“I’m not a visitor,” Alyea said cooly, crossing her arms, the neck of the wine bottle gripped firmly in her right hand.
Rainwater collected in a miniature pool around the hollow formed by her fist and spilled over her knuckles; she kept her grip steady, afraid she’d drop the bottle if she tried to adjust her hold. She couldn’t afford to look clumsy or awkward right now.
“I’m Lord Alyea Peysimun, and this is my home. Open the gates and let me pass.”
“Sorry, lady,” he shrugged. “We don’t open the gates for nobody, is our orders. Not even you.”
“Lord Peysimun,” she corrected sharply.
He glanced over her from head to toe with a deliberate, slow insolence. “You don’t look much like a man to me, lady.” A smirk crossed his white-stubbled face.
“Good gods, my mother’s hired a pack of idiots to guard the gates,” Alyea said with as much stinging contempt as she could muster. “What a waste of money.” She caught his eye and snapped, “Open the damn gates right now!”
He twitched, blinked; eyes hazing, he turned, reaching for the handle. His companion knocked his hand aside sharply, barking, “Stop that, Kei! What d’ya think you’re doing?”
The newly-identified Kei’s eyes focused. He swung back around to regard Alyea with a very different expression than he’d had a moment ago.
“How did you just—you’re a witch? Nobody told us you were a witch!” There was no condescension left in his tone, and his stare was a mixture of outrage and wariness.
“I’m not a witch,” Alyea said frostily. “I’m a desert lord.”
“Balls to this,” one of the younger guards said, already edging away. “We ain’t gettin’ paid enough to tangle with one of them.”
“Stand!” the guard who’d stopped Kei from opening the gates barked. “You walk away, you’re done as a freewarrior, boy! The Hall won’t take you on another contract.” He eyed Alyea, scowling. “She ain’t gonna hurt any of us. Are you, Lord Alyea?”
“Not unless you make me,” Alyea said, not moving.
“Don’t plan to,” he returned, crossing his own arms. “Like the boy said, we ain’t gettin’ paid enough to tangle with a real desert lord. An’ the Hall is going to have something to say about that little detail getting left out, let me tell you.”
Alyea hesitated; but any fines levied would come against her Family, and part of her new job was smoothing over ruffled feathers.
“I’d prefer not to bother the Hall over a simple misunderstanding,” she said. “No harm done, after all—as long as you let me through those gates without any more argument.” She smiled. The older guards exchanged calculating glances. Before any of them could speak, Alyea added, “And you’ve certainly shown commendable integrity in following orders, and a quick reaction to a changed situation.”
The faint hint that a bonus would be involved—one that would go straight into their pockets, not the Hall’s—tipped it. All four guards bowed, more or less together, and stepped aside ostentatiously.
“We were told not to open the gates for nobody,” Kei said, looking steadfastly just past her right ear. “Reckon we won’t open the gates for nobody, right?”
Alyea smiled without humor. As she went by, she handed the bottle of Stecatr blue to a startled but visibly delighted Kei.
“Looks like I won’t be needing this after all,” she said, and pushed through the gates.
Peysimun Mansion fronted on a wide courtyard of grey and brown brick arranged in large, interconnecting circles. In the center of every second circle stood a giant clay pot spilling over with brightly colored plants, the centerpiece of each taller than Alyea. A rain-slick scattering of dead leaves made footing treacherous; Alyea slowed her pace, frowning a little. Her mother had always been insistent on keeping the courtyard pristine, and the weather didn’t seem so bad as to prevent the gardeners from cleaning up.
An uneasy chill working down her spine, she cut swiftly to the left, aiming for the servant’s entrance. A heartbeat later, primal instinct dropped her to the ground.
A sharp thurrrr cut through the air where she’d just been standing.
Something clattered to the ground well past her.
Still working on reflex alone, Alyea rolled, fetching up behind one of the giant planters, and drew into a tight crouch, palms flat on the ground. Three more arrows clattered on the courtyard brick.
An eerie silence descended.
Alyea stared at the scattered arrows in disbelief; then her thoughts snapped into sharp, unemotional focus. Her mother, for all her faults, would never try to kill her own daughter: which meant someone else was in the Mansion.
The gates seemed very far away, and across too much open ground. With a new, paranoid suspicion, Alyea wondered if the guards hadn’t given way and let her in a shade too easily. If so, getting out wouldn’t be nearly so simple.
She couldn’t hide behind the planter forever. As though to punctuate that thought, one of the gate guards peered through the gate at her, a drawn dagger in his hand. Without waiting to find out his intentions, she took a deep breath and leapt, rolling across the wet cobbles, to the dubious shelter of a planter closer to the house.
More arrows clattered around her. She crouched behind her new protection, panting a little and not at all sure that she was going in the right direction. If she’d tried, she could probably have made it to the fence and been up and over relatively fast. Rubbing her hands against her leggings, she thought about gripping wet, rusty metal and reconsidered that idea.
And even if she had succeeded in running away, what then? Involve the king in the matter, have guards called out to attack her own home, probably half destroying it in the process? No. This was Family business, not something for Bright Bay authority to meddle in.
She’d handle it herself.
A definite advantage of her new position was that a large planter stood between her and the gate now, blocking any straight-line shot that might come from that direction. But the more time she took to think about her next move, the more time her opponents would have to prepare for it. She launched herself from shelter again, tumbling across hard ground that ripped her clothes and scraped the exposed skin on her hands, elbows, and knees.
She ignored the stinging, gritty pain as trivial and made it to the side of the main building before the arrows had finished splattering across the courtyard. Three men rose from concealment as she arrived, long daggers in their hands; no doubt as to their intent.
With no leisure time in which to capture their wills, Alyea had no option but to fight.
As three more men came in behind her, she began to wish she’d opted for retreat after all.
Chapter Five
Deiq read the letter three times, carefully sorting through for anything left unsaid; but Idisio had been brutally direct, even explicit, in a way that sent a shiver up Deiq’s arms. The young ha’ra’ha made no defense of his actions in his explanation: he’d killed a human by feeding—not a particularly troublesome issue to Deiq’s way of thinking, as the younger hadn’t been caught, but Idisio clearly loathed himself for it.
I hated myself for the same thing, a matter of days ago, Deiq thought ruefully. But Idisio’s situation wasn’t at all the same as it had been with Meer; Idisio had been misled into the action by his mother and had no real blame to attach to himself over the killing. And after all, Idisio was ha’ra’ha; this would have happened sooner or later, like it or not.
Ha’ra’hain liked killing, when all the surface gloss was stripped away. Feeding from a desert lord was...adequate. A feeding that took an entire life...was considerably more than that. Youngers had to learn to restrain themselves, just as desert lords needed to rein in their passions and tempers after the change.
Deiq sighed. I should have had that long talk with him before his mother got hold of him.
Too late now. Much too late, considering that the next paragraph outlined a bare-bones account of Idisio killing a ha’ra’ha: that had
been his own mother—and worse than even that was the way he’d done it.
He fed on his own mother. Good gods...Talk about breaking every major Law!
Deiq drew a deep breath, shut his eyes, and allowed himself a heartfelt shudder. The Jungles would have Idisio under a death hunt when they heard of his actions, and the boy clearly suspected as much. He was continuing north to Arason, he wrote, to his mother’s cottage by the shores of Ghost Lake. He would continue writing reports on the northern kingdom under the name Gerau Sa’adenit, and had no plans to ever travel below the line of the Great Forest again.
He would send a full report on Arason as well, to Deiq personally, so there was no further need for Deiq and Alyea to travel all the way north. And in that single sentence stood the only implication in the entire letter, the warning Idisio hadn’t quite been able to make himself say directly: Don’t follow me. Don’t come after me. I’ll fight.
With the life and strength stolen from Idisio’s insane mother surging through the young ha’ra’ha’s body, standing on the shores of the Lake where he’d been conceived and born...Deiq wasn’t at all sure who would win that fight.
He sat staring at the letter for some time, as the candles burned down and the rain tapped erratically on the roof. At last he picked the pages up, one by one, and held them to the flame of the nearest candle.
Just as the last one fell apart into a thin blur of black ash, a hot thread of agony raced from his heels to the back of his head. The chair crashed back as he jerked to his feet, teeth bared; he could feel his eyes sliding out of human-normal, and a rage with roots deep as a mountain swamped over him.
What the hells—
Even as he drew in breath to fight off the unexpected fury, the prompt behind it clarified:
Wet leaves underfoot, bared swords, the smell of blood, sweat, fear, pain: muscles straining, too many opponents, no way out—
“Damnit,” he said aloud, “you can’t stay the fuck out of trouble, can you—”
Then all coherence blurred under imperative. Rage swamped through him, deeper, blacker, and less controllable than it had been in hundreds of years: Mine! it screamed. Mine, mine, MINE.
The room went away, replaced by chill damp air, the smell of wet leaves and rust and blood, human blood, her blood—and Alyea, behind him; those attacking her spread out in front of him. He spared a glance to be sure she wasn’t dangerously injured yet, then turned on the armed men.
A few bodies later, he caught a glimpse of her white, shocked face: She’s never seen this before; she doesn’t understand. The realization was enough—barely—to slide a bridle of rationality over his rage. He finished what he’d started, forcing himself to stay human enough to avoid scaring her further.
He turned to face her, breathing hard from the effort of standing still. “Stay or go?”
What happened, what the hells is going on, what are you doing here instead of at the palace didn’t really matter at the moment. Either she wanted to leave or to complete what she’d come here for. Questions could wait.
She stared at him, pale and shaken. He repeated the question more sharply. That seemed to push her out of her daze; she said, “Stay. My mother—I have to get my mother out of there.”
Lady Peysimun could rot for all Deiq cared, but it wasn’t his choice. He nodded acknowledgment. With a brief glance down at the bodies, Alyea started towards the side door. Deiq snorted impatiently and moved into her way, stopping her.
“Wait,” he said. “Where is she?”
“I—” She shook her head, her eyes focusing on his left sleeve. Her face went even more ashen. Glancing down, he saw a long arc of blood spattered from elbow to shoulder.
She would have fainted, if she’d seen me the last time I rescued her, he thought sourly; which brought back memory of his roiling, useless fury that she’d even been kidnapped in the first place, and added to the haze already clouding the edges of his vision.
Growling in frustration, he shoved at her shoulder hard to get her attention back. “Where?” he shouted, leaning forward. “Where, damnit?”
“I don’t know!” she snapped back, distracted from fear into an anger of her own. “I don’t know what’s going on in there!”
Her anger aggravated his already taut nerves. Not inclined to explain, he grabbed her by both shoulders and moved them inside, into a familiar enough place for the transition to be safe: her room, where he’d knelt, scant days ago, in terror of her dying—where she’d pitched a thankfully empty bedpan at his head, and a heavier vase at Eredion’s, and only quieted when a complete stranger—a dangerous stranger—allowed her to cry herself out on his sturdy shoulder. Then she fell asleep in the stranger’s arms—
Deiq would have been happy never to see that room and the memories it held again.
As it clarified around them, he saw that it held more than memories: over a dozen armed men waited, and the furniture had been pushed aside to allow for easy fighting room—
He would have to lose all control in order to fight this many, and Alyea would see it—No. She’s not ready for that yet.
Before the waiting men could more than blink in startlement, Deiq removed himself and Alyea from that trap and returned them to the Church tower.
“Too many,” he panted as air returned for breath. “Too damn many. Stay here—”
Much as he’d rather let the stupid woman die, he’d have to get Lady Peysimun out himself. He couldn’t bring Alyea back there, not until he took care of the situation.
With his full strength returned, what was coming would make his recent charge through the ranks of her kidnappers look like a children’s dance. For a fraction of a moment, he considered calling for Eredion’s help, then dismissed the idea as swiftly. The desert lord would take too long to arrive, would only get in the way—and Deiq didn’t want him to see this, either.
Treacherous memory flickered, reminding him of the state he’d found Alyea in at Lady Arnil’s house and stoking the rage even higher. Alyea didn’t know yet, didn’t understand that sharing could transfer memories; didn’t realize that while he’d shielded his own memories fairly well, she couldn’t hide hers as effectively, and he’d seen—
The edges of his vision blurred further, leaving him with a dangerously tight focus.
He spared another second to order himself, sternly, not to kill innocents; not to kill Alyea’s mother, or any servants, or anyone helpless. Hoping at least some part of him would remember that injunction, he drew in a deep breath and let the rage loose as he stepped into Peysimun Mansion’s inner rooms.
The rage quickly transformed, as he’d known it would, into a fierce joy. The silky feel and bitter taste of blood lit every nerve ending in his body on fire. He ripped through the room, savoring every scream, the scent of fear, urine, feces and blood sweeter than the finest bouquet of flowers.
I’m not so different from Kippin, in that respect... He’d had similar experiences before. The joy he felt in wreaking such destruction had contributed to his centuries-long spiral into depression. Right now, though, the cruelty of what he was doing meant nothing.
Dimly, Deiq regretted that he couldn’t simply pull the lives from his opponents, like ripping the silk from a cob of corn; that would have been faster, and much more pleasurable. But his ha’reye heritage forbade it as a waste—he didn’t need that energy at the moment—and his human heritage, although only a trace element at this point, still screamed against it as obscene.
For once, the tiny coherent part of his mind observed, both sides agree. At another time, that might have made him laugh.
He slammed through another door into a broad central hallway. Groups of armed guards stood at either end. The front ranks held spears and swords; behind them, bowmen had arrows nocked and ready. Clearly they thought him trapped. Whichever way he went, the other side would send arrows through his back.
His grin widened.
Even as the archers’ hands drew back in the tiniest shift, he dropped out of
human time into other-perception and flung himself forward. Everything froze around him, each human in-breath taking multiple heartbeats, plenty of time in which to destroy them all—
—and the air filled with a fine spray of white dust that must have been dropped from above moments before, just as he set his shoulder to the now shattered door. Stibik—stepping elsewhere wasn’t possible through a cloud of that. Gods, they’d thrown a lot of it into the air—he could feel it settling like a million insect bites against every bit of exposed skin, slowing him, pulling him sharply out of other-perception and back into a nearly human speed.
Deiq spun, eyes shut, and desperately tried to launch himself back into the room, to get the remnants of that door between him and the dust—
—a net fell over him—
—a hard blow to his stomach drove the air from his lungs, forcing him to suck in a fresh breath of stibik-laden air—
—and everything hazed, twisted, and went black.
Chapter Six
Eredion had been given a chance, at one point, to walk away from it all. To leave Bright Bay, to just keep going, on into the northlands, start over again where nobody knew him as Eredion Sessin, ambassador to Bright Bay. Where nobody expected anything of him. Rainy days like this tended to remind him of that, and to make him question the wisdom of staying.
He sat in his favorite chair and stared out the fine glass windows at the dreary day outside. Just the window itself—a recent installation by, of course, Sessin artisans—reminded him of things he didn’t want to think about. He’d sat here many times over the last few years, staring at sun and rain alike through what had been thickly bubbled squares of glass, his view of himself as distorted and gloomy as his view of the outside.
Replacing the glass had only helped the latter.
Slender hands pressed lightly on his shoulders from behind.
Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) Page 4