Luca stepped back. “You release him, he will tear this tribe apart with what he knows.”
“I am aware,” she replied through gritted teeth. “It will damn us all, but so do you. More than just the tribe, you risk all of Ayr. So know what I threaten if you do not place that girl upon the block this instant.”
Luca reached out with his Listener Mind and received nothing but truth from his matriarch. That she was willing to risk the entire tribe in a gamble for Caddie was clear, but he was unafraid. His imbued lockblade was already open, and he knew he could not lose: Simza had already given him the tool to defeat her long ago. Taking a step to the Ikus orb, his hand hovered over the glass.
“One orb for another, then?”
=No!
The rumble emanated from his insides with the force of an earthquake, causing his hand to brush the orb of Ikus. The sphere teetered a moment before dislodging and plummeting. Luca lunged for it, but his shoulder struck the pedestal, allowing the sphere to strike the ground. Every part of his rational mind knew the primitive glass was thick enough to withstand the fall, yet the fissures appeared immediately. Blooming with cracks, the sphere held together only a second before crumbling in upon itself. Desperately, Luca grasped at the four emerging Breaths as if his fingers could somehow press them back together. Yet freed of their ancient constraint, they passed through his flesh and split apart; they were no longer their progenitor Ikus, but four anonymous Breaths disappearing into the flow to be swallowed by the nameless nodus.
A Soul-shattering dread gripped Luca as he turned back to Simza and Jaelle. His love paled, Jaelle’s arm grasping at anything as she searched for support. Simza too staggered before regaining her composure. As she did, Luca glimpsed the steel in her spine that had supported the wolari for so long.
“You ruined this tribe,” she intoned. “And I heap ruin upon you in turn with my curse. What once made you strong, will lay you low, will betray you as you have betrayed your kind. Nadji, igaj, and gaji alike will hunt you until the ends of Ayr. All will know you and hate you for the tsor you are.”
The luz jar with the stolen Render Breath hovered high above her head, and Luca held his hands up in supplication. “One day, give me one day. For the love your daughter bears me, give me one day.”
A sneer creased Simza’s face as she looked to her daughter. “Do you give him this day?”
Luca prayed he could convince Jaelle with his eyes alone. The years they spent waiting to wed could not be undone, so the shake of her head nearly broke him.
“You bear my curse as well, and may each night be worse than the last until you breathe no more.”
The shattering of the luz jar punctuated Jaelle’s curse, the amethyst Breath within firing off into the west. New and still stinging, the loss of his love hurt worse than the surety of the relentless Render’s revenge. The women’s curses promised more pain in the future, but for the moment, Luca believed he could not possibly hurt more. If it was for him alone, he would hand over his now-damned lockblade and allow Simza to end him as he deserved.
But Caddie still called to him. He was meant for a death he well-deserved, but until that moment, he needed to secure the child’s safety. “I only ask that you spare Isabelle and this girl. Surely they don’t mean any more to you.”
Simza sucked at her teeth, her hand clutching something beneath her dress. “Had you not asked, they would have been spared. But since they mean something to you, they will die screaming. Everyone along the lines will know their names and the price on their heads.”
Luca feared her answer and was not unprepared for it as he strode to Simza. With a flick, his cursed lockblade emerged again, and he sliced into her abdomen as Erro taught him ages ago at Simza’s behest. Her eyes went wide, and Luca took some cruel amusement at her surprise. Before she could even react, his free hand pressed hard against the wound.
Jaelle gave a strangled cry, but Luca paid it no mind. “You need to press here, and soon. I’m going to let go, and if you don’t push, she’ll be dead in minutes. But if you hold your hands here, she’ll live long enough for the doctors I’ll send for to reach her.”
His beloved hesitated, and Luca shook his head. “Hurry now. You only have three seconds more.”
Jaelle’s hands covered his instantly, their fingers intertwining amidst her mother’s blood. Luca let their last touch linger only a moment before he withdrew his hand. The two women sequestered outside the flow of the nodus, Luca tried to soak up the memory of the moment before he shattered it. “I’ll send word down the line you need help. It will arrive before she dies, I promise. My love… I’m sorry.”
She finally looked at him, Jaelle’s eyes boring into his. He hoped she might find it within her to forgive him, but then she turned away to tend to her mother. Their years of waiting meant nothing, and Luca realized then and there it would have been impossible to extricate her from her familial ties. He had always imagined them as ropes holding her down—ropes he could cut away with his devotion. Only now, with Simza’s blood adorning them both, could he see that the strands binding Jaelle were heartstrings he had dared to try and cut.
Simza came to the same conclusion as she huffed a gurgling laugh. Luca considered killing her for it, freeing not only himself but her daughter from the woman’s influence. Instead, his blade flicked down beneath the nape of her dress to pull out a locket on a cord. Claiming the necklace, he sliced the cord instead of his matriarch’s neck.
Chapter 24
Solmonad 9, 564 (Three Years Ago)
Luca could not conceive how he ever survived without Isabelle. He might be Simza’s right hand, but the girl was his—a bietala in everything but name. Replacing Marko and Petro on all ensuing excursions, Isabelle excelled at four instances of acquisition and another in sabotage. The latter still concerned Luca as Simza silently threw her support behind the Newfield forces despite still regularly meeting with Covenant elites, like Dorothy Kohl. The Grand War no more than a proxy war between the Renders and Weavers, Luca could not understand why Simza risked turning either side into an enemy. Neutrality was the Dobra way, and some dark part of him took solace in that his mute companion incapable of writing would never be able to share the tribe’s secret.
Isabelle existed in the spaces between things. With no true home of her own, she slipped from one society to the next without causing a stir. Because she belonged nowhere, those that did belong ignored her, as if acknowledging her would somehow threaten their status. Despite her age at what he guessed to only be sixteen, Luca recognized he was safer with her than he had ever been with Bo. She took the wide-open spaces between the towns where only the ley flowed like a bird to flight. Despite being an old hand at Simza’s missions, fear always nibbled at Luca when he departed civilization, but the girl seemed to expand as soon as they left the wolari; she truly belonged on the outskirts she called home.
At least that was where Luca assumed. Not two months since saving Luca, Simza told the girl in no uncertain terms that though she still might serve her, Isabelle was no longer welcome in the wolari. Luca expected Isabelle to balk, but the girl departed without a fuss. She was told to return to her family, but Luca doubted she obeyed this instruction, Isabelle disappearing for weeks on end only to unerringly appear when Simza required her. Simza never disclosed the how of it, but Isabelle displayed a pendant when Luca inquired. Through her Mind she said it glowed to indicate Simza’s summoning, imparting images as to her mistress’ location. Such an imbued object meant Simza valued the girl beyond many in her own tribe, cementing Isabelle’s status as an igaj. Such a rank was rare, but Isabelle just shrugged when Luca explained the significance. She seemed equally as dismissive when Luca told her how Simza sacrificed an animal to enchant it, an act considered profane by many gaji. Her indifference should not have surprised him, the girl with a knack for hunting squirrels and crows. Once she spotted her quarry, Isabelle would extend her sling in full sight of her prey. Then she would gently begin to whirl it, i
ncreasing until she had it up to speed. Interested by the odd motion, her prey would approach, Isabelle finally releasing the deadly missile to claim the creature.
“If you’re hunting curious critters, it’s probably best we keep you away from cats,” he joked.
=Why? Cats taste good.
Perhaps to overcome all her time alone, Isabelle never ceased her inaudible chatter when with Luca. Dreams were her favorite topic, each morning insisting Luca tell her his. With his dream of wedding Jaelle becoming more real by the day, Luca barely remembered his nocturnal mental excursions, but dutifully recounted what he did. These Isabelle added to her own before launching into interpretation. This morning diversion quickly became routine, the girl explaining that this process was how her tribe decided their days. Even among the Ingios tribes, the Nahut paid extra attention to the importance of dreams, believing them bestowed by the Breaths of their ancestors.
It took Luca many encounters to finally get his head around it, but her tribe believed each of them consisted of the Breath that had always existed within the tribe alone. All the Ingios were constructed this way according to the Nahut, each one sharing the same Breath over and over again. Occasionally the Breath would stray to other animals they held sacred, but the Breath was always shared only among the tribe to guide them on the journeys their ancestors had already accomplished over and over again. The idea that she believed her fate was tied to what an ancestor did eons past caused Luca to chuckle, but he was surprised when Isabelle insisted that she was free from her tribe. Since her father was not one of them, his outsider status stole the ancestral Breaths bestowed by her mother’s line to create her and her siblings. Intertwined with his invading Breath, those of the ancestor still tied up within her now tainted and lost to her people, forever diminished the tribe as a whole.
“If your ancestors don’t want you, then why are you still relying on their dreams?” He meant it as a joke, but Isabelle bristled, indicating his bix sticks.
=Throw them day every. Do not believe?
“They’re a habit,” he countered. “Just because I do it doesn’t mean I believe.”
=Then why?
Luca was at a loss, eliciting a laugh from Isabelle. To him, it sounded like a dog’s bark, and with any luck, she would soon overcome the unpleasant sound once she acclimated to life without her tongue.
***
His bix sticks bode ill, though Isabelle assured him her dreams ensured their success. Even before Simza issued the mission, Jaelle begged him to refuse. Through his Mind, Luca could feel her fear, but to refuse Simza would nullify their wager for her daughter, so he lied, softly assuring Jaelle he felt no fear.
Although she seldom left her vurd anymore, Simza gave him sure directions to a spot deep within Ingios territory she called Dama. Upon hearing the word, Isabelle spat upon the ground, explaining to him the place was unclean. Luca already knew what she meant, and though Isabelle’s term for the place was different, both meant the same thing: Tolmen.
Despite her distaste, Isabelle led Luca to the cursed land undeterred. Simza’s prize resided within, hunks of rock she said would be interlaced with unnatural glass. They would be found in the center of the tolmen, and Luca’s bravery nearly abandoned him upon hearing that. Isabelle only barked her laugh, explaining there existed paths through the tolmen etched by her ancestors long ago. When he voiced his apprehension of the ghuls residing within, she produced her knife, the stone so black it glistened. Fashioning a second knife for him, she swore they would separate the ghuls’ Breaths sure as glass. She seemed absolutely sure of her claim, but Luca feared testing its validity firsthand.
Their journey took nearly a month as Isabelle led them on deep into Ingios territory, and Luca felt the earth sickening as they approached the tolmen. The feeling remained so overwhelming that he feared drinking from the nearby creek, though Isabelle assured him it was clean. As dusk deepened into outright night, he spotted the poisoned nodus up ahead and mentally prepared for battle. But Isabelle called a halt as she pointed to a set of stones stacked atop each other. This, she said, was a code shared among all the Ingios tribes, sure as the strings struck through her earlobes, to warn travelers of the invisible dangers that awaited them within the tolmen during daylight. Studying the stones, Isabelle declared this tolmen to be inhabited by night-birds that ran on land with the head of chat-tah-ren.
It had been a long time since Luca heard her term, but he remembered it well.
***
They did not make their attempt that night, Isabelle instead marking the flittering movements within the tolmen from afar. They held their vigil throughout the night, Isabelle unfurling her bedroll at dawn.
=Get sleep. We go tonight when they light.
The way she said it reminded him somewhat of Bo, and Luca bristled at being the bietala to her. But she double checked his stone knife that she said would save them against the ghuls as she gave her directive, and so he kept his thoughts to himself.
Upon awakening, Isabelle did not bother asking after his dreams before launching into her own. In them, she said she saw a woman with eyes like iron. She was large as the sea, a word Luca was sure Isabelle misunderstood. An inhabitant of the Soltera interior, she had never encountered a significant body of water until Luca took her to behold the Saulshish Ocean outside Gatlin. Unimpressed, she gazed at the water rolling on until the horizon and asked how long it would take to swim. He laughed before stating several months. Isabelle seemed properly impressed, soon using the word “sea” for any vast expanse.
“So, she’d take a week to walk from foot to face?” Luca teased.
Isabelle only stared back at his question.
“How’s she so big, this woman with the iron eyes? Tall? Wide?”
=Big. Big as sea but faraway.
“How far?”
=Horizon past and as gast. Might come but not. Faraway but there.
“Then this woman with the steel eyes won’t be joining us tonight?”
Her gaze tracked to the tolmen, which began to bustle with inhuman life at dusk. Shaking her head back and forth so hard he sounded like a sorting horse, Isabelle slapped her belly a few times before standing.
=Ready?
***
Luca swore he aged a year before dawn. The night thronged with beasts borne entirely of Breath intent on tearing his flesh apart, yet Isabelle stalked through the tolmen apparently unconcerned all the while. As if in an inhuman game of hide-and-seek, she shot one direction then the next through the cursed land. Luca noted many different stacks of stones he guessed guided their path, but did not dare to disturb her by asking. Discarding all Acwealt words in favor of her native Nahut, her Mind might have well been closed to him.
Against all odds, she somehow led them to the cold heart of the tolmen unmolested. Her hand-made knife clutched tight, she gestured Luca towards the scarred earth beneath the blackened nodus. Ignoring the black rent in the air radiating an unnatural light, Luca dug into the ground until the earth groaned. His prize came clear in a large chunk, the rock inundated with gems weighing him down during their escape.
Although they had been lucky enough to avoid any ghuls as Isabelle steered them in, disgorging Simza’s stone brought the monsters down upon them. Some Isabelle cut away with her black blade, Luca amazed despite himself by the truth of her claim. Yet her instincts finally steered them wrong, Luca forced to drop the rock and save them both. His hand reached for Bo’s lockblade in his pocket on instinct, Luca remembering almost too late Isabelle’s stone knife. With it he cut away their enemies with an efficiency that impressed the usually impassive Isabelle, Luca sensing her appropriate awe after dispatching the beasts in a dance only he knew the steps to.
She ended up staring too long, Luca yelling to return her to awareness. Back in the fight, she sidestepped the rest of the ghuls until finally collapsing beyond a small pillar of stones. Without any care to the monsters still trailing them, she dissolved into peals of laughter. Unlike the hars
hness of her usual barks, Luca felt real joy there as she hooted at the death chasing after her so ineffectually. It might catch her one day, but tonight she escaped it yet again, and she took great joy in that.
Luca did too.
***
The three Ingios appeared with the dawn, Isabelle and Luca still only a few feet from the stones signifying the end of the tolmen. Two kept their distance, their slings hanging heavy with a stone in the pouch. The third kept his stone knife at his waist, speaking a language Luca did not know.
Isabelle pointed to the strings shoved through her ears, Luca tensing as their leader looked them over. His hand on his steel lockblade, he doubted the nearest would stand a chance, but the two opponents sporting the slingshots worried him. If they ended up half as accurate as Isabelle, he would not survive.
Observing Isabelle’s threads, the leader finally sheathed his knife, but it was not until his underlings rolled their slings back up that Luca relaxed. Staring into the tolmen prowling with now invisible ghuls, their leader gave a chuckle, one Luca did not find nearly as genuine as Isabelle’s the previous night. The five of them shared a meal made of a dried mixture of animal fat and meat mixed with berries so tough Luca thought his jaw destined to disintegrate.
The three men addressed Luca, Isabelle acting as an interpreter. She did not share their particular dialect, but ascertained their meaning easily enough. They wanted to know why anyone was insane enough to disturb a tolmen, and as Luca considered, Isabelle grabbed their prize from the tolmen, hoisting the rock high. Their leader nodded, saying a word Luca looked to Isabelle to explain:
=Starfall
***
As soon as the three Ingios disappeared over the horizon, Isabelle walked to the creek, shedding clothes as she went. Together for weeks at a time, Luca never encountered any inclination towards bathing from the girl, her earthy odor exceedingly familiar to him. Covering his eyes, Luca inquired as to her sudden interest.
The Imbued Lockblade (Sol's Harvest Book 2) Page 25