And now the woman they'd all thought of as some kind of House Mother lay lifeless on a steam table in her own kitchen. Samin didn't think it was entirely inappropriate of him that he was glad it was Umeia and not Malick.
It seemed wrong, though, that no one was tending to Umeia like they were for Caidi and Yori, but Lex was still trying to pull himself together, and anyway, it wasn't really his place. Lex wasn't Umeia's mate, merely her favored companion, but certainly not the only one. It was Malick's place, but Malick was... busy.
Samin's mouth turned down, and he shut his eyes, trying not to see Fen, bared in every way, collapsed in grief against Malick down in the baths. Tried not to hear the soul-wrenching screams and cries. Tried not to understand the desolation.
The incense was heavy in the air and it burned his nose, stung his eyes. Shig had lit too much of it, but Samin hadn't wanted to tell her to quit at the traditional three.
Morin was staring at him when Samin looked up again, red, puffy eyes too keen in understanding, a little bit grateful, maybe. Unaccountably, Samin wanted to hug him.
He liked the whole family more than he ever would have thought he might. Maybe even loved them a little bit. He hadn't really thought he liked children, but Caidi had gotten to him in ways....
He pushed the thought aside when more tears threatened. He hadn't wept enough, no one had—there weren't sufficient tears in the world to do justice to three such worthy lives gone—but he'd wept plenty for now. There were other matters.
The day had been full of failures and mistakes. That little girl had been taken right out of Samin's hands. Out of his hands.
The feel of her quivering as he'd tried to brush away the shadows. The look in her eyes through the murk, the fear, the confusion. The sick sinking of his gut when he'd grabbed for her foot as she lifted up past him and... missed. Just missed.
Samin clenched his teeth and shunted it aside. A thousand horrible, painful deaths for Asai, with Samin himself twisting the blade, would not be enough.
"I need more water, Morin,” Joori said quietly, his head bowed over Caidi, his shoulders still steadily shaking as the cloth he used to bathe his little sister's body grew redder, along with the basin of water he'd been using to rinse it out.
Morin merely nodded, sucked in a shaky breath as he moved to angle himself around the pastry counter where Caidi lay and retrieved the basin to clean and refill it. He stopped in mid-step, frozen like a rabbit, but wary-eyed and tense, one hand curling into an unconscious fist as his swollen, hazel eyes riveted to a spot behind where Samin stood.
Samin didn't really need to turn, but he did anyway. Saw Malick's eyes take in the scene, wincing only slightly when his gaze landed on Umeia's covered body, turning pained and sad when it took in everything else. Fen was leaning into him heavily, a bathsheet wrapped around him like a blanket, his own gaze steady but carefully not looking at anything at all.
Joori had frozen too, staring at Malick with eyes both terrified and defiant—ready to apologize and defend his actions at the same time—and turning confused when Malick did nothing but meet the stare then move on to Morin. He sucked in a long breath, then said evenly and without any sort of dramatics: “By my heart, by my body, by my breath and spirit, I pledge my oath to Kel Saminil, Kojoi Shig, Fen Joori, and Fen Morin. Should my life be required in return for their safety, I pledge it willingly, by forfeit of my soul should I fail."
The silence was complete. Stunned. More loaded than it had been a moment ago when Morin and Joori had caught sight of Malick, fearing an attack. Even Samin was shocked. Malick just wasn't the sort.
"Mal,” Samin said, his voice strangely reverent. “We haven't even—"
"It doesn't matter,” Malick cut in, his own tone still even and quiet, matter-of-fact. “Whether you stay or you go, you've earned it and more."
"What about my brother?"
Surprisingly, it came from Morin, not Joori, like Samin would have thought. The boy's face was a little too pale, like he expected to be struck down for the impertinence, even with the promise of the oath, but his chin was up and his gaze was steady, if a little too obviously terrified.
Malick's gaze went to Morin, and for the first time, Samin noted how tired he looked, how drawn. How sincerely grief-stricken he was at what had happened today. And again, Samin was a little taken aback. Because Malick simply wasn't the sort. Or hadn't been.
"Your brother won't accept it,” Malick said calmly, though his mouth turned down in obvious disapproval as he said it in a way that told Samin it was a fresh argument, and it wasn't quite done as far as Malick was concerned. But Malick only shrugged, sighed. “Anyway, I'm not sure it would work. Magic just kind of... slides off him."
"Terrific,” Morin said with a curl of his lip and a roll of his eyes, both directed more at the universe in general than Malick in particular. He was a snarky little shit who gave his brothers grief at almost every opportunity, but he loved them in his way—oddly, Samin had seen it that first night when the boy had kicked Fen to put him down.
Malick ignored the comment, merely shifted his gaze to Joori, and jerked his chin. “Take your brother upstairs and help him dress."
Joori only stared for a moment, blinking, then he looked down at the red-soaked cloth in his hand, at his little sister. “But.... I was—"
"I know,” Malick cut in, and Samin nearly smiled at the gentle tone, and the surprise on Joori's face when he heard it too. “Morin can take over for a little while.” With a slight flicker of his gaze toward Caidi, Malick shook his head and gave Fen's shoulder a squeeze. “She's not going anywhere."
Joori winced a little, but he didn't snap back. Nodding slightly, he ran a gentle hand over Caidi's brow, whispered something to her that Samin didn't try to hear, then turned to rinse his hands.
"Still think you can live with it, angry Ghost?"
It halted everyone, because Shig hadn't said a word since they'd begun their mournful tasks, and to hear her speak so calmly now—without the spirit-driven singsong it seemed they'd all expected when she finally decided to speak again—was strange and disconcerting.
The question had been directed at Fen, and Samin had no idea what it meant, but Fen seemed to. He didn't answer it, though, merely stared at Shig with flat regard, too wrung out and stricken to muster much else. He looked, in fact, now that Samin was letting himself really look, like a man who was gazing directly into the empty perdition of the suns, and just barely hanging onto whatever precarious hold he'd been able to snatch.
Malick was right—the lad needed his brother. Samin was just surprised it had been Malick's idea.
Shig was staring back at Fen, her jade eyes too sharp for someone who was so deeply in mourning, but not hostile, though the question had almost sounded so. She looked... interested. Curious. She merely shrugged when Fen didn't answer, looked away, and went back to her task.
They were all silent as Joori made his way over to Fen, took his brother's weight from Malick and began angling them both out of the kitchens.
"Watch it on the stairs,” Malick said as they retreated. “And take him to my room. There are rolls of bandages and a jar of salve in the cupboard under the washstand."
Joori didn't answer, but he turned back to look over his shoulder, searched Malick's face, and nodded solemnly at whatever he found there.
Malick waited until they were well-gone before he turned back. And then he merely looked at Shig, gestured her over. She came quietly, with a subtle show of relief, but the tears that had dried up a while ago were once again misting her eyes as she stepped willingly beneath Malick's arm and laid her multicolored head on his shoulder.
"Better, love?” Malick murmured, smiled a little sadly when Shig merely nodded and began to sob almost silently into his shirt.
Malick looked back at Samin. “Fen still intends to go after his mother.” His glance cut briefly to Morin then down to Shig before it settled again on Samin. “If either of you has any objections, now's the time
to voice them. Any debt either of you has ever thought you might owe me has been....” His eyes went to Yori's body then back again to Shig. He shut them briefly and looked away. “It's been paid.” He nearly spat the word.
Giving them yet another opportunity to back out, now that the warning of things getting ugly had been made terrible truth. As if any of them could have witnessed what went on today and merely bowed their heads and stepped back. Malick had to know better, but Samin supposed he respected the fact that he took care to make the offer. Still, Samin didn't justify the opportunity for cowardice; he merely waited until Malick's gaze lifted again and settled on him.
"Plan?"
A ghost of the familiar cocky smile flickered at Malick's mouth, and he lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Always."
Excellent. Mayhem. It did a body good. Just point Samin in the right direction.
Samin shot a quick look at Shig, returned her watery little smile with one of his own, then turned back to Malick. “When?"
* * * *
How, Joori wondered, still dazed and never far from tears, could it be possible that he was still standing here, that the blood on his hands had washed off—just washed off like it didn't belong there—that life, his life, just kept going, when the lives of his sister and his too-new lover were over, just... over? Gone and done, and here he was, still breathing, still functioning, when it was supposed to have been him, it should have been him, and he knew they all knew it, he knew they all wished it had been.
That was all right—he wished it too.
"Brother."
Jacin's voice was hoarse, because he'd been screaming, they'd all heard it, all the way from down in the baths, but when Joori had moved to go to his brother, Shig's lethal look had stopped him cold. Just a look, not even a movement to back it up, no overt threat, but it was hard and cold and cruel, and he'd allowed it to back him down, even with his brother's shrieks arrowing right into his chest. And when Samin had come back from his dash with no blood on his sword and the screams still ringing, Joori had known. And wanted to die all over again.
"Joori,” Jacin rasped. He took hold of Joori's hand around the comb, and stilled it. Pushed it away and turned.
Joori couldn't meet Jacin's eyes, couldn't do anything but stare down at the comb in his hand, a long rope of Jacin's hair still twisted between his fingers, because he was supposed to be braiding it, just like he'd used to do when he'd known Jacin like he'd known himself. When life still had dubious hope, but hope. When Joori could almost always find the right words to say, the right reassurances—I won't let it happen, Jacin, you're not a Ghost, you'll never be a Ghost. Except now Morin's words—you've done him no favors by pretending he isn't what he is—kept coming back to him, and Joori didn't really understand them any better now than he had when Morin had leveled them at him, Morin of all people. He had a vague notion that he should understand them, that they meant something he wasn't seeing, something that could have made today not happen if he'd only understood, only seen, because it was all down to him, all his fault, every bit of it, and they all knew it.
Morin's knowledge poured out from hazel eyes so like Caidi's, so like their mother's; shone in those strange, soft looks he kept shooting Joori as he'd untangled blood-sticky gold and added the flow of unending tears to the water that kept turning red too soon. Except Morin kept not saying it, kept not rubbing Joori's nose in it, and it was so unlike Morin that Joori just couldn't wrap his mind around it.
Be what you are, Morin had told him, and Joori had, or at least he'd tried, but it hadn't mattered, hadn't made a single bit of difference, and now Joori wondered if it meant something else altogether. Perhaps it had been an admonishment, a sarcastic prediction of coming failure, because Morin knew, Joori knew he knew, even if no one would say it.
Shig's knowledge was too quiet, too composed for someone who had never seemed interested in or able to care about the corporeal life that went on outside of her multicolored head. “Too many are bleeding just as red as you today, angry earth-bound,” she'd told him, her own hands just as covered in murky scarlet as his were as she lovingly bathed her sister's face, dropped soft kisses to Yori's closed eyelids. Joori wished he could do the same, but he hadn't had the nerve to presume Shig would allow him near. “It wasn't yours to die today, and it was never yours to save them.” She'd lifted her head then, looked right at Joori, her jade eyes red-rimmed and far too bright. “You're just not that special."
It had cut, and it shouldn't have. Shig was no one to him, just one more obstacle to saving his brother, and now Joori had to wonder if he'd thought her an obstacle because she—just as much as everyone here, the world in general—was a threat to Jacin, or merely a threat to Joori's place beside him. Because Malick had told him, had accused him, had warned him, and now they were dead, gone, dropped from the sky to—
"Brother, please."
Jacin's voice was shaky, and the pleading inside it all too real, right on the edge of... something, the bottom of whatever abyss from which he'd been screaming, and it hadn't been Joori who'd pulled him out, brought him back.
"Joori, I can't.... Please, I need you."
Again, it hit him in the heart, drove through him like a spike, and he hadn't realized he'd dropped to his knees, laid his head in Jacin's lap. Weeping, clutching, a long clump of silky-damp hair gripped too tight in his fist, and, “I'm sorry, Jacin, I'm so sorry,” leaking from him in weak hisses like a kettle gone to steam.
"Please, Joori. Don't... I can't....” Thin, almost insubstantial, wobbling the edge.
It took more than Joori knew he had to get hold of himself, to breathe again, to lift his head and look into those eyes that were so like his own, and yet so much deeper, with so much more inside them. Dry now, no tears, but swollen and bloodshot, and going hollow with grief. Grief that Joori was forcing on Jacin, making him watch and feel, and trying not to let himself drop back into it, because Malick wasn't here this time to pull him back out, only Joori, and Joori had failed everyone else in his life, but... he couldn't fail Jacin.
"Jacin,” Joori whispered. He let go of the comb and pulled Jacin's hands from his hair, where they'd gone to comfort and soothe, when it should be Joori offering those things, padding the edges of the madness that hovered about his brother constantly like a fist inside a glove, ever-ready to start squeezing, throttling. And perhaps Joori didn't know everything he'd thought he did, perhaps Malick was right and Joori didn't know Jacin at all anymore, but he knew who Jacin had been, and he knew that everything inside Joori himself—every whisper of blame, every accusation of failure—was trebled and quadrupled in his brother's precarious mind, in that heart that felt too much, and was too forgiving of everyone but himself. “Jacin, whatever you're thinking, you're wrong.” Joori swallowed when Jacin shut his eyes, jaw clenched, like he was still holding back those screams that had pierced Joori so profoundly they still rang inside his head. “It wasn't supposed to be you, it wasn't your fault, you couldn't have stopped any of it."
Somehow, it was the wrong thing to say. Jacin hadn't been shaking a few seconds ago, Joori was sure of it. He was doing this wrong, he had no idea how to do this, how to reach the boy Jacin had been back when Joori really had known him, when they'd truly been two halves of the same Self. Back before the world had taken away their shared life, imperfect as it had been, and given them only this unending penury to take its place. And he had no one to ask how to do it right besides Jacin himself.
He curled his hands around Jacin's, ignored the chunky ring and what he knew it meant, and squeezed. “Jacin... tell me what you need. Tell me what to do."
Maybe it was the right thing to say—it took that hollow chasm out of Jacin's eyes, turned his gray gaze so fierce it almost singed Joori's skin. Jacin turned his callused hands in Joori's, gripped so tight Joori almost yipped.
"Don't die,” Jacin hissed, nearly violent in its strange sibilance, this voice that was a ghost of his normal even tones, like perhaps he truly was
the ghost of Jacin—he was Fen now, he was Jacin-rei. Jacin was buried too deeply beneath layers and layers of pain and a stratum of cold, hard frost, and his heart along with him: not burned to cinder and his spirit released from the ashes, but pulled from his chest and stomped. His hungry ghost bound to the reality Joori had tried so hard to pretend didn't exist, feeding on rage and grief like others fed on seeds. And Joori just hadn't been able to see it, admit it. “I need you to live, Joori. I need Morin to live."
His hands were so strong, long fingers that looked so much like Joori's, but Jacin had always been more dexterous. Jacin had always been able to set his hand to a task and pull from it exactly what he wanted. Joori hadn't ever even been able to whittle without clumsy mistakes and mangled fingers. The only thing Joori had ever been able to make his hands do with any alacrity was weave that fucking braid, and he thought the irony of that might just kill him if he let himself think about it too hard.
Jacin snatched his hands away, cupped Joori's face between them, so gentle, so earnest. “Brother,” he rasped, asking, “please."
No laws, their mother had told them. But she'd never said anything about a request from the one person Joori couldn't refuse. And like anything Jacin asked of him, Joori had no choice but to give it to him.
Xari sighed, peering at the motley assembly, mourning their mistress on the floor of a whorehouse, and wondering, as mortals were wont to do, what came next. The man they called Lex had emerged from his grief for his apparent lover—Xari's eyebrows had risen a little when she'd understood what he'd been to the Girou's patroness, but in approval; the man was quite nice to look at—and begun the mundane business of picking up pieces, showing others by calm example how to do the same. Mortals were so alike in the ways they dealt with what they knew but never quite believed was only temporary death, and Xari absorbed the pain and sorrow like another would absorb a good meal.
Wolf's-own: Weregild Page 30