Tyronnen opened his mouth, then stopped. “What would you have us do? Invite them into our homes as if they were treasured guests? Forgive a past so littered with graves that they could pave a dozen cities? And ignore blades so saturated in our blood that the very steel cries out with haunting? I have led this county for forty-four years and have seen raiders like swarms of worlags. They respond with anger to any challenge. They will break each other’s arms for a harsh word.”
Rhom cocked his head. “And there has been no man of the counties who has done the same?”
“If he does, he is punished.”
“Then do the same to these.”
Talon nodded sharply. “These men and women followed me away from the raider pack—of their own free will. I did not threaten them or promise them riches or pardons or care-free lives. I promised them nothing, yet they did not leave me. Whether they believed in me or in themselves does not matter. That they rode away from destruction and death— that choice has meaning. They stand here, before you and your bloody trial block, not because they want to die, but because they want to live—as men and women, and no longer as murderers.”
“Before, they wanted to live as raiders.”
“Look more closely, Lloroi. Yes, they started out as over forty raiders. But some died, some chose to stay with Drovic, some fought me and I killed them because they wouldn’t ride as I wanted, some walked away when they were given a choice of following me or my father. These are the ones who were willing to follow where I led, not where Drovic wanted to go. These are the ones who chose the ideal over the steel.”
Tyronnen’s gray eyes narrowed.
“On this world, what atonement is there in death?” Talon said persuasively. “Give them life, and they will prove of value. You have that power, Lloroi, to give them a chance at the life they chose when they followed me instead of Drovic, to live not as raiders, but as men and women of Ariye.”
But his uncle did not waver. “For you, yes, I can give a choice. But not for them. No other elder would allow it.”
“Then you deny that choice also to me.”
“Listen to me—”
“Listen to me,” he snapped back. “This is the moment, Lloroi, in which mercy tempers justice. Not because it is deserved, but because it can make a difference.” He stared at his uncle. “What kind of man are you to cast that mercy down without thought? Who are you to render a judgment that you yourself won’t live with?”
“Then what punishment would they have? We keep no oldEarth prisons.”
“Give them four days of every ninan for themselves; the other five to work for those who need help. The elderly, the sick, the injured, the widows and the children their brethren left behind.”
Tyronnen’s voice had not softened. “Why not take every day of every ninan?”
“Because if there is nothing to work for for themselves, they might as well return to being raiders.”
“You would treat them as if they were county men.”
“They were, once upon a time.”
The Lloroi was silent for a long while. Finally, he regarded the raiders with a carefully expressionless face. “Stay in Ariye, and you can no longer live as you have. You’ll have jobs—boring ones, most likely. You’ll have neighbors—slow perhaps, sometimes stupid. You’ll go to meetings and keep your temper when you want to rage against the rules of the idiot elders. But if you don’t keep your tempers—if you break a man’s arm, you’re responsible for his livelihood until he has healed again, not just for the five days a ninan. You take his life, and we will take yours in his place.”
Rakdi rubbed his hook nose and regarded the Lloroi with a look he had once turned on other elders. “Is this the choice? A book of warnings thicker than your hatred? Do you expect your children to live perfect lives? Do you live a perfect life?” Tyronnen’s face hardened. “What mistakes will you allow us to make before you eagerly chop off our heads? Do we live under the ax or the sky?”
“What guarantee is there that you will not kill again?”
Talon’s voice was flat. “I vouch for them, Lloroi.”
The older man studied his nephew. “You would vouch for them with your own life.” It was not a statement.
“Yes.”
“No.” It was Wakje. “No man can pledge my actions for me. No man can tell me how to live—with you or against you. No man—Lloroi or not—has the right to judge me as nothing more than part of a group. You accept us—you accept me, Wakje, and each one of the others as they are—or you might as well kill us now.”
Rakdi nodded and met the Lloroi’s gaze unflinchingly. “Accept our pledge to live among you, or give us the edge of your ax.”
The Lloroi studied them expressionlessly.
The raiders glared back at him.
Tyronnen’s voice was dry. “I think I prefer the ax.” But he did not quite state his judgment, and instead cursed his own weakness as he turned to Talon’s mate. “I am not the only one with lives to risk. I will hear your words, Wolfwalker.”
Dion stared at the raiders. Her eyes were violent with memories—terror, the swords biting into flesh, the blood that washed hotly across her hands, the screams that ate through her throat.
“Dione?”
Her violet eyes glittered, but she finally answered the Lloroi. “I look at these men, and feel rage in my chest like a hungry wolf. My stomach knots, my breath cuts short with the tension to grab a knife. I suck air and hear screams. I taste blood on my tongue.” She steadied her voice with difficulty. She stared at each raider, pausing when she came to Roc. The other woman’s eyes were vicious, carving at her like skinning knives. Dion’s violet gaze narrowed. She looked at Wakje, Harare, Ki, and knew that her own violence was mirrored in their eyes. Finally she answered the Lloroi. “My hands are clean, you think, but they crawl with the shrouds of others. I have killed, and I have let others die. I am not the one to judge them.”
He stared at her. “Dione, you have suffered as much at their hands as any in Ariye—”
She cut him off curtly with a gesture. Her voice was as hard as flint. “I answer you as a scout, a healer, a wolfwalker, a mother, and a woman—as all the things I have been in your county. As all the things I am. Here, now, I see my rage echoed in their hearts. My blood is on their hands, and theirs on mine. You want me to temper your need for justice, to soften your decision. You want me to accept them as neighbors and peers, or judge them like an elder to weight your decision for you. I can do neither. I can live my life and accept that they do not try to kill me today. That is all. Do not ask for more.”
“Dione—”
She shook her head. “Do not ask, Lloroi. They chose for the moment to follow my mate and had no real hope of anything more. They are fury and violence, and they rage against their past. I have done the same. But they have given me back my future. I will not take their blood.”
The Lloroi’s jaw tightened. “Gamon?”
Gamon ran his hand through his peppered hair. He studied Dion, then glanced at Rhom. The Randonnen man waited calmly as if there were no storms of emotion, and Gamon knew suddenly that the twins had the right of it. It had been Rhom’s faith in Dion that led him to his twin, and Dion’s faith that Rhom would come that had allowed her to face the raiders. Faith, he thought. It was not steel or power or even hope, but faith that ruled the world. “Tyronnen,” he said softly. “You believe that these men and women are raiders— murderers, robbers, an extension of Bandrovic’s sword.” He cocked his head. “Aranur believes that they are men who can choose to live within the law. You ask me to judge between the strength of his belief and yours.” He rubbed at the stubble that had roughened his chin. “I think,” he said slowly, “you have forgotten that Aranur’s belief is yours. It is your influence and mine—the influence of Ariye—that has given him this faith in those who would follow him. Judge against him, and you judge your own self false.”
Tyronnen regarded his brother for a long moment. His voice was soft.
“As always, Brother, your wisdom is my own.”
Dangyon regarded the four men with something akin to bemusement. “Well, I’ll be a four-faced worlag,” he murmured.
But the Lloroi heard him and shook his head sharply. “This is no pardon. And you’ll have your reckon before the moons. But until then, we—” It was hard for him to say the word. “—welcome,” he forced it out, “you among us.”
Ki scowled, but Wakje simply watched Talon. Wakje had already noted that the tall man stood comfortably, seemingly unaware of the wound in his chest, and that the wolfwalker clung to his side like a burr, her violet eyes unfocused. To her right, the Gray One seemed to sense Wakje’s attention. Hishn turned her massive head in his direction, and Wakje felt a shock of blurred vision, as if he saw himself from two heights. It lasted only a second; then it was gone.
You honor me. The words did not make it past his lips, but they were there in his head. The Gray One did not hear.
Drovic found his feet moving toward the outer door. Three of the Ariyens shifted to block the older man, but Tyronnen held up his hand. “Let him go. I will not spill brother blood here, two days from our border. In Ariye, if he returns again, he will die. But not here, outside our home.”
Drovic’s lips stretched in black humor. “It will not be me, Brother, who challenges you again. There is no more need to fear me.”
Sojourn moved to the door and shoved it open to reveal the blackness outside, speckled with whirling white. Drovic hesitated at the latch and half turned to face his son. Although he had forced some of Talon back into his son, this man was still Aranur. “Conje-tai, my son,” he said quietly.
Conje-tai. It was the forever good-bye, the acknowledgment of the utter break between them. Talon felt his jaw tighten. The ties of blood and intent—they had been shattered by goals and truths. “Conje-tai, my father,” he said flatly.
Drovic nodded, acknowledging what Talon did not say. When he spoke, his voice was equally flat. “Comfort will kill you; pride will kill me. I see no great loss in either. But death does not change my goals. Death changes only me.” He stood in the doorway for a moment while the snow whirled in around him. His voice was soft. “You won unfairly, Dione.” He met her gaze and saw her understanding that he had recognized the power. Then he stepped out into the darkness.
Roc stared at the open doorway. She turned slowly to stare at Talon. “You would trade everything—us, your father—for what? For her?”
“I am kum-tai,” he said simply.
“That means nothing,” Roc snarled. “Look at her. She’s just an old, broken-down body with a worn, scarred soul. Look at me. Look at me. She is not even beautiful.”
He looked down at the hand that entwined with Dion’s. “You’re wrong,” he said, almost absently. “She is the world.”
Roc caught her breath in her perfect teeth. Her hand moved. It was fast—fast as a serpent strike, as a lepa dive, as light. The knife slid so easily out of the woman’s hand that Talon had only an impression of steel before he moved. Rhom, on that side, beat him to it. Dion tried to jerk away, but Talon’s hand was already thrusting her aside. The smith flung out his arm. Steel sank home, and Rhom gasped.
Talon seemed to erupt. Walls in his mind seemed to rupture. The rage, the grief, the controlled frustration. He crossed the distance in a single stride and struck Roc so hard that he flung the woman over a bench into the wall. She slid down, shuddered back to her feet, swayed, and went back down to her knees. Blood dripped from her teeth. Two teeth were broken—she could feel the sharp edges against her tongue, and she spat chips and blood onto the floor. With the dizziness, the movement almost unbalanced her.
Dion clenched Rhom’s arm hard around the blade. “Don’t take it out,” she said sharply. The smith’s face was blanched. But the knife had buried itself in the lower part of his biceps, not in Dion’s chest.
It was small satisfaction to Roc. Roc met Talon’s gaze and knew he would kill her if she stayed. He already looked at her with an emptiness in his gray eyes, like a predator judging when to give the death blow, not one who would listen to reason. The woman pushed herself up and away from the wall and jerked her head toward the doorway through which Drovic had already gone. She had to work to clear her throat of blood before she could speak. Her voice was oddly harsh. “He is a man, and you are a man. But you are the lesser blade.” She opened the door, straightened her shoulders, and walked out in the storm after Drovic.
Rhom felt Dion’s hands tremble on the arm and knew that she didn’t have the energy left for a healing. “Not now, Dion,” he said in a low voice. “Later. I won’t die before you fix me.”
“A touch,” she returned, “to stop the bleeding.”
He nodded unwillingly, and Talon watched unsmiling as Dion eased the knife out. Energy seemed to surround her, and she paled. He reached down to grab her, glaring at Rhom as the smith pressed a bandage Gamon handed him against his wound.
The Randonnen man saw Talon’s instinctive gesture toward his blade and quirked his eyebrow. “We are bound by her blood, Aranur.” Rhom used the name deliberately. “We don’t need our own blood between us.”
Talon regarded Dion’s brother for a long moment before he nodded shortly.
Rhom met Dion’s eyes. The blood on their hands mixed as they clasped and worked the bandage. “Dion,” he murmured. “Don’t ever do this again.”
She knew what he meant. “Not while the moons still ride,” she agreed quietly. She finished tying on the cloths, and Rhom got to his feet. He was a powerful man, but as he met Talon’s unsmiling gaze, what he saw there made him sober. There was still rage in Talon’s gaze—controlled as Rhom remembered it—and a sort of despair. Dion would feel that despair—she could not help knowing what Aranur felt, and she would do anything to heal her mate. Rhom knew his twin, and knew she was not yet strong enough to define her own goals. He nodded toward Talon and said to her, “I wondered if you would be able to give him up. Looks like you forced the moons to give him back instead.”
Dion caught her breath. She looked down at the blood on her hands and forced her voice to be steady. “We moonmaids have that power.”
Rhom nodded. “Don’t let him bully you,” he said deliberately, noting the way Talon’s lips tightened at his words. “He’s too strong-willed for his own good. Stand up to him, twin, or you’ll find yourself giving away everything you have left.”
Talon took Dion’s hand and drew her back against him. “You know me that well?” he demanded coldly. She went willingly, and the fit of her body against his hip stirred memories of heat.
Rhom shrugged. “You haven’t changed that much. You’re still Aranur—brilliant with his enemies and blind with his friends.” He watched the tall man closely.
Talon’s expression stiffened, and Rhom knew he had been right to use those words. He could almost feel Talon reaching into his mind for the image. “I know those words,” Talon admitted, “but I cannot find the memory.” His gray gaze sharpened. “I think that we were fighting.”
Rhom grinned without humor. “We were. You won, as I recall.”
“I usually do.”
“Now there’s the Ariyen arrogance I remember.” Rhom reached out and touched his twin’s arm.
Dion started to smile, then looked over her shoulder. “Tehena and Kiyun,” she remembered with guilt. “They’re in one of the back rooms, bound.”
Gamon nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” Weed hesitated, then gestured for the older man to follow him back. The motion seemed to break the tableau that held the others, and they dispersed like sand in a wind. They began divvying up the rooms in a pattern that maintained the uneasy truce that had formed between the Ariyens and former raiders.
Talon started to pull Dion toward one of the corridors, but she slipped free with a simple twist. He halted and reached for her again.
Rhom had been right, she realized. Talon was not quite free of Drovic, and she could still be a pawn. She cocked her eyebrow a
t Talon’s expression and shook her head. “Not like that,” she said softly.
He hesitated. He had gripped her hard before—bruised her arms. She was his, but . . . Slowly, he extended his hand.
Beside her, Hishn growled. It was a low sound, deep in the throat. The wolfwalker put her hand in his, letting his fingers entwine with hers. Instinctively he found the position he knew was right—her three slender fingers against two of his. He studied their hands together, turned them over, and then met her violet gaze. She was no longer young—no woman with eyes like that could ever be young again. But she looked at him with her heart in her eyes, and he did not know that his expression was the same. This time, when they started again toward the rooms, they walked side by side.
XLIV
Ember Dione maMarin
Lost souls reach where reaching does no good;
Lost hearts love in despair.
Lost souls reach, and reaching find;
Love can break each absence.
—from “Lost Souls,” by Jun Mak
Rakdi assigned Dion and Talon to one of the inner rooms, not one with an outer door. Rhom, Gamon, Kiyun, and Tehena took the room to the right. Rakdi, Wakje, Harare, and Weed settled the room to the left. Neither side was taking chances that Talon and the wolfwalker would disappear like Drovic into the storm.
Gray Yoshi was outside the stables, curled in a bank of snow, but Hishn would not leave Dion, so the wolfwalker tossed a blanket on the floor for the wolf, while Talon set some wood on the fire. An uneasy silence gripped the room. Then Hishn growled at them both. Talon glanced at the wolf, then grinned slowly without humor. “Give me time,” he told the Gray One.
Hishn’s yellow eyes gleamed.
Dion touched Talon’s forearm, and the gesture made him stiffen. He gripped her arms in return and searched her eyes. “You hounded me through three counties, and I swore that when I found you, I would take back my freedom, get you out of my mind. Now you’re here, and all I can think is that you’re mine. Who am I?” he demanded.
She hesitated. “You are Aranur.”
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 45