Wolf's-own: Weregild Read online

  He didn't think he was terribly grieved anymore about Asai. He wasn't even terribly appalled by the fact that he'd rested the fates of everyone he loved on his beishin's death by his own hand, but he couldn't help the fear and doubt. He'd known Asai was responsible from the very beginning. From the moment he'd witnessed him handing over amulets and snarling about “the spirit-bound” and “the earth-bound"—like they weren't even really people. And still, his knives had stayed sheathed when he'd run out into the night, and then again when he'd gone to Asai's with every intention of finally getting a confession out of him—torturing it out of him, if he had to. He was capable, he knew he was capable—he'd gotten Yakuli's name out of Sonji-onna, hadn't he, and he hadn't even really noticed the screams until after, when they wouldn't stop resonating inside his head—and yet, still, he'd twice walked out of Asai's house with no blood on his hands.

  He wished he could talk himself into believing it was all the result of maijin magic—he'd never really loved Asai, Asai had just enspelled him, made it so his Ghost was incapable of lifting a hand against him—but magic didn't work on him, he was a void for it, and he had nothing on which to blame his failures but his own weakness.

  Your emotions make you weak and foolish, little Ghost.

  "Yes,” he whispered to the moth, “I know."

  If he could take his knives to them, cut them ruthlessly from his heart, kill them, he would have done it a long time ago.

  When have you ever failed at anything

  Joori's voice, and Jacin clenched his teeth, hands fisting. He must have tensed because Malick's arm tightened around him for a second before relaxing again, his sleep undisturbed.

  Every time you say something like that is another failure, Jacin thought bleakly. Fuck, how have you managed to stay so innocent?

  And when had innocence become something to both resent and envy?

  The rain lashed against the window. For some reason, it stirred a memory-scent of cherry blossoms, and he imagined them swirling on the wind, making abstract patterns of pink-tinged white, settling over everything like a warm, silent blanket. It comforted him, though he had a vague idea it shouldn't, but he'd apparently just recently become a person who took any comfort that was offered to him, regardless of price, so he ignored the puzzlement and unease.

  A creak of floorboards just outside his door made him squint through the gloom, watching as the knob turned silently, and a sliver of slightly brighter light spilled in around the small figure peering in through the crack of the door. He'd been expecting Umeia, though he hadn't yet seen her since he'd woken, which he thought vaguely strange but not enough to spend thought on. He thought he'd have been fractionally happier to see her than he was to see Caidi.

  "Jacin?” Caidi whispered, her small, high voice pitched to a low whisper in the dark. “Are you awake?"

  He shut his eyes and pretended he wasn't. He couldn't see her, couldn't face her, couldn't face any of them. Didn't they know what he was? An abomination. Who had told him that? And why couldn't they see it? Why did they keep coming back to be shown again? Surely they'd seen enough by now to have learned to cut their losses while they still could.

  "Jacin?” Closer now, and a little bit wobbly. Jacin could hear the throttled tears inside it. “I had a bad dream."

  Predictably, his heart gave a little twist, because that was the way it always was with Caidi. He remembered her as a chubby little toddler, all golden curls and sunny smiles, and clinging arms around his calves. Giggles and trilling laughter, and bright hazel eyes that he now couldn't help imagining dull and dead. His mind instinctively shied away from it, curled inward, because perhaps if he stopped loving, he'd stop hurting.

  Except he couldn't. She'd hardly changed at all—still bright as the suns and constant smiles, and an adoration in her eyes that made him want to howl, and yet he could never look away from her. He had to love her, she wouldn't give him a choice, and there was probably some resentment in there somewhere, but he could never find it.

  "Jacin?” she whispered, shaky and small. “Please?"

  Jacin sucked in a long breath, braced himself, and opened his eyes. No blood in her hair, no empty eyes that still somehow mocked and accused at the same time. Just a little girl who'd had a bad dream, a doll clutched to her chest and her heart in her eyes.

  "Are you all right?” he whispered.

  Tears spilled down her full cheeks, and still, she smiled—all wobbly and full of trying—as she took a hesitant step closer. “I had a bad dream."

  He didn't ask her what it was about. He didn't think he wanted to know. “Why didn't you climb in with Joori?"

  She shrugged, picked at the yellow curls on her doll's head. “He's sleeping on the couch down the hall."

  "The couch?” Jacin frowned, but it didn't seem worth trying to decipher. “What about Morin?"

  A scowl this time that he couldn't help labeling “adorable,” because it pursed her bow lips and crinkled her brow into much older shapes that looked sweetly incongruous on her little face. “He doesn't let me sleep with him, and anyway, he kicks.” She peered at him with wide eyes—blink... blink... blink—with just the right amount of tears collecting at the corners, and dropped her trilling imp's voice down to a pathetic murmur: “Pleeeeeease?"

  Jacin almost laughed. Because Caidi might be sweet and mostly innocent, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She proved it when she grinned as he sighed and lifted the covers, all hints of tears and trembling lips instantly evaporating as she carefully climbed in. The exaggerated care with which she made sure not to bump any of the too-numerous bandages swathed over leg, arm, and torso touched him all unwilling, and that twist for which he couldn't resent her climbed up into his throat.

  Malick stirred again, another unconscious squeeze around Jacin's ribs and a soft indecipherable mutter ghosting into his nape, and the warmth at his back and the warmth at his front did things inside him that felt too much like some heretofore unknown and unthought-of rapture. Unaccountably, his eyes filled, and he had to swallow several times to rid his throat of the accumulating lump.

  "Have enough room?” he whispered, mostly for his own distraction.

  In answer, Caidi burrowed into his chest, the chill porcelain of the doll between them, and pushed her head beneath his chin, like a cat butting at its owner for a thorough stroking. Jacin couldn't help but oblige: his hand lifted all by itself, laid a caress to her hair, fingers idly toying with the wave and curl of individual strands, the twinging it stirred under the bandage on his arm only a faint nuisance.

  "Are you better now?” she whispered into his throat, her breath light and warm. “Joori thought you were going to die, I could tell, and anyway, he always worries about everything, but Umeia-onna said you weren't, and Malick-seyh was a little sad this morning, so I worried a little bit, too, but then he said at suppertime that you were getting better really quickly, and he wouldn't let you die, and he's got magic, after all, so I felt better."

  All of it said in one breath in a low murmur as her hand crept about until it found his and latched on. Jacin's head was spinning a little, but he found the wit to whisper, “Yes, I'm better now,” even though it felt like a lie, so he amended it with, “I'm not going to die,” and left it there.

  "Good,” Caidi breathed, “because I'd miss you, and anyway, who would take care of us then?"

  It was like a knife in the chest. “Joori would take care of you.” Said less with soothing assurance for Caidi than desperate shame for himself. Take care of them? Was that what she thought he'd been doing?

  "Joori can't kill the monsters like you can,” Caidi told him with a squeeze of her small fingers around his own, rough and callused against the softness of hers.

  It was all Jacin could do not to snatch his hand away.

  "I wish you could be in my dream,” Caidi went on wistfully. “You could have killed the monsters for me, and then I wouldn't have cried."

  She had to shut up. He had to get her to sh
ut up.

  "It was just a dream.” He only just kept the tremor from his voice, though he'd tensed again and reminded his body that it was torn up and hurting, so he tried to concentrate on the pain, instead of the things coming out his little sister's mouth.

  "Mother always said there's no such thing as ‘just dreams',” Caidi informed him sagely. “She dreamed once that Tai-onna died, and she really did, and Mother said she knew because she'd talked to her ghost in a dream, but Father told her she couldn't say things like that out loud. She dreamed about me once, too, but she said she couldn't tell me what it was because it would be like sealing my fate and it wasn't her place to seal anyone's but her own. D'you want to know what she dreamed about you?"

  Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

  "Caidi....” He couldn't keep the trembling from his voice this time, couldn't help the vibrations running all the way up his body. Malick's arm tightened again, and his breath hitched a little, but he still slept on. It was the only thing for which Jacin was grateful at the moment. “I don't think—"

  "She dreamed that you were walking in cherry blossom petals,” she said, warming to it, almost excited. “She said they were as deep as snow, and you were limping, but you were smiling too. She said there was a big wolf walking with you, and it growled at her until you told it not to, and then you hugged her and told her it didn't hurt anymore."

  Bloody hell, his mother must have deteriorated steadily over the years if she'd taken to telling her tiny daughter her dreams.

  "Caidi, go to sleep.” If his throat wasn't so tight, it would have come out as a bark. This was somehow worse than Shig's rambling accusations.

  "But it made her happy, Jacin,” Caidi protested. “And maybe she dreamed about the maijin hurting you, because you were limping, but you told her it didn't hurt anymore, so it must be going to be all—"

  "Sleep, Wolf's daughter,” Malick murmured. His hand had come up to rest at Caidi's brow, and Jacin hadn't even noticed, but he didn't chide himself for his lack of attention or his agitation, nor did he snarl at Malick for the liberty. Caidi's chatter abruptly stopped, and her small body sagged into the mattress, rolling slightly into Jacin's chest, limp in deep sleep.

  He should be pissed off. He should be outraged, he should be plotting Malick's death for even touching Caidi.

  He was relieved. And ashamed because he was relieved, and it all rose again to choke him. You're going to have to listen, Malick had told him, like it was that easy, like he wasn't using different words to say, Your sanity means nothing, not if you want me to keep your family safe, and Jacin hated him for it, but he couldn't make himself do anything about it. This dangerous Temshiel, just like Asai had once done, held Jacin's family's safety in his hands—and more, he held the quiet. And Jacin needed it. Wasn't all of that worth the ragged remains of his soul?

  "I....” He couldn't get any words out. He couldn't shove Malick away from him and protect his little sister. He couldn't drag his hand from Caidi's. He couldn't do anything at all but lie there and shake.

  "Shh,” said Malick, his hand going from Caidi's smooth brow to Jacin's cheek, stroking lightly, then to the crown of his head and on down his arm, over and over again, skimming over the bandage with gentle fingertips. “I know it hurts,” he whispered, slipping a tender, sleepy kiss just below Jacin's ear that somehow stirred a pleasant shiver while it calmed the tremors. “You don't have to say it, if you don't know how. But it only hurts because you don't know how to be anything but damaged, so you run away from the pure things people offer you until they corner you with love and there's no place to run anymore."

  Jacin heard it, but couldn't make any real sense of it. Damaged. He couldn't argue it, but he also couldn't figure out exactly how Malick meant it—it was too broad a term to nail down everything that was wrong with him. Pure? Was Malick trying to say that his own motivations were pure? The Temshiel who'd, without excuse or apology, staked the lives of everyone Jacin had left on his ability to turn on the man he... on Asai?

  He had a vague idea that it should piss him off—right, because you know me so well—and he could feel the familiar rage pooling in his gut, almost comforting, but he couldn't take hold of it.

  "You can't stand to be content,” Malick went on, gently relentless, “because you don't understand it, and things you don't understand frighten the hell out of you."

  Bloody hell, was everyone a fucking oracle?

  Jacin's teeth clenched. “I don't—"

  "I know you don't,” Malick cut in, stretched a little against Jacin's back and nestled in closer. “That's all right. I'll show you."

  "Show me what?” Jacin snapped, too loud, but it didn't make Caidi even twitch, and Malick didn't answer, the steady rise and fall of his chest against Jacin's back speaking sleep, as though the past two minutes hadn't even happened.

  Maybe they hadn't. Maybe Jacin was dead after all, and this was what it was like to have been sent to the suns—not the blissful oblivion of nothing at all, but enforced life that you couldn't make sense of, but went on and on and on. Maybe Shig had driven him completely insane and this was all the twisted conjuring of his own sick, guilty mind. Maybe he was still unconscious and delirious and he was lying on the road in Asai's lands in the rain, the torn corpses of everyone he loved scattered about him.

  Maybe he was wounded and sick and exhausted, and living with silence for the first time in years. Maybe this was what sanity was like, and he'd just forgotten.

  "If this is what sanity's like,” he muttered bleakly, cutting his gaze up to the cupboard, the corpse of the moth lying just like it had done since he'd opened his eyes, “I think I retract my wish for it."

  "Too late now,” Malick murmured, making Jacin jump.

  A growl rolled up Jacin's throat and he let it come. “Bite me,” he muttered. He hunched down over Caidi and buried his nose in golden curls. Ignoring Malick's snort, Jacin glared at the moth for a few unsatisfying seconds then gave up and willfully shut his eyes, imagined a blizzard of cherry blossom petals, and threw himself at sleep.

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  Chapter Four

  The rain, Samin decided as he stared moodily out his small window, was only making things worse. And if there was one thing he'd learned over the years, it was that things could always get worse.

  "Bloody hell,” he muttered irritably, and buttoned his shirt with perhaps a little more force than was good for it.

  There was only so much Samin could take, and he rather suspected he was reaching his limit, if he hadn't already. He couldn't tell. There was too much to take into consideration.

  The revelation that he'd been working for a Temshiel all these years had been a little bit staggering, certainly, but Malick was still Malick, and it rather put some things Samin hadn't really thought about before into perspective. That icy look Malick could get sometimes, like all his emotions had just dried up and he could kill you without giving it a second thought, regardless of the years and experiences between you. How they'd all walked away from all of their jobs over the years without serious damage, even those they shouldn't have walked away from at all. How Samin had only rarely seen Malick use magic, but when he had, it had been a different sort every time, like he had every kind there was, and Samin had never been able to pin down exactly what Malick was—spirit-bound, earth-bound, elemental-bound... apparently, Malick could do it all. It all made sense, now, once you added in the word Temshiel, and it had clicked in Samin's head almost audibly when it had come out that crone's mouth.

  Unexpected, certainly, but then Samin had been more or less making an effort not to see it, so it hadn't been shocking.

  Lord Asai a maijin? That had been shocking, but again, it had put Fen's apparent past with him somewhat into perspective. Samin couldn't exactly blame the lad for getting as deeply entangled as it seemed he'd done, not when the man entangling him was centuries old and made to manipulate. It made Samin glad that Malick hadn't allowed him to kill Fen that f
irst night in the alley. He liked to think his kills were morally justified ones, that he served the gods in some way by doing what he did. Killing Fen for what had been made of him, what he'd been duped into being, would have been an injustice, and Samin didn't need any more black marks on his soul. Anyway, he truly liked Fen, which had made the business of the other night actually hurt, and Samin hadn't thought that possible.

  Now, the business of the other night—getting attacked by a pack of not-wolf maijin, and then watching Shig drive Fen into some kind of mental break... that was pushing things. Samin had worried that first night they'd taken Fen in the alley that Fen had the potential to be a real danger to Malick. Now he thought perhaps Malick was the bigger danger to Fen, and that if Fen one of these days put a knife through Malick's heart, it would be because Malick deserved it.

  Samin's jaw clenched, and he dragged on his belt, slapped it through its clasp, and buckled it.

  And yet, none of the recent events and revelations had shaken Samin's resolve to see it all through. What he'd seen at Yakuli's had, if not shaken it, at least wobbled it a little. Warhorses, gates and guard towers, barracks, and... more barracks. Something more was there, something big, Samin knew it, but he couldn't set it in its proper shape in his mind. And Shig's reaction... that had shaken him. She knew a hell of a lot more than she was saying, and everyone else was too preoccupied to notice. Malick was more obsessed with Fen than usual, Yori was so sickeningly smitten with Joori that Samin had taken to avoiding them both, and Umeia....

  Fuck.

  Samin pushed himself away from the window, quit the room, and stalked down the hall to the common room. It was Shig and Yori's turn to bring up breakfast, and he saw when he got there that they'd already done so, everyone already seated and digging in.

  Caidi called a cheery, “G'morning, Samin-seyh!” to him when he entered, even though he'd told her at least two dozen times to leave off the “seyh,” but he couldn't help but smile back at her. He nodded at the more subdued greetings from the others, his gaze turning to Shig, not at all surprised when he noted that she was looking at him expectantly and hadn't even bothered to fill her plate yet. And he hadn't even known he was going to do this until ten minutes ago.