Wolf's-own: Weregild Read online

  "D'you have to put your feet all over him?” Joori griped.

  Malick rolled his eyes, made it a point to rub his toes farther up Fen's leg, smirking as Joori's lip twisted and he pointedly looked away. “You had a hissy when I curled up with him, and my hands are starting to cramp,” Malick told him. “So, yes—since this is the most comfortable I've been in two bloody days, and I'm a little tired of giving a shit about your delicate sensibilities—I do have to ‘put my feet all over him'."

  Joori glared, too clearly annoyed when Malick only gave him a flat stare. He'd been subjected to Fen-glares for a while now; Joori-glares were pretty mild, by comparison.

  "You didn't ‘curl up with him',” Joori snapped. “You were all over him. You think I don't know what—"

  "Yes, I'm pretty sure you know fuck-all about your brother,” Malick bit back, “and I know you know fuck-all about me, so maybe it would be best if you just kept your bloody unhelpful opinions to yourself."

  "You're Temshiel.” Joori said it like it was the vilest curse he could muster. “What more do I need to know? You use and hurt and kill, and you aren't capable of caring who—"

  "Yeah, I want to watch while you say that to Umeia. I'll make snacks and charge admission. Should be fun, since she's not slept much the past couple of days, what with trying to keep your brother alive and all, and she gets a little... cranky when she's tired."

  Joori's mouth thinned, and he looked away, sullen, before he stood and made a slow circuit around the room. He paused at the clothespress, like Malick had watched him do every time he came to sit vigil by Fen. Fen's knives were all laid out atop it, cleaned and sharpened—Samin's alternative to taking a turn on bedside watch—the new long knives set carefully beside the others, lined up by size, with the little throwing knives taking up an entire row all by themselves. Belts and sheaths and straps were all oiled and hung neatly on the hook on the back of the door. Joori never paid much heed to any of them, other than a quick once-over, like he was taking inventory, making sure no one had made off with any of it, which pissed Malick off some, but was a small annoyance in the grander scheme of things about Joori that annoyed Malick.

  Slump-shouldered, Joori paused to run careful fingertips over a small knife that looked like it couldn't be good for much of anything but perhaps whittling. The one Malick and Samin had missed that night when they'd disarmed Fen. The one Fen had used to break into the leathersmith's. Malick had wondered more than once why someone like Fen—a man who obviously had an eye for quality and a practical preference for utility—would even bother to carry a knife so useless when he had so many others.

  "What d'you want with him?” Joori asked quietly, sincere and with as little rancor as Malick had heard from him yet.

  It did nothing to assuage the annoyance. Malick leaned his head to the back of the chair and shut his eyes. “You're a rude, nosy little shit, Joori, and I don't like the way you ask that question.” So he felt no compulsion whatsoever to answer it, any more than he'd felt compelled to answer it the other twelve times Joori had asked it—or snarled it—which was good, actually, because even if Malick did feel obliged to answer, he wouldn't know how. There were too many things up in the air right now, too many possibilities, and Malick wasn't quite sure exactly how Fen—or his family—was going to fit into them. All he was sure of was that Asai was using Fen, had been using him for years, and Malick didn't like it.

  "I tried to kill him with this,” Joori said quietly.

  That got Malick's attention. He popped his eyes open. Joori's head was bowed, the useless little knife twisting at the ends of his fingers, eyes watching the lamp's light slide up and down the flat of the blade as it turned.

  "On the day of his Change.” Joori's hand went around the small hilt, almost obscuring it completely, and he held it up, swung it in a halfhearted arc from his shoulder. Shuddered. “Except I couldn't do it. And later, when he came for him, he watched me cut Jacin to calm him down....” He trailed off, shook his head, thumb testing the sharpness of the blade. “It was the only way—at least the only way I could figure out, the only thing that... that made it a little quieter for him. And he just watched me do it, and d'you know what he said?"

  He turned to Malick, like he really expected an answer, and when Malick just stared at him, Joori's mouth curled up in a bitter smile. “He said, ‘How very... interesting.’ Interesting.” His jaw clenched. “And then he used what I did, what I showed him, to....” He set the knife gently on the press, pulled his hand away, and wiped it on his trousers, like he didn't like the feel of it on his skin.

  Bloody hell, this family's fucked-up-edness was so monumental Malick could earn himself a blissful eternity on Wolf's moon just by pulling one of their asses out of the fire. “Your brother used it to stay sane,” he offered, deliberately keeping his tone even—neither forgiving nor accusing, because it wasn't his place to tender either.

  "Sane.” Joori heaved a weary snort, shook his head. He turned to face Malick, propping himself against the press, and crossed his arms over his chest. “He's my brother. He's my other Self. I love him more than I love myself, but I couldn't do what needed to be done to save him, not... not then."

  Malick narrowed his eyes. “And you could now?” Joori merely stared at him, calm and seemingly reasonable; it sent a frisson up Malick's backbone. “Say what you mean, seyh.” Malick's tone was soft and deadly quiet. His eyes cut to Fen, lying on his back between them, as deeply unconscious as Umeia would risk, defenseless. Malick's posture tensed, his hand going slowly to rest over the knife on his belt, abruptly aware of all the weapons just lying there, right in Joori's reach.

  Joori's gaze followed Malick's hand, stayed there for a long moment, considering, then flicked up to Malick's eyes. The corner of his mouth lifted again in that same bitter not-smile. “When Asai came for him, I let him go.” The words were said calmly, but there was far too much emotion clamped down beneath them for Malick to unsnarl, not when he was busy watching keenly for Joori to make an untoward move. “Jacin said ‘let me’ and I did,” Joori said softly, “because I didn't know what else to do and I was terrified, even though I knew, I knew he couldn't... he wasn't... he wasn't capable of making a decision then, not like that, not so soon after....” His voice had started to shake, and he shut his eyes, took a long, deep breath, and tried again. “The other night with Shig—the first time it hit him, it was worse than that. He wasn't in his own eyes. I tried to kill him, tried to end it for him, and I couldn't. And a few hours later, I was watching him make a life decision, knowing he couldn't, because I didn't know what else to do. I could kill Asai and run and hope, but I would've had to kill my father too—maybe Morin—and I...."

  His gaze went to his brother, hung there. “Our father wouldn't love him. Refused to love him. He treated Jacin like a Ghost from the moment he was born. Our mother was mad for as long as I can remember, and only got worse as the years passed. She loved him, but....” Joori shrugged, eyes lifting to meet Malick's stare, unflinching. “Sometimes I wonder if I love him the way I do to make up for everybody else. And it still wasn't enough."

  Bloody hell. Well, that certainly explained a lot. Malick shifted in the chair, propped an elbow to the arm of it, and set his chin in his hand, though he kept the other resting over his knife. “And that bothers you? That you're apparently not all things to your brother?"

  Joori shook his head. “No, you misunderstand. I love him, he knows I love him, and that didn't used to hurt him, but now....” Again, he paused, drawing a long breath to calm himself. “This isn't jealousy, all right? This is... this is... fuck. I owe him, damn it, do you get that?” Malick tensed a little when Joori shoved himself away from the press and started pacing, but he seemed to have forgotten entirely about the knives—if he'd even really noticed them in the first place. He stepped over to the opposite side of the bed and knelt on the floor. Gaze locked to Malick's, Joori reached over, snatched up Fen's hand, squeezed. “He's been treated like he was nothi
ng from the time we were born. He believes it, he always has.” Yes, Malick had figured that out just from Fen's unconscious ramblings. “But whatever that man did to him,” Joori went on, “it made him believe it more. And now you."

  It wasn't a question, and it wasn't exactly a statement, neither of which mattered, because whatever Joori had meant by it, he'd almost certainly meant it to be just as offensive as it had sounded. So, Malick let the corner of his mouth curl up. Nodded. “And now me."

  Joori glared, mouth set tight. Again, it had no effect on Malick but for sincere interest in how those eyes could ostensibly be exactly the same—same gray color, same flecks of amber, same ring of indigo, set in the same face—and yet they didn't set Malick's heart pounding, didn't tighten his trousers, didn't drag any reaction from him whatsoever but weariness and irritation.

  "Is this a fucking joke to you?” Joori wanted to know.

  "Yeah,” Malick snapped, patience very nearly used up after the last two days he'd had and having to deal with this one for far too many hours of them. “Yeah, it's a fucking joke to me to watch you strutting about here, thinking you know everything about him, when you actually know shit and can't admit it."

  "Oh, and I expect you know every—"

  "It's a fucking joke that you've apparently been regretting not putting him out of his misery when you had the chance—"

  "That's a fucking lie, I never—"

  "—and now you're trying to use the fact that you're pretty sure you can do it now as some kind of threat to make me say whatever the fuck it is you want me to say to put your guilty conscience at ease. It's a great big monstrous fucking joke that you seem to think you've got all his answers, and if we hadn't interfered with our inconvenient rescue, your brother and sister wouldn't right now be dead, and you wouldn't be a snotty, belligerent little bargaining chip for Asai to use against him, and stop squeezing his hand so tight—you think he's not in enough pain, you want to break his fingers too?"

  Joori snatched his hand away, startled, and belatedly pissed that Malick had startled him. “If it hadn't been for your ‘inconvenient rescue',” he barked, “my brother wouldn't have to be drugged into unconsciousness, and he wouldn't need you fucking touching him all the time! Or was that why you sicced Shig on him? To push him over the edge so you could ‘rescue’ him too? He was handling it, he didn't need—"

  "Yeah, yeah, big bad Temshiel. Destroyer of lives, seducer of innocents, and kicker of puppies.” Malick rolled his eyes. “Honestly, what have they been teaching you?"

  "Seducer,” Joori sneered. “So you are fucking him."

  "Not right this second, but yeah, I kinda thought that was obvious."

  Joori flinched back like Malick had struck him. Strangely, though, it wasn't the anger and offense Malick had expected that bloomed in Joori's eyes—it was actual honest worry. “It was,” Joori said, oddly winded, somewhat deflated. “I just... I didn't think....” He shook his head, went silent, his hand unconsciously going back to cling to his brother's again. “Why can't you just leave him alone?” he asked, and it was a question, not a true demand, the confusion inside it real with no attempt to conceal it.

  "Because he doesn't want me to,” Malick answered bluntly.

  Joori's mouth tightened. “And you give everybody what they want, ‘cause you're just generous by nature.” The disgust and sarcasm were almost tangible things.

  Malick's tolerance was already stretched thin. That remark, and the flat look that came along with it, snapped the fraying edges of it. “Listen, you little prick,” he said through his teeth. “You want to pretend you've got your drawers in a twist out of concern for your brother, you keep living the fantasy, but don't expect me to—"

  "Don't you even care? Can't you see what it's doing to him? You're using him—just like Asai did."

  "And you're a jealous little bitch who's so intent on not sharing his toys you won't even see that maybe you're not what's best for him right now."

  "I'm not jealous, damn it, I—"

  "Oh, for fuck's sake, you're not that deep. You think I can't see what—?"

  "I think you see very little but what you want to see,” Joori grated. “Even Umeia-onna said it: he'll take anything that comes with the quiet. And you're what comes with the quiet. I'm not that deep?—well, you're not that special.

  "Yori keeps telling me what a great man you are, how you saved her and taught her how to shoot, how you saved Shig, how smart you are, and, ‘Don't worry, Joori, Mal will take care of Fen,’ but then I ask her what you plan to do about Asai, and she doesn't know. She doesn't care if she doesn't know—she just assumes you're too smart to do the wrong thing, and that's fine, I get it, you've always come through for her. But see, I know about Temshiel, I know about maijin, and I know you wouldn't have staged your ‘inconvenient rescue’ without some kind of payment from Jacin, and I'm telling you—he can't pay it."

  Malick sat back, eyes narrowed. And here he'd thought this imaginary “payment” Joori was all worked up about was of a sexual nature, and if it was, Fen was obviously already “paying” it. So... what the fuck was this, now? “Care to expand on that?"

  Joori shut his eyes, raked a hand through his hair, and then leveled an even stare back on Malick. “Our father made it his life's work to not love his second son.” His voice was calm, even. “And yet still, that night the hunters raided and Jacin came for us... he fucking wept, Malick. He picked our father's dead body up from the ground and put him in the fire, said the rites, and he wept over the man who wouldn't love him. And he didn't even know it. He didn't know he was weeping, all the way to that bloody little hut on the coast, he didn't know how much he was hurting, how much the death of the man from whom he'd only ever wanted love and couldn't have it was killing him. He still doesn't know. If my father had been alive that night when Jacin came, if he'd come at Jacin with a knife, Jacin would have let him. Suicide, Shig said—and since I have to assume you keep her around for a reason, I know you believe it. And now you want to send him to kill Asai."

  Malick... stared. Peered down at Fen with a frown he didn't try to hide. All right, so maybe the annoying twin wasn't so annoying merely out of jealousy. And maybe he had a point. Several points. There had to be a reason Asai had refused Fen all those years, and Malick knew it hadn't been out of honor. Asai wasn't exactly the self-denial sort, and he rarely did anything without checking his cards and stones and visions first. Asai had done what he'd done to Fen deliberately, and perhaps the whole unrequited aspect, torturing Fen with it all through the hormonal ambushes of adolescence... well, perhaps Joori did see that bit a little more clearly than Malick had been doing. And maybe Shig's taunts about Fen walking into knives had a lot more bite than Malick would like to admit.

  And yet there were still things about Fen—about people in general, but his brother in particular—that Joori would never understand. He hadn't walked through the same fires, he hadn't seen enough beyond the seclusion of a Jin camp to know some of the things Malick could see without even having to look.

  "Do you know what the hardest substance in the world is?” he asked Joori mildly, a sardonic smile quirking just a little when Joori frowned at the seemingly blind turn in conversation. Malick didn't wait for an answer. “It's a diamond. Harder than steel, harder than iron—it can cut through stone, if you know how to do it. Do you know how diamonds are formed?” This time he did wait, merely nodding a little when Joori frowned and shook his head. “Deep down in the bowels of the world—extreme pressure, unbearable weight. Anything else would crack or buckle. And when all of that comes together to form a diamond....” He paused, tilting his head. “Ever seen one?” Again, Joori just shook his head. “Umeia's got mine. I'll have to show you. They're fucking beautiful. There's nothing else like them. You hold it up to the light, look way down deep inside all its facets, and you're... overwhelmed. Something so strong and so beautiful at the same time, and if you look at it just right, it's even more beautiful. But the most interesting pa
rt about it is that the only thing that can cut a diamond is another diamond.” He looked straight at Joori. “Asai is no diamond."

  Joori was staring at him, the scowl completely gone now, his expression thoughtful rather than hostile. “And what about you?"

  "What? Am I a diamond?” Malick snorted. That was taking the analogy just a little too far. “Part of what makes diamonds so precious is their rarity,” he told Joori. “And those who manage to get hold of one tend to take proper care."

  Malick watched Joori closely to see which part of that last statement he was going to latch onto. But all he did was push out a heavy sigh and turn a tired look on his brother. “Yeah,” was all he said.

  Strange. It sounded like agreement. Felt like agreement.

  "Why can't you just teach me how to do it?” Joori asked softly.

  Malick blinked. “Do...?” There was no way in hell he was going to even venture a guess about what Joori thought Malick should teach him to “do.” Safer to ask. “Do what?"

  Joori rolled his eyes. “Teach me how to kill Asai.” The “you idiot” was implicit.

  This time, Malick actually barked a laugh. “Right, and why don't I just take that lamp there and set myself on fire, and spare your brother the trouble of killing me?"

  "Why should he take all the risks?” Joori argued. “Why should you, even, or Yori or Shig or Samin? It's me he wants to use, and it's Jacin he wants to... whatever the fuck he still wants from him. Why should—?"

  "He wants Fen to kill me.” Malick paused, watched Joori's eyes narrow, surprise and the faint dawning of calculation blooming behind them. Malick had to grin a little. It was probably the most he'd seen Joori resemble his brother yet. “Don't get any ideas,” Malick warned. “I'd hate to have to kill you in self-defense. Fen would be... unhappy."