but you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.

  Ry froze. “Identify yourself,” he whispered.

  How many dead older brothers do you have?

  “I suppose that depends on how many mistresses Father had that Mother never found out about, and how careless their bastards were.”