Wolf smiled on her little brother—oh yes, surely, the aloof prick—because Malick bloody suffered for what he was, and suffered harder when he tried to be something else.
No wonder he and Skel had understood each other so well. No wonder people threw themselves at him. No wonder broken hearts dogged his steps. How could you not adore someone who loved you a little bit merely for existing?
Umeia sighed. “Sometimes I wish you really were the ass you pretend to be, little brother."
Malick only clenched his teeth and started moving again. “We can't stay here for long,” he said, eyes on his hands as he maneuvered Fen out of the tunic, pausing to shake his head and growl at the bloody, twisted flesh of his forearm—that was going to need sutures too, damn it—then dragged him out of the layer of mail beneath the shirt. “It's only a matter of time before Asai finds me. And when he finds me, he finds you and everyone else. They were after his brother tonight. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Asai plans to use him to blackmail Fen into doing what he wants, and he won't stop coming after him, even if he has to tear down the Girou around us. Or, more likely, pay someone else to do it for him. Fucking prick, he never has stooped to doing his own wet work.” Malick paused, shoulders hunching a little, the muscles of his back heaving with two long, deep breaths, but he still didn't look up. “I'm sorry."
"Save ‘sorry’ for when I ask for it,” Umeia told him as she dropped Fen's boot to the floor and went for the other. “Cut that trouser leg right up the center. We'll talk about the rest in the morning."
Because she'd be damned if she'd let Asai, of all people, drive her out of the home they'd made, or harm the people who made up their family. It had been too long since they'd had one. And she wasn't about to argue with her obstinate brother over it now.
Anyway, with what she saw when she finally got a look at Fen's leg, they likely wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Umeia stepped back, hands on her hips. “Go get my bag off the clothespress,” she told Malick wearily.
She had work to do here, a duckling to tend.
Asai could just fuck off for now.
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Chapter Two
It had been the briefest, tiniest of glimpses, but it had been... almost enough. A flash of potential, all in a smeary whirl—more like glimpses of images, really, and far too much cryptic symbology—but it had been enough to see that the Wheels were still turning. Fate was lumbering forward.
Strangely, it all seemed to flower outward from the little one, not from the twin, as he'd rather expected, but youth did burn brightest in his general experience. Jacin-rei's little sister was burning like the last gasp of a dying star. Asai frowned at the metaphor. He had a bit of a soft spot for mortal youth—they were such fascinating little portents, even the ones without magic, their fundamental belief in all things splaying them open like porous possibility—and he'd truly hate to see Jacin-rei lose more than he had to. Still, the boy might well make it necessary to take a ruthless step or two. Asai would debate the value of laying the responsibility at Jacin-rei's feet later, after Fate had set the Cycle, when Asai was better able to gauge the feasibility of keeping his Ghost. Guilt was always an efficient tool, when it came to Jacin-rei, but there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. Asai was going to have to be very careful when Jacin-rei found his way back to his beishin.
Still, he'd had his glimpse, he knew now, knew the who, the what and the where—on his own lands, for pity's sake; he could weep at the frustrating irony, in his reach all that time, and he hadn't seen it—but he couldn't help the frisson of unease that curled up his backbone. He needed Temshiel, certainly, but he hadn't counted on Kamen. In fact, Asai had rather thought Kamen had retreated to spirit after... well. And Asai certainly hadn't counted on the Catalyst's Temshiel being one of Wolf's-own. It could complicate matters beyond repair if Asai wasn't extraordinarily careful, and there wasn't time to start again. There was less than a decade left in the Cycle, and he saw no possibilities in any of the other pitiable Untouchables—whether born or as yet unborn—fated to be crushed in the Wheels before the Cycle was through. Not a true Catalyst among them. It was, and had always been, Jacin-rei who held the Balance.
Damn, damn, damn the boy for slipping his traces before Asai had set his course.
"Seyh?” Vonshi knocked softly on the jamb of the open door and entered the study with his head bowed in apology. “She will not leave, seyh. She insists she must see you."
Damn. He'd rather thought she wouldn't take, Lord Asai is abed, come back tomorrow, for an answer, but he'd hoped. He knew what he needed to know, and he saw no real reason to listen to her tell it to him. He'd caught the “where” from the little one, but the “who” came directly from Leu not an hour after she'd gone to collect her thugs. Asai had known she failed before she'd even crossed onto his lands.
He sighed, gave Vonshi a weary nod, and rubbed at the headache winding beneath his right temple. “Show her in, then."
He'd only caught a brief spark of his prospects through the little girl tonight, but it had been enough to show him what he had to work with now, before the veil had clamped down tight over her and hers again, even more impenetrable than it had been for all the months preceding. And no wonder—he was dealing with Kamen, Wolf's-own, already the strongest of the Temshiel, handed unprecedented power by his god when Wolf made him, and now in his own Cycle, apparently emerged from his retreat and taking up his place again. Tantalizing, to imagine all that power at Asai's own fingertips. The possibility was nearly torment for its lack of present reality, but that unease wouldn't leave him.
Kamen didn't take losing very well, and he'd lost spectacularly. And now he knew Asai was here, perhaps had known all along, and it was too much to hope he didn't know already what Asai was after. If he was still angry over Skel—and of course he would be; Kamen had petitioned to have Asai sent to the suns, for pity's sake—he might well do his best to interfere, would not hear the sense in the liberation of the Jin, and if Kamen learned that Skel's Blood had been instrumental in obtaining the Blood of others—Skel's Blood....
Asai couldn't help the shudder.
Still... he knew what appealed to Kamen, knew what set his too naked, mortal-bound heart to thumping, knew his rage, when all was said and done, was less on Skel's behalf than it was unreasonable emotional reaction to an affront to his senses of loyalty and justice. Knew why Kamen had loved Skel, what had attracted him. And Asai himself had built the Catalyst. Perhaps he'd foreseen more than even he'd suspected.
"This way, please, misin."
Vonshi's soft, creaky voice preceded Leu by mere seconds as she stormed past him and into Asai's study. Wet and bedraggled, a little bit bloody, and apparently altogether too angry for manners as she swung the door shut in Vonshi's face and advanced toward Asai. Hazel eyes were sliding yellow and cat-slitted then back to hazel again as she tried and failed to keep her temper entirely in check. Asai sighed again.
"You did not acquire the earth-bound,” he said bluntly, hoping to stem her apparent anger with an oblique accusation of failure.
Leu didn't appear to be inclined to cooperate. “How much of tonight did you see?” she demanded. “Did you know about the Temshiel?"
It was a difficult question to answer truthfully. In its broadest sense, yes, of course he had. It was the whole point, after all. But Leu might kill him for that, and she could, quite easily. She was in her own Cycle, too, and Asai was still a mere aspirant, still suffering the lesser powers of Raven while abiding Wolf, and always with the threat of banpair over his head if he ended up rejected by both. He couldn't allow it. He would accomplish great things; he'd foreseen it, and Wolf would welcome him. It would be Asai's right.
He chose to answer the question in the narrower spectrum of specific truth: “No, I did not.” Because he truly hadn't known Kamen himself would stoop to the rescue of a mere mortal—a waste of Temshiel power and resources, surely—and it only made that sam
e unease tighten Asai's chest a little at the same time it stirred hope. It was all happening, what he'd foreseen, but it was too early, out of sequence, and the future had yet to set itself into unbendable shapes. The Temshiel was supposed to follow the Catalyst, damn it, not the earth-bound, and not yet.
Had Kamen done it for the earth-bound or for the Catalyst? And why? The earth-bound could be no possible use to Temshiel, but perhaps, if Kamen had done it for Jacin-rei....
The answers were imperative, and Asai had no illusions that Leu would have them. He wished she'd just leave, go back to the rock under which he'd found her, and leave him to his contemplation. Except she was the only one of Wolf's maijin who would suffer him in his “exile,” and he might need her. He'd wrung compliance from her through her mewling cries of completion, but women had an annoying tendency to gain clearer heads when they were vertical. Sometimes he missed Skel with burning regret.
Asai clenched his teeth and bowed his head respectfully. “I am sorry, Leu. I saw only—"
"I don't want to know what you saw,” she grated. “I don't want to know what you plan, I don't want to know you. I'm done, Asai."
He lifted an eyebrow, turned slowly, purposefully showing her his back as he angled behind the desk and sat down. Putting a bit of a barrier between them, however thin, but it wouldn't do to let her know it. “You would abandon your god's favored people so swiftly, Leu?"
Her eyes narrowed, gone to slitted-yellow once again. “I would abandon you and whatever you've done to draw Kamen's interest. Bloody Kamen, Asai.” She stepped over to the front of the desk, propped her hands on it, and leaned in. “He sends you ‘greetings’ from Skel."
Asai rolled his eyes, though his stomach dropped a little. “And isn't it just like Kamen to hold on to that old grudge to justify his opposition?"
"His opposition to what?” Leu snapped then held up her hand and pushed her back straight. “No. I don't want to know. I'm finished, Asai. Find yourself another of Wolf's to plead your case. If you can."
"You know I cannot.” And the more he thought about it, the angrier it made him. He was in the position he was in now because of Kamen. Forced to supplication, forced to seek acceptance with Wolf, when it should have been offered centuries ago, forced to kowtow to an inferior maijin to help him achieve what should have been given him. “I would bring glory to Wolf, Leu, you know I would, but I must have the earth-bound to do it. Your failure tonight has set back Fate—"
"Bloody hell, you're an arrogant piece of work.” Leu shook her head, eyes gone back to mere hazel again. Asai couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. “I'll admit I thought perhaps you'd been banished unfairly,” she said evenly. “I'll admit I thought your skills and your hopes for the Jin would please Wolf. But you cannot think to pursue whatever it is you're pursuing now. Kamen has taken both the earth-bound and the Catalyst to himself. He all but challenged you to try to take them from him. You cannot continue on this course, Asai. I have no desire to see another war between maijin and Temshiel, and I won't stand by and watch you start one. As Wolf's, I cannot allow it."
And there it was again—rubbing his nose in his status, or lack thereof. And this one was no better than a mercenary. Nothing—she was nothing, and she dared.... Didn't she know what he would be when Wolf accepted him? What difference could it possibly make to her how he did it? And what could possibly make her think she had the right? The bloody gall of the woman. Did she think he'd taken her to his bed because he'd wanted her? Was smitten with her?
Asai took a long, deep breath to quell his rising anger, stood, and paced slowly to stand beside Leu.
Perhaps it was only Fate that had put Kamen in his path as a too-wrathful barrier. Kamen was the most powerful of the Temshiel, yes, but Asai was... had been the most powerful of the maijin. And he would be again. And once he had Heart's Blood—Heart's Blood of not just Temshiel, but a Null....
A fair exchange for leading Wolf's favored tribes out of bondage, was it not? Asai was more than certain that Wolf would see it that way, even if Wolf's-own refused to. Heart's Blood might wobble the Balance a little, but what Asai did with it would set it back where it belonged, set it in stone for ages to come. Wasn't that worth the loss of one Temshiel and a few insignificant mortals? This apparent accord between Kamen and Leu was an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one.
Asai allowed a rueful smile to curl at his mouth. “You're right, of course,” he told Leu, reaching out to take her hand, pleased when she allowed it; he curled both of his own around it. “The war years were hellish, and their reflection through the mortal realm only hastened the Jin's subjugation."
It had done more than that—it had made it inevitable. Temshiel and maijin choosing sides, defining mortal boundaries to complement their own, and using their dupes as proxies in their own war. Pitting Jin against Adan, removing all too easily the centuries-old brotherhood between the two peoples. Except no one had foreseen the Jin unleashing their magic, knowing their mortal war for a thinly disguised divine one. Razing their own lands to rid themselves of the troublemaking trespassers of the gods, and sacrificing countless Adan in the process. And all with the justification that it would reinstate their own balance, while the minions of the gods battled over the world's. Charged with using their magic only to serve the Balance, forbidden from ever using it against those who had none, they'd thought the Adan would understand, would approve when all was said and done—they were brothers, in the end, were they not? They'd allowed the Adan to bind with them through their Blood, after all. They'd almost become different tribes of the same people. The end of a war that wasn't their own would surely justify the means.
Except it was merely a horrible beginning. They'd been warned by their Untouchables, and the Voices of the Ancestors had, for the first time ever, been ignored. Because no one—not even Wolf's own Temshiel—had understood until then that the Ancestors had not merely bound their magic to their people, but had bound themselves to their people through the lands. And when the Jin had turned their magic on their own lands to evict the sentinels of the gods—rent earth from bedrock, broke forests from their beds and burnt whole cities—it was more damage than the Ancestors could take. It wrung their sanity from them and took their guidance from their people, sent their Untouchables shrieking, made them living Ghosts, and opened a chasm between the Adan and the Jin that could not be repaired or forgotten.
The two peoples would not come together again, they would be forevermore out of balance, one enslaving the other. And now Wolf was in his Cycle, the prospect of freeing his people from their bondage never more possible—and Asai was in a position to hand it to his new god. And he needed the twin to do it. Because if Asai held the earth-bound—Jacin-rei's heart—in his hands, not even Kamen would be a match for the Ghost.
Considering all of that, everything that was at stake, everything Asai had done to bring about this particular future....
Did Leu really think Asai would pause to await her permission?
"Asai?"
Asai blinked, frowning for a moment while his mind came back from its wanderings. Leu was looking at him with a mix between irritation and concern, her hand still trustingly between his, her guard almost nonexistent.
With a smile and a self-deprecating chuckle, Asai shook his head, patted Leu's hand. “My apologies, I seem to have wandered.” He let the smile falter. “I had such hopes for the Jin, you see."
Leu sighed, slumped, and closed her eyes. “Asai, I think—"
She never saw it coming, the fool. One quick jerk of his arm inward, and two fingers set swiftly to her temple. Hazel eyes flew open, already blooming with petechiae, and then Leu merely crumpled at Asai's feet. Boneless. Soundless. Lifeless.
Asai stepped back, prodding her ribs a little with the toe of his slipper until her body rolled to the side. A temporary measure—she would be back and there would be others—but it would take time, and perhaps it would be enough. She would never plead his case to Wolf now, but s
he probably wouldn't have done anyway, and if Fate conformed to the paths Asai set, he'd hardly need her to. And by that time, there would be little choice but for all to see her folly and the necessity of her removal.
"Nothing personal,” he told the corpse. “You made a lovely obstacle, but an obstacle nonetheless."
At least there was no danger now that she might ally with Kamen and—
Kamen. Damn. Asai had almost managed to put Kamen out of his mind for a few moments. Almost, but not entirely, which was good, he supposed—Kamen was a danger to everything Asai hoped to accomplish, and Asai still had no idea yet if Kamen's presence was part of the future-possible he'd foreseen, that had led him here, or if he was to be the destruction of it. Asai had wanted Temshiel, but not this Temshiel, damn it. Why couldn't Jacin-rei ever do anything bloody right?
Asai shook his head, sighed. Back to the cards, he supposed. Back to his meditations. Back to the bones and the stones, and every divination tool he had, and the frustration of too-vague allusions and not enough distinct auguries. Another long night. And he didn't intend to spend it with Leu's empty shell.
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