Wolf's-own: Weregild Page 18

  Another shrug, and an elegant wave of a hand. “It's what we're made for, isn't it.” Phrased as a question, but it wasn't one.

  "Who?” Joori asked.

  That slender hand waved again, between them this time. “The Jin,” the boy told him. “A race made for pain. I'm only half, but that's the half the pain comes from.” He shrugged it off like he'd shrug off a coat. His head tilted and his mien grew concerned, apparently at whatever expression had blossomed on Joori's face. “Don't look so glum,” he said, tilting another of those soft smiles. “This is a good place. Pain-free, I promise. And anyway, Malick's one of the good ones. If someone like Malick loves you, you're not likely to ever feel pain again. It would have been nice if.... Ah, well.” The boy's expression had gone wistful for a few seconds before he shook it off and flashed another of those disarming grins. “I'm Madi, by the way."

  "F—” Joori caught himself. He couldn't just go about blurting his name, even if this young man did seem kind and harmless. And anyway, the boy—Madi—thought he was talking to Jacin. “Um,” was Joori's considered reply.

  Madi laughed, a gentle thing. “Right,” he said easily. “Probably wise, though it doesn't really matter—he's called me by your name more than once. You'll understand why I made it a point to forget it. I'll forget it for... other reasons, now.” He shrugged when Joori's mouth twisted. “I'll just call you Beautiful, then.” Madi winked then pushed himself away from the wall. “I need some tea. And you need to get yourself back upstairs before someone sees you. The others will be dragging themselves out of bed for their baths soon, too, and some of the customers stay overnight. We take care of our own here, but you can't stop talk once it starts.” He flowed through a shallow, graceful bow. “It was nice to meet you, Beautiful. Make sure Malick takes care of you, yeah?"

  He gave Joori a lazy wave, turned, and sauntered away. Joori only stared after him for a moment, frowning.

  This morning had just been too fucked up for coherent thought. He was going to have to clear his head and think about it anyway.

  Slowly, he made his way back to the attic stairs, climbed halfway up, then sat himself on a step to consider. He could hear Caidi chattering at someone, a light, pleasant drone; he let it wash over him and took a long breath.

  And discovered that it really didn't require a whole lot of thought, after all. It was easy, really. All he'd needed was a moment to catch his breath to reach the same conclusion he'd reached when he'd watched Shig push his brother into a complete break in reason.

  Watched Malick allow it.

  Malick loves him...

  Joori was willing to concede that, as much as it surprised him. Annoyed him. Jacin was ridiculously lovable, and if it had been anyone else doing the loving, Joori would have rejoiced. He might be selfish, but he wasn't a total bastard, and it had been his dearest wish for as long as he could remember that someone might see the things in Jacin that Joori did and love him for it. And Malick's... obsession with Jacin did look suspiciously like something more than concern for the deal they'd made. So, it wasn't hard to believe that Malick might love Jacin—Temshiel or no.

  It was just hard to believe that someone like Malick knew how to do it properly.

  If someone like Malick loves you, you're not likely to ever feel pain again.

  Uh-huh. That seemed to have been working out real well so far.

  Joori shook his head, his mouth thinning down into a sour line. If Malick really did love Jacin, Joori would hate to see what he did to someone he didn't much like.

  But Umeia wasn't much of an alternative. The way she had talked, it sounded like she approved of Asai and what he'd done, what he meant to do. Joori would bet just about anything that the real reason behind the row between Malick and Umeia had been that strange confession. Which was a reluctant point in Malick's favor, Joori supposed.

  From slavery to regency, she'd said. Joori had laid eyes on Asai once in his life, but even he knew that someone like Asai wouldn't offer something like that without demanding a terrible price in return. Joori had a sick, sinking certainty he knew who was supposed to pay it. And Malick, no matter if he really did love Jacin or not, was sending him right into the teeth of the bargain to get chewed up and mangled.

  This entire morning had been a complete waste of time and confusion, because Joori had known before he'd ventured down to see Umeia what needed to be done. What he needed to do.

  Temshiel and maijin prowling around his brother like he was a coveted bone; assassins living in the attic of a whorehouse; death plots and stolen magic and Exactly where Malick has known all along...

  Didn't that say it all, really? What was there to think about?

  Blood wills out...

  Too bloody right it did.

  He needed to get his family out of here. He needed to get Jacin out of here.

  Now.

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  Chapter Five

  Xari hadn't read her cards last night. She'd been weary. She'd had more trade than usual—too many young men abruptly called up to serve their lord or prefect for reasons vague but urgent, protection against the growing shadow-threat of assassination, and wanting to know if there was danger ahead, would they live out their conscription—so she'd been tired. Tired but well-paid.

  She hadn't read her cards.

  The conflict and sorrow hit her first, and she sipped at it, allowing the strength of it to fill her before she recognized the taste and looked up.

  "I did not expect you, Wolf's Daughter,” she sighed, weary all over again, and her day had only just started.

  Umeia shifted a small shrug and took the chair across from Xari, demure. “Then that's one for me,” she replied, her manner respectful but harder than Xari had seen her before.

  A practical woman, this Paladin of Souls, not chosen by Wolf but conscripted by Blood, and she wore her duties well. The Gift of healing, for it pleased her to right wrongs, and she was not afraid to unbind her heart to sway those gone to despair. Asai had scoffed once, predicted that Umeia's heart would one day bleed a little too much, likely for her brother, and there would be no more lifeblood for her to spare for herself, but Xari judged her too sensible and so had ignored him. Arrogant enough to make predictions without the tools necessary, her errant son, and Xari put him out of her mind.

  She had not come veiled today, this proud child of Wolf, but wore the trappings of the Adan: formal robe, wide sash, sensible shoes, and a silky black wig to cloak the brasher style she favored. A respectable woman. No one would guess her preferred nighttime doings. No one would think to look twice at the plain woman, perhaps the mate of a mid-level noble, venturing out into the city on business that was her own and of no interest to them.

  "The color does not suit you,” Xari told Umeia, her eyes rising pointedly to the wig. It didn't. It made her look tired and wan, and Xari wondered if the hollow-eyed look was a product of the wig or the reason Umeia had come.

  Umeia's fingers rose to twiddle at the ends of her purchased hair, and she shrugged. She reached into her small bag and withdrew a handful of koin, counting ten onto the table. “I should like to see my cards, please."

  Xari's eyes narrowed. Not like her brother, this one—Kamen “allowed” Xari to read his cards, he never asked for it, he didn't approve, and he rarely ever listened when she did it anyway. Xari had read once for this daughter of Wolf, just before she'd had Kamen buy the Girou for her, and then never again. Xari's cards hadn't seen far for her—they never did for Temshiel—but what they'd shown had been good.

  "Perhaps you'd prefer to just tell me what it is you seek, child.” Xari's hands had already taken up the deck, the gnarled fingers of her glamour coaxing them into their proper places. “A reading can set a chancy future too firmly, if one does not understand the message entire."

  Umeia's mouth pursed. “The cards, Xari. There are already too many chancy things. I would like something, at least, that I can see clearly."

  Xari bit her ton
gue on the admonishments that wanted to come. The cards were not for building a future, not even for predicting one, truly. She should refuse. Trading in possibilities was a heavy responsibility, one Xari accepted with all due gravity, one that was too easily abused—just look at her son. But her curiosity had been stirred, and the chill just beneath the demeanor of this very warm woman worried Xari just a little.

  Kamen could be a bastard, Xari knew, but he loved his sister. And Umeia would not have come here for something as simple as a row between siblings. Surely whatever this was had nothing to do with...?

  Speculation was just as irresponsible as reading one's cards without the proper instruction in their meanings first, and useless, in the end. Xari straightened the deck then fanned it out.

  Obediently, Umeia reached tentative fingers, chose a card, and slipped it from between its fellows. She held it to her breast for a moment, eyes shut, as though afraid to see, before she slowly turned it over to lie between them on the table.

  It was all Xari could do not to gasp.

  "Your card has changed,” she whispered, caught out in too many ways, a slow trickle of fear winding down her backbone. “Paladin of Souls you are no more.” She denied the shudder that wanted to ripple through her and lifted her eyes slowly to Umeia's. “What have you done, child?"

  Umeia held Xari's gaze evenly. Her finger tapped the card on the table. “What does it mean?"

  Xari swallowed, laying a bony hand over the Obelisk, fingers hiding the painted flames like they had a mind of their own and thought perhaps they could make it unreal just by virtue of their obstruction.

  "Choices,” Xari said. “To fall or to fly. Let go or risk being shaken off.” She shook her head. “You must tell me why you've come, child. I cannot read properly unless I know—"

  "The card, Xari,” Umeia cut in, a little harsh, just enough to remind Xari across from whom she sat. Kamen might overshadow his sister in power, but that didn't mean Umeia hadn't been bestowed with plenty of her own.

  Xari drew herself up, met Umeia's eyes squarely. “Change.” She kept her tone even and bland. “Disastrous change.” She tapped the card. “The Obelisk of falsehoods, its foundation built on sand and gravel. Lies you have told yourself. Lies that set it too heavy on its perilous foundation. If you do not push it over yourself with elucidation, it will fall beneath its own weight.” Her fingertips drifted once again to the orange flames licking at the peak of the Obelisk. “Fire purifies. Its ash is virtue."

  "So, I've been lying to myself,” Umeia said softly, her voice shaky, her eyes filling.

  Xari resisted the urge to reach over and take up her hand. “That is one interpretation,” she said carefully. “I cannot know unless you tell me why—"

  "Do you still love your son, Xari?"

  Xari sat back, eyeing Umeia carefully. She reminded herself again who it was that sat across from her.

  "Blood is Blood,” she said, wary now. “There are many things that can take the love in one's heart and change it, but very few that can wipe it out altogether. Even if we might wish it."

  Umeia sucked in a long breath and nodded, a sad, shaky smile trembling her chin. “And you do what you do now—you plot with my brother—because you hope to save your blood, even though you know it will hurt him. Make him hate you. Perhaps kill him."

  "He already hates me,” Xari said evenly. “Were it not for your brother, he would have already sought me out and sent me to spirit. And only one sort of death means anything to our kind. Hurt...?” She shrugged. “We have not the same goals, you and I. I am godless; you have never been. I would dig out the heart of Asai myself, if Dragon would but ask it and give me back my place. My own redemption is why I help your brother."

  "And what about Wolf?” Umeia asked softly. “What if one of Wolf's-own was willing to speak for you, swear for you? Would you take Wolf for your god if he would have you?"

  Again, Xari's eyes narrowed. “No Temshiel or maijin would refuse Wolf, should he call.” Her head tilted to the side. “And what would one of Wolf's-own ask for in return for this boon?” She didn't mention that Kamen had already made her the same promise, and a petition from him would likely go farther. Dragon might take her back before the Cycle shifted, if she had a hand in stunting Asai's plots, but a call from Wolf....

  Xari would never have to fear her son again, even if he escaped the suns a second time.

  Umeia leaned forward, her eyes intense, a light behind them that approached madness in its passion. “Warn my brother off. Lie to him, if you have to. He is no longer necessary to this grand plot you have between you, both of you tools of vengeance for Husao and nothing more. Leave the Catalyst to me."

  Xari kept the shock from her face. “And what would you do with the Catalyst, Wolf's Daughter?” she asked softly.

  Umeia's eyes hardened. Her mouth remained stubbornly shut.

  A strange grief rose to Xari's heart. “Kamen Wolf's-own has claimed the Catalyst as his own,” she told Umeia calmly. “They are bound as tightly as souls can be without the pledge of oath. You yourself have sworn to those the Catalyst holds most dear.” Xari leaned in, met Umeia's cool gaze squarely. “What use for a Catalyst has Wolf's Daughter, Paladin of Souls that was?"

  For a long moment, Xari thought Umeia would remain silent. But then her eyes shifted away, flickering down to the card on the table before lifting again to Xari's. “Blood is Blood,” she said quietly. “And I stand now on an Obelisk of lies. I would taste the ashes of virtue."

  "The Obelisk is Death and Temperance both,” Xari warned. “Even falling can feel like flying until you're broken on the ground. You cannot know which it is that awaits you unless you tell me what answer it is you seek. Always more than one meaning in the cards—it is not the cards themselves that guide but the one who reads them."

  Umeia only stared at her again, implacable, just as stubborn as her brother. Xari's mouth tightened, and she shook her head. She set to irritably dealing out the rest of the configuration.

  "If you will not tell me, I shall read the rest myself,” she snapped. “Impudent children who think they can interpret for themselves what it takes centuries to—"

  Umeia's hand pushed Xari's away, snatched up a clump of cards, and swept them to the floor. Xari wouldn't have been as appalled if Umeia had just plunged a blade through her heart.

  "Wretched girl!” she cried. “What—?"

  "Some things I would keep for myself,” Umeia said. She stood calmly and stared down at Xari, her face unreadable. “You've been as helpful as I expected you to be, Xari.” She bowed her head, bizarrely deferential, considering her blatant disrespect for Xari's craft and her tools. “Goodbye,” was all she said, then she turned and pushed through the curtains that hung in the doorway, their dangle and sway holding Xari's stunned eye longer than they should have done.

  She shook herself, rubbed at her brow. She hated to be taken by surprise. She should have read her cards last night. She should have been more prepared. These precarious days called for vigilance, and she'd been caught lacking.

  Sighing, Xari heaved herself up from the table and hobbled over to the cards scattered over the floor. Damn it, it was going to take an annoying amount of time she apparently didn't have to purify them so they would read properly again.

  She needed to speak to Husao. And she needed to send for Kamen.

  "This...” Xari muttered as she bent to one knee on the floor and reverently began to collect her cards, unsure whether to be dismayed or relieved that the Obelisk sat faceup atop the otherwise haphazard mess. “This absolutely will not do."

  * * * *

  "Yes,” Malick growled, wanting to be anywhere but where he was at the moment—sitting on Fen's bed with three sets of eyes staring at him in different degrees of accusation. “Yes, I thought we would likely find your mother through Yakuli, but I had hoped we wouldn't.” He shook his head when Fen's fists clenched even tighter, and Malick held up a hand, trying to stave off the wrath too apparent on Fe
n's face. If Fen had access to all those little throwing knives on his clothespress right now, Malick would already look like a porcupine. “I wanted to find her, Fen. I just didn't want to find her there."

  "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Fen snarled.

  Amazing what a little fury could do for him—he was healing faster than Malick had thought, faster than he should be doing, but a minute ago he'd been gray and exhausted. Now color flooded his face, and anger livened up his eyes.

  Malick raked a hand through his hair, blowing out a long breath. He'd known this was coming, and he supposed he was lucky Fen hadn't already killed him. Damn it, how had he let himself get so mired in how he'd hoped this would go, as opposed to planning for contingencies when it inevitably went the way he knew it would?

  Oh, right—optimism and libido. Lethal combination. Clearly.

  "I'm subject to different laws than you are,” Malick tried to explain. “We don't have the same... values, morality, whatever you want to call it."

  "So, that means you can turn a blind eye while all those people—?"

  "No,” Malick snapped, “it means I should. It means I'm supposed to. Except I can't. I've never been able to, I've never... fuck."

  With a vicious glare at Shig, Malick shuffled across the mattress until he was right in front of Fen. Fen made it a point to move his leg to the side to avoid touching him. Samin had conspicuously taken up a place right behind Fen's chair, his not so subtle way of informing Malick that, on this subject at least, Samin was firmly on Fen's side.

  Malick sighed, trying to order his thoughts, irritated that they were so messy, when he'd known this was coming. He should have had a speech all prepared, a ready defense. Except he'd never been able to find one in him, not for this, and, Yeah, it pissed me off, so I flipped off the gods and went to sulk for a few decades, didn't even sound good in his own head. He expected it would get an even less enthusiastic reception out loud, considering his current audience.

  "We serve the Balance,” he said, keeping his gaze on Fen, as open and honest as he could make it. “Sometimes the defense of innocents is a tool to do that. Sometimes looking the other way is. There is no moral choice for us. We do as the gods tell us, and if the gods are silent, we use our judgment, our knowledge of our gods and what they wish, and hope we don't fuck it up and burn for it."