Devin bucked. An upthrust knee missed Kellin’s groin but not his belly. Pain blossomed anew, and bleeding. His tunic was sodden with it.
“—wait—” Devin gritted. “—only need to wait—” But he did not. He bucked again, broke Kellin’s grasp, and scrambled away from him. “Now—”
Kellin staggered upright, sealing the wound closed with his left arm pressed hard against his ribs. He fell back two steps, stumbled over a rock, tried to steady his footing. Strength was fading fast.
Devin laughed. His face was scratched and reddened in patches; it would bruise badly if he lived long enough. “Cheysuli blood—” he gasped, “—is red as Ihlini—red as my own…are we kinsmen, then?” He smeared an arm across his face. “I have only to wait—you will do me the favor of dying even if I never touch you again.”
“My lir—will touch—you—” It was all Kellin could manage as he labored to keep his breath.
“Your lir? I think not. The lir are proscribed against harming Ihlini. Have you ever wondered why?” Devin’s breath was returning.
Kellin backed up. He heard the rush of the river, the promise of its song. What he needed was time to recover himself, but time he did not have. Devin had time.
He could not hold the blood in. It crept through his fingers, then dripped to the sand. A rock was red with it, turning slowly black. Behind Kellin the river roared louder.
“Enough,” Devin said, bending to grab the knife. “I am expected in Valgaard. This foolish dance delays me.”
Kellin bent and scooped up a round stone. He let fly, then scooped another and threw again. Devin ducked, but did not let go of the knife. He knew better; why loose the only weapon and chance the enemy’s retrieval?
The Ihlini advanced. “One more throw, and your heart will burst. Do you think I cannot tell?”
Kellin retreated, clutching bloodied wool against his chest. The world around him blurred. Not like this—not what I could ask for in the manner of my death—
Sima screamed. Devin lunged.
Kellin twisted from the knife as the blade was thrust toward him. He caught the outstretched arm in both hands and wrenched, snapping it over, trying with grim determination to break the limb entirely.
Devin shouted. The knife fell free, then the Ihlini stumbled forward and threw his weight against Kellin.
A curious warmth flowed throughout his chest. Kellin saw the Ihlini’s mouth moving, but heard no words. He sagged, thrust out a braced foot to hold himself up, and clung to Devin.
The bank behind them broke. Both flailing bodies tumbled into the river.
Kellin loosed his grasp on Devin as the waters closed over his head. He thrust himself upward, thrashing; ill-fitting boots filled with water and dragged him down again.
Sima—
He clawed, sealing his mouth shut, trying to make his way upward where he could breathe again. The boots were pulled off his feet.
Sima—
The river rolled. He broke the surface briefly and sucked air. Then the beast caught him again, threw him over, hurled him downward. He tumbled helplessly, clawing at current, holding his breath in lungs that refused to serve him.
He was briefly embraced within the treacherous arms of a buried tree, deep in the water. Then the tunic tore loose and he was free of it, of snag and tunic; he thrashed again but could no longer tell which was surface and which was bottom.
He breathed water. He was hurled against a rocky protuberance, then scraped off again and tumbled, limbs flailing uselessly. His right leg caught, wedged into a cleft between the rocks. Kellin twisted in the current, was tumbled helplessly, and felt the dull snap.
No pain. His leg was numb. Both legs were numb. His entire body was nothing but a blob of useless flesh, too vulnerable, too fragile, to withstand the beast in full spate.
The river dragged him free, then threw him heedlessly against another promontory. He surfaced briefly, coughed a garbled plea for air, for aid, then the river reclaimed him.
This time she was cruel. She hurled him into her depths and kept him there, like a cork caught in a millrace, and when she threw him out again, into the lesser current, she did not notice if the broken body breathed or not.
Interval
The master of Valgaard was found deep in the undercroft of the fortress, feeding his cats. They did not cluster at his feet as housecats do, courting morsels, demanding affection, because they were not pets, but mountain cats, tawny, russet, and black, who prowled the confines of their cages baring great teeth, snarling as he dangled promised offal before them, and red, bloodied meat.
He was a handsome man, and knew it; it pleased him to know it, though breeding almost assured it. And young, less than thirty, clearly in his prime—though that was won from the Seker and was not a natural thing. He kept his dark, springy hair closely cropped against a well-shaped head balanced on an elegant neck, and adorned supple fingers with a clutch of rings. They glinted bloody and bronze in the torchlight.
A man arrived. He stood in the archway and did not step into the chamber. His voice was pitched very quietly, so as not to disturb the cats; more importantly, so as not to disturb the master. “My lord.”
Lochiel did not look away from his cats; he enjoyed their ferocity. “Have you news of Devin?”
The man folded his hands before him, eyes fixed on the floor so as not to offer offense. “We are not certain, my lord. We believe so.”
Lochiel turned. His eyes were a clear ale-brown set beneath winged brows that on another man might suggest femininity; on him, they did not. No one alive would suggest he was less than a man. The structure of his face was of peculiar clarity, as if the gods had labored long to make him perfect. “Why are you uncertain?”
“We found a horse, and packs containing certain articles belonging to Devin—included among them was the ring your daughter sent him—but Devin was not with the horse. There were signs of violence, my lord—bloodied sand, and a fallen knife…but no body. At least, not there.” The servant did not look up from the floor. “We found a man downriver not far from the horse, thrown up in the bank like driftwood.”
“Dead?”
“He was not when we found him. He might be now. He is sore hurt.”
Lochiel threw meat to the cats, one by one, and smiled to see unsheathed claws trying to fish meat bestowed from one cage into another. “Where is my daughter?”
“With him, my lord. She was hawking out of the defile, in the canyon—she saw us bring him up.”
Lochiel sighed. “Not the most impressive way to meet your bridegroom.” He glanced at bloodied hands and wished them clean; they were. “It will be an annoyance if Devin dies. I researched his pedigree most carefully.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Lochiel observed the cats. His day was now disturbed. “They will have to wait. I will have them eat no meat save it comes from my hands.”
“Aye, my lord. My lord?”
Lochiel arched an inquisitive brow.
“We saw a cat, my lord. As we came over the Pass. A sleek, black female, young but promising well. She hid herself almost at once.”
“Had she a mate?”
“None we saw. We were thinking of the man, and came straight on to the fortress.”
“Very well. I will send you out tomorrow to learn the truth of her.” He glanced at the black male who eyed him hungrily. “Perhaps if you are good, I shall give you a mate.” He frowned pensively. “It would be a pity if my daughter lost hers. I need children of them.” He touched one of his rings. If Cynric is born— His mouth compressed, robbing the line of its purity.
If Cynric were born after all, there was only one sure way, one certain course to defeat him; but such insurance was costly and required a sacrifice. Yet he had failed in all his attempts. Asar-Suti did not countenance failure.
The Ihlini studied his rings, considering, knowing the answer already. If Kellin lived to sire the child, that sure way, that exacting, definitive course would have to be
taken.
Lochiel sighed. If we are to block the Firstborn, I shall have to make a child for the Seker to inhabit.
PART IV
One
“You should not be here,” my mother declared.
I heard the rustle of her skirts as they dragged across the threshold. She wears them long and full, using up bolts of costly cloth that might better be distributed among several women instead of only one. But that was my mother; she lived solely for her position as Lochiel’s wife, as if it might mislead a stranger into forgetting what she herself detested: that the taint of Cheysuli blood also ran in her veins.
“Undoubtedly,” I agreed. “But I am here now; proprieties no longer matter.” I glanced at her then, and saw the skirts were the deep, rich red of the thickest Homanan wine. She glittered with jet. All black and red, and white.…Even to carmined lips against the pallor of her flesh. She bleaches it deathly white, to hide the Cheysuli taint.
“Who is he?” She moved closer.
“A man,” I answered evenly, with off-handed negligence. Then, to prick her: “He may well be Devin.”
She cast me a sharp, well-honed glance designed to discover the truth; I hid it behind the mask. I had learned it of my father, who said he had learned it to turn the witch from the door.
It was his jest to say so. We are all of us witches.
“Devin or no, you had best take yourself elsewhere,” she said. “There are servants who can tend him, and I am better suited to intimacy than you.”
Aye, so she would be; she encouraged it constantly.
I shrugged. “I have already seen him. I met them in the canyon when they brought him up; they wrapped him in a blanket, but that was taken off when they put him in the bed.” I paused. “I know what a man looks like.”
Carmined lips compressed into a thin, retentive seam. She looked at the man lying so still in the bed. He was well-covered now, but I had seen the naked flesh. It was blue from the water, and slick with bleeding scrapes reopened by the ride. They had brought him to Valgaard trussed like a new-killed stag. The marks still dented wrists and ankles.
“Will he live?” she asked.
I shrugged. “If my father desires him to.”
Her glance was sharp. “If he is Devin, be certain your father will indeed desire it.”
I shrugged again. Everyone in Valgaard knew I was meant to wed Devin of High Crags no matter what I wanted; men, particularly fathers, are not often disposed to ask women what they prefer.
My father was less disposed to ask anything at all of anyone; Lochiel need never do so. What was not given, he took. Or made.
Well, so did I. Given the chance.
I looked at the man in the bed. Devin? Are you Devin?
My mother made a noise. She bent, studied his scraped and swollen face, then shook her head slightly. “He is damaged.”
“Somewhat,” I agreed dryly. “Whoever he is, he survived the Bluetooth. Worth respect, for that…would you expect a man who goes in handsome to come out better for it?”
He was, at present, decidedly unhandsome; the river robs a body of the blood that lends flesh color, the heart that maintains life, and the spirit to drive the heart. He was a slab of flesh made into the form of a man, with two arms, a head, and two legs, though one of the legs was broken. I had seen the end of the bone pressing hard against bruised flesh below the knee, turning it white and shiny, but it had not broken through.
“His ear is torn,” she said, “and his lip badly split.”
“Aye,” I agreed. There was much more than that. The entire left side of his face was mottled black with bruising, and bled colorless fluid from abrasions. “Turn back the covers, lady mother. There is worse yet to see.”
She did; I expected it. But she looked first at something that was not, so far as we knew, injured by the river. He was a man, and whole.
I shut my teeth very tightly. There is in my mother a quality of need, as if she requires a man to note her beauty, to remark upon it, and to profess his ardent interest. She is indeed beautiful, but no man in Valgaard is foolish enough to give her more than covert glances. She is Lochiel’s wife.
It had never been so bad as the past two years. I knew its cause now, though realization was slow, and comprehension more sluggish yet. No daughter desires to see her mother made jealous by her daughter’s ascension to adulthood. But she was. It had been a hard truth, but I understood it at last.
Lochiel’s wife was jealous of Lochiel’s daughter.
You bore me, I said inwardly. How can you envy the child you yourself bore?
But her power was negligible. She was Lochiel’s wife, while I was his daughter. Her value therefore was finished; she had borne him a single girl-child and could bear him no more. Now the value passed to the daughter who would, if married wisely, insure the downfall of the Cheysuli.
It was what she lived for. Despite that she was the bastard daughter of the Cheysuli warrior who sat upon the Lion in the Great Hall of Homana-Mujhar.
“What is this?” She touched his chest. “A knife wound, and deep.”
I could not see his body because of the way she held the blankets, but I did not need to look. I knew what was there. The Bluetooth is cruel. “He should have bled to death, but the river sealed it. When he warms, it will bleed anew. We shall have to be ready.”
She studied him avidly, marking the shape of his battered nose, the muddying of his jawline by swollen bruises, the mutilated left ear. Even his mouth, as if she measured its shape against the way she might desire it to fit her own.
I drew in a sharp breath. It sickened me to see her behave so.
She looked on him, and smiled. Then she looked at me. Something dark moved in her eyes. “You may have him.”
It stopped the breath in my chest. That she could suggest such a thing was monstrous. She would give me my bridegroom because he was so badly hurt as to make him unattractive, and therefore unworthy of her interest.
Revulsion filled me. I looked at the man in the bed, so battered, bruised, and broken. I hope you are handsome. And I hope she chokes on it!
“Now,” she said, “I will order the women in. We will do what we can do…I must make certain my daughter does not lose the man before the bedding.” She said a single word, very quietly—she is, after all, Ihlini—and women came into the chamber.
They stripped him of bedclothes and began to clean his body, swabbing gouges and scrapes, cleaning the knife wound. He made no sound or movement until they touched his leg, and then he roused.
The indrawn hiss was hardly audible in the fuss around his bed, but I heard it. The tendons in his neck stood up, hard and rigid, beneath pale flesh.
My mother put her hand on his brow, pushing away stiffened hair. It was black as my own, and thick, but lacking luster. Sand crusted the pillow.
“Fever,” she said crisply. “Malenna root, then.”
I looked at her sharply. “It will leave him too weak!”
“You see how he fights the pain. I need him weak, and compliant, so the root may do its work.”
So you can assert your control. But I did not say it.
With no word spoken, the women melted against the walls, faces downturned. I knew, without looking, my father had come. “‘Sore hurt,’ I was told.” He walked through the door. “The leg must be set.”
“You could heal it,” I blurted, then wished I had said nothing; one does not suggest to my father what he can or cannot do.
My father smiled. “We do not yet know who he is. He could well be Homanan—why waste the Seker’s gift on a man who is unworthy?” He gestured. “I will set it by conventional means.”
That meant splints and linen. They were brought, and my father motioned for the women to hold him down. He clasped the bruised ankle, then pulled the bone straight.
I watched the man who might be Devin, and therefore meant for me. Eyes rolled beneath pale, vein-threaded lids. His head thrashed until one of the woman caught it between her
hands and stopped its movement. The tendons stood up again, warping his neck; the battered mouth opened. It split the lip again so that it bled, running down his chin to drip against his neck. It spilled into the creases and stained the pillow.
Brilliant crimson against the pallor of fragile flesh. Devin’s flesh?
I felt a frisson of nervous anticipation. If he were Devin, he was to be, with me, a means to destroy the prophecy. I could not help but hope he was indeed Devin so that our plans could continue; we were close, too close, my father said, to losing the battle. Kellin, Prince of Homana, need only sire a son and the thing was done.
But I smiled as I thought of it. Indeed, he need only sire a son upon a particular woman—but Kellin had proved all too selfish with respect to his conduct. For years my father had laughed to hear of the prince’s exploits, saying that so long as Kellin behaved in such a wayward manner he actually aided us, but I knew it could not last. He would have to die, so that we could be certain.
It seemed a simple task. Kill Kellin of Homana—and produce an Ihlini child blessed by the Seker so we need never concern ourselves with the prophecy ever again.
The blood ran freely from the split lip. My mother made a sound of disgust. I wanted very badly to take up a clean cloth and blot away the blood, to press it against his lip so he would not lose more, but I dared not be so intimate before my father.
“There.” My father placed the splints on either side of his leg, then bound it tightly with linen.
The mouth went slack again. His struggle had done more than reopen his lip; now blood flowed sluggishly from his swollen nose.
My mother smiled to see it. “A most unfortunate accident.”
My father’s gaze was on her, steady and unflinching. I could not discern his thoughts. “He will recover,” he said, “provided Asar-Suti desires him to.” He looked now at me. “I will certainly request it. We need this man.”
I stiffened. “Is it Devin?”
“They have searched his baggage more closely. A pouch contained the ring you sent last year, a cache of ward-stones, and the eagle claw charm against lir intrusion. And—this.” He held it up in the light. It was a gold ring set with a deep blood-red stone, nearly black; in its heart light stirred as if roused from sleep. My father smiled. “It knows me.”
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