Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4)

by Leona Wisoker

  Eyes blurred. His hands clenched into taut fists as the pain eased a notch higher.

  What did Allo do when he healed me? Memory of the man’s hands, warm around Tank’s legs; agony receding little by little. It hadn’t all been the salve—but how had he done it?

  I don’t know what the hells I’m doing...but the only person I can hurt is myself....

  Alyea’s memory, someone warning: You have to start being very careful what you want....

  Willpower. Is it that simple?

  He forced himself to think about the pain, instead of shutting it out. A low whine escaped his throat as agony ratcheted off the scale, beyond blocking. Tore something—not getting up, no—worse than I thought.

  His head swam. Don’t want Dasin—no. Won’t have it—won’t have him fussing—damnit!

  Focusing felt like shoving through a mountain: slogging through solid rock, forcing his way through every crack and crevice of clarity. Some endless time later, he emerged into a bizarre, still calm, a centered moment of sureness. Pain rainbowed to all sides, forming a slick, oily lake, dome, walls—but none of it directly touched him. He looked down at his legs to find the skin gone transparent: torn muscles flared crystalline, reddened patterns from hip to toes.

  He reached—it took no effort, brought no strain to lower back, arm, neck—an impossible reach, fingers thinner than reality allowed—touched a red line, easing a loose end sideways, up against the equally ruddy streak of bone—held it, willing—

  Red faded, the end splaying into a thousand tiny filaments, reattaching, weaving too rapidly to track—

  There were more red lines. He stroked each one, delicate, feather-touch, back to its proper place; watched color flare and fade, the rainbow around him dissolving—

  “Tank?”

  He shuddered all over, drew his legs up against his chest in reflexive defense: banged his head against the wall when he looked up, and yelped more from startlement than pain.

  Dasin laughed. “You fell asleep,” he said. “Get up already.” He held out a hand.

  “Nhrrr.” Tank shook his head, rubbing his eyes. There had been something—important—or was it done? He couldn’t remember. He put a hand to the ground, shoved, worked his way up the wall until he stood fully on his feet.

  Dasin dropped his hand. “Stubborn loon,” he muttered. “Nothing’s stolen. Let’s get on the road.”

  “Hhhh.” Tank blinked, leaning back against the wall, and found himself flexing his right ankle, then his left.

  “Quit dancing. Let’s go,” Dasin said, cross.

  “Huh. Yeah. Sorry.” Tank took a step, another; dimly surprised and not sure why. He shook his head and went to saddle Ginibar.

  As he tightened the final straps, she shifted and slammed a hoof down near one of his feet. He jerked back, swearing under his breath; stopped mid-curse, a strong shudder working down his back, and stood nearly paralyzed with unidentified emotion for a moment. At last he looked down at his legs, slowly, dreading vision. Rough cloth and hard boots met his gaze, not flayed muscle. And no pain.

  You have a gift....

  He fought back a surge of nausea; another; then lurched to the corner of Ginibar’s stall and lost the battle altogether. She snorted and stomped again, crowding the opposite wall hard enough to make boards creak.

  Tank regained his feet, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He leaned against the rough boards of the stall, shivering all over. Ginibar turned restlessly, her bulk looming towards him. Her head swung round, wide dark eyes regarding him with vague puzzlement.

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he muttered, catching hold of the bridle’s cheek strap. He leaned against her musty warmth for a precious moment, allowing himself one last self-indulgent shudder of utter horror, then led her from the stall.

  Chapter Forty

  “This is a story that goes back many years,” the daimaina said. “Much of this story does not concern you, and I will not tell those parts of it: I only mention this to make you aware that many small things contributed to events over a very long time.” She paused for a moment, then went on, “You have been told the story of the Beginning, and of the Split. Much of what you have been told by others, even the story given you during your blood trials, is either lies or distortions. The teyanain remember the truth, and it is not a pleasant truth to hear or to know.”

  She paused again, tilting her head slightly, but shook her head when Alyea moved a hand toward the small cup.

  “When the ha’reye emerged and met humanity, there was one, a human priestess of the time, who stood as liaison. She heard the winds, she spoke to the gods, and she thought, at first, that the new voices came from sacred sources. By the time she discovered what she had led her people into, it was too late; she was bound to the Jungles and named as the First among their followers. Time went by differently for her, and she learned things no human had ever conceived of as possible before. She grew very powerful, very strong, through many trials and tests and sharings. She began to resemble her teachers: she became ha’rai’nin.”

  The daimaina stopped again, pursing her lips slightly.

  “She forgot about the outside world, and the world forgot about the ha’reye, little by little; information was muddled and distorted, important people died without passing along the truths they held. Before and after the Split, this happened, and the Split itself was not a short event: it took over a hundred years. Some loremasters call it two hundred. But throughout all of it, the ha’reye did not stop watching the world for danger and changes that would not benefit them. That is one thing humans forget easily: the ha’reye have never stopped watching, even during the Split. Especially not during the Split.”

  She paused again.

  “This is a small matter,” she added, “small but important, like a pebble that begins the avalanche. One day this First among the ha’rai’nain raised her head from her studies to find a trouble starting in the outside world, one which concerned her for reasons I will not explain. Time is judged differently in the Jungles, and by the time serious concern even arose, a major Fortress lay empty and bloodied, a single surviving child crying in the sands outside.”

  Alyea drew in a deep, even breath, reminding herself that questions and comments were not permitted; it was proving more difficult than she’d expected. The priestess almost had to be Teilo, the child Cafad Scratha, but it seemed unlikely that names would be mentioned in this discussion. Alyea wasn’t sure whether that came from another teyanain custom or if the daimaina had a specific reason for being coy.

  The woman went on, words slowing and easing into a more relaxed cadence, as if coming to the end of a tale: “And so this First among the ha’rai’nain, who had not left the Jungles since the day she walked away from her human brethren, and again for her own reasons, which I will not explain, left the Jungles to investigate what had happened at this Fortress.”

  The daimaina fell silent, flicking a glance at the tea cup. Alyea took a small sip. The liquid came as a welcome relief to the growing dryness in her throat. The teyanain woman nodded and continued the story.

  “She was permitted to leave, but on finding her answers, she petitioned to stay out in the mortal world to resolve the situation she discovered. Permission was denied: she was ordered to return. But for the first time in a thousand years of service, she defied her teachers and broke her covenant, and became hask: one who is cast out of the tribe. The Jungles consider her mad. Those she associates with are suspect. Anyone she allies with must also be mad, and therefore dangerous, and therefore is to be destroyed as a danger to the world. This is the word of the Jungles.”

  Alyea drew in a long, shallow breath, blinking hard, and managed—just—not to say anything. The daimaina’s eyes gleamed with amusement, then cooled to a more impassive cast.

  “The teyanain have always been different, as you may have been told once or twice.”

  Alyea snorted involuntary laughter, then hastily covered her mouth with her hand.


  The daimaina inclined her head, expression solemn, and said, “It is the truth. We have always prided ourselves on thinking clearly for ourselves, not by what others tell us is true. We have kept records and stored historical items since coming to the Horn; this was not possible in a nomadic life. Even in a stationary existence, many important things are lost by those less careful. But we are careful. We are the keepers of the truths others discard. We store the secrets of the sands. And we do not accept the word of the Jungles as our law, because we know too much about the ha’reye, and about what the ha’reye have done to humanity.”

  She paused, watching Alyea’s face. After a measured interval, as though giving Alyea time to think through what had been said, she went on.

  “The ha’ra’hain, no less than their parents, manipulate humans to their gain. That only a handful of lesser ha’ra’hain walk the surface of the world is truly a blessing, although more people contain traces of mixed blood than is generally suspected. But that only one First Born has survived is more than a blessing: it is the reason our world has not been completely destroyed yet. This one First Born, this most sane and restrained of all the First Born, who now walks among us in the guise of a rich, self-indulgent merchant, could cause all of humanity to be wiped from the earth with a slight effort on his part and a few words to the Jungles. Do not forget this. It is very important.”

  Alyea opened her mouth. The daimaina raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. Alyea snapped her mouth shut, bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, and forced her fisted hands to flatten on the table. After a long pause, hands shaking, she reached for the small cup and took another sip.

  The daimaina smiled, but no warmth came into her eyes. “This one First Born,” she said, “cannot be killed. Oh, he can be injured, and weakened, and crippled; but never killed. There is a thing among the ha’ra’hain, a blood rage. It comes out when a ha’ra’ha is under such extreme duress that they believe their life is seriously threatened. It is not a thing a ha’ra’ha has any control over. It is a reflex, a jerking away from a flame, that overrides all sense in them and turns them into killing monsters. In a blood rage, this First Born would kill his closest friend, his dearest lover, his favorite pet. It is all the same. And if there are no lives nearby to claim, this First Born will go out and find those lives. He will step across rivers, cities, mountains, oceans to find an opponent to destroy, until he is sated.”

  Alyea shut her eyes, remembering Deiq’s unexpected appearance followed by a single step that took them into her bedroom, then from Peysimun Mansion all the way to the Church Tower; remembered gore splattered across the walls of Peysimun Mansion. She nodded slowly, not caring if that motion broke any rules.

  “Yes,” the daimaina said. “You have seen what this First Born can do. And I do not think he was in full blood-rage at the time. He was not taking lives to strengthen himself. I believe he wished to remain human-sane as much as possible. This is a very dangerous person, this First Born.”

  And yet he was captured and brought here against his will, and now he’s loose within your Fortress, Alyea thought. She felt her mouth opening and plastered her hand across to keep words from spilling out. She had so many questions and comments piling up that she was beginning to feel nauseated.

  “The teyanain lord has already told you this is why we imprisoned the First Born when you were here before,” the daimaina continued. “We wished to ensure your safety, because you are a rare thing, a new thing, and such is not generally approved of by the Jungles. They wish all to stay as it is, as it always has been, without disruption; but humanity, like the ants we so resemble to a ha’rethe’s eye, is far too fast moving and industrious for that to be possible. So we made sure that the First Born did not wish you harm, and that the younger did not wish you harm. And while the teyanain lord will never say this, I know he regrets the alarm and hurt caused by his actions, and wishes he could trust the First Born more clearly. And so now, with all of the information you need given, I will present my proposal.”

  Alyea glanced down at the cup. No more than two sips of tea remained. She fisted and flattened her hands a few times to ease the tension in her muscles, then took one sip. It seared her throat like acid, and she coughed hard for several moments before she was able to look up at the daimaina again. Her eyes watered. She brushed them clear roughly, forced her back stiff and straight, then nodded.

  The daimaina nodded in return. Without more preamble, she said, “This First Born is too strong. We wish to weaken him without harming him, so that he does not present this terrible danger to the world. We wish him to lean more to his human side than to his ha’reye heritage. And as he favors you, we wish you to help us with this effort.”

  Although she’d suspected something like this was coming, Alyea felt her eyebrows shoot up almost to her hairline. She almost said Are you fucking insane?; stopped herself from voicing the thought aloud just in time.

  “It is not something he will know of,” the daimaina said, watching Alyea’s face narrowly. “It is a thing he will not feel, and will not harm him in any way. It will not make him vulnerable enough to be easily killed, it will not completely alter his thinking or his actions. It will merely nudge him, over time, to pay more attention to the human emotions and desires than he normally would, and make it more and more difficult for him to simply hop wherever he chooses at a moment’s notice. A half spoonful of a certain powder that we can provide you, stirred into any dish or drink, once a tenday, is all that is needed.”

  Alyea leaned back, biting her tongue hard to stop herself from blurting out several responses, the most polite of which was: You sneaky bunch of bastards!

  The daimaina’s gaze never left Alyea’s face. Her expression remained serene. “The only reason you survived your blood trials, Lord Alyea,” she said quietly, “is because we have been doing this for a very long time already. At full strength and in his balanced mind, this First Born would not have cared. He never would have become involved in the first place. He would have let you die bleeding at his feet unless you had something to offer him.”

  Alyea felt her stomach surge in protest; bile filled her throat. She swallowed it down hard, feeling the acid burn etching along the back of her mouth and inside of her chest, and shut her eyes again.

  “You may think,” the daimaina said, voice quiet but inflexible as a steel rod, “that doing this risks the First Born finding out, and that he would kill you for the betrayal. But be aware that he will kill you in the end regardless, Lord Alyea. Once you are of no further interest, or if he ever finds himself so weak that he needs all your life to fuel his own, or perhaps just because you annoyed him at a bad time: you will die. It may never happen, but then again, it may: at any time, without warning. This is the truth that every desert lord should know, and should accept and live with, before ever entering the blood trials. Your lives are forfeit from the moment you agree to the first trial, and every day after that is a gift. But the desert Families are too weak, too afraid, to teach this truth. Only the teyanain truly understand; this is one of our differences. So we ask you to help us with this, not because you are our only hope—we will do this, as we have been doing it, regardless of your decision—but because it will make our work much easier to have one who is invited to walk beside the First Born involved in the matter.”

  The daimaina leaned back a little, her hands twisting more firmly together on the table in front of her, and watched Alyea with alert curiosity, as though the question at hand were nothing more important than whether Alyea had liked the figs.

  Alyea sat very still, thinking, for some time. She decided to take full advantage of the promise that she had all the time she wanted to consider the matter. I did say it was time to turn things around and take control, she thought ruefully at one point. I did ask for this, didn’t I? The gods must be laughing.

  She remembered, too, the recent feeling of Deiq’s fingers trailing down her exposed throat, and the distant, abstracted look in his eyes as he s
tared at her. Mine, he’d said, leaving her in no doubt that if she so much as twitched, he would immediately rip her throat out.

  He will kill you in the end regardless.

  She believed it utterly.

  The daimaina sat perfectly quiet, seemingly patient as the stone around them, and her bead-bright eyes never stopped watching Alyea’s face.

  At last, Alyea let out a long breath and reached for the cup.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Deiq watched the teyanain take Alyea, unprotesting, from the patio. She didn’t look at Deiq as she went by, her gaze fixed on some internal landscape of thought. He widened his vision, as the door shut, to include Evkit: he was smiling, as expected. But the expression lacked its usual arrogant smirk. Evkit looked almost—sympathetic.

  All the guards had left with Alyea. They were alone now.

  Deiq returned his vision to human-normal and looked directly at the little teyanain lord, waiting to see what Evkit would say about the moments just past.

  “Not easy,” the teyanain lord said softly. “She is beginning to understand, yes? Not easy.”

  Deiq cleared his throat twice before managing words.

  “Kippin,” he said. “Blood-right.”

  “This is not possible, ha’inn,” Evkit returned blandly. “We sit and eat, and talk first.”

  Deiq bared his teeth. “I’m not playing games. Kippin.”

  “This is not possible,” Evkit repeated. He lowered his chin and looked up at Deiq, sly, almost coquettish. “We talk first. No game. This is important, ha’inn.”

  Deiq drew in a long breath. “I’m not hungry,” he said. “So talk.”

  “Tea, then. Good thopuh tea.”

  “Calcen, ta feth kii,” Deiq said brutally; the closest kaenic translation would have been cut the crap.

  Evkit’s expression hardened. There was a long moment of silence.