Kindred and Wings (35 page)

“Putorae is the mother of my children,” the Caisah went on, his fingertips brushing the clean, white bone as if he were stroking beloved flesh.

That jolted Kelanim from her stunned reverie. “M . . . Mother?”

“Yes, mother,” he said, his eyes never leaving the patch of dirt. “My only children; twin boys. She was bad, though; she hid them from me. Gone, I do not know where . . .”

Of all the things that her love could have said to her, this was the worst. Kelanim’s eyes filled with tears, and she sank back onto the moist earth as sobs clogged her throat. He could have children? All of her effort and time had been spent to the thought that it was the Caisah who could not have children. Everyone thought so, and yet here he was so blindly revealing this fact to her. It would have been better, she thought, if he had simply punched her to a pulp.

Breathing was hard since her raw sobs were choking her. She retched and gagged, but nothing came out; she simply hadn’t eaten enough recently to be able to be sick.

When Kelanim finally regained herself, she sat up. The Caisah was watching her with all the interest of a person watching a bug die.

“You . . .” she paused, marshaled her thoughts as best she could, and went on. “You can have children. All those mistresses, all those lovers and never one child, except for her?” She threw an ugly look at the stark white bones.

“Yes.” The Caisah said his head tilting at an odd angle. Suddenly he looked nothing like a human at all. “She was special. The Last Seer of the Vaerli. She helped me.”

And there it was. He had loved her. Kelanim’s hands clenched into tight fists as it dawned on her. He had loved her. Some long dead woman, someone he had killed and buried, he still loved. Not her. Not Kelanim the needy. Not Kelanim the clingy.

She found herself on her feet, backing away from him, even as he continued to lovingly clear the dirt from her bones, all the while muttering soft, sweet things to someone who had been dead for centuries.

“Do not judge him,” a voice whispered in her ear, and it was not inside her head this time.

When Kelanim spun around, a woman, gleaming in the moonlight, stood in front of the Steps. Her eyes were dark but full of stars, and every inch of her naked body was covered in the same writing that decorated the edifice.

Kelanim realized that she could see right through her. She darted a glance back at the Caisah, but he had not moved from his ministrations. Her eyes shot back to the woman, who was still there, and she understood. “That . . . that’s you in there?”

The dead Vaerli’s expression softened. “Yes. He killed me when I wouldn’t tell him where I had hidden our sons. He is so broken that it happened quickly. All I remember is earth all around me, and then . . . nothing . . .”

“Are you a . . . ghost?” Kelanim managed to choke out. She had always had her eyes so firmly set on her goal, she had never considered that such things could exist.

“No,” the seer said, her long dark hair slowly waving in unfelt breezes. “I am a sliver of memory, a portion of myself that I put away. I saw so many dangers ahead that I placed little pieces across Conhaero. Some for my sons, some for others. Like you.”

Her eyes were now locked on Kelanim. “I saw one who would love him as I did. One who would weaken him at the behest of the Phage.”

“The who?”

“You know who I speak of.” Darkness seemed to gather around the Vaerli’s form. “They come in many shapes, some beautiful and enticing.”

Kelanim thought of the centaur, and the alluring smell of him that had perhaps driven her to recklessness. Blood rushed to her cheeks. “I . . . I thought it would . . .”

An icy thrill ran through her when the apparition reached down and touched her cheek. “Don’t fear, child. They thought to use you to break him, because they must. He, despite all his flaws, is a gift of the Kindred. By reminding him of his past you have opened his eyes. Look!”

Kelanim turned back to the Caisah and felt another portion of her insides crack. Her love was kneeling over the grave, and weeping—truly weeping. Emotion of any kind but rage was something so seldom seen that she had to grit her teeth to hold back an exclamation.

“He sees what he has done,” the shade of Putorae whispered into Kelanim’s ear. “After all these centuries he remembers what he has done.”

The mistress would have run then and there to his side, but the suggestion of an icy grip on her upper arm stopped her. “They are coming now, child. To finish what you have begun. This is not the Caisah that they wanted from you. Help him, and quickly!”

Kelanim was released and she dashed to the side of her love. Wrapping her arms around him, she rocked him back and forth while her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, feeling menace in each of them. The shade of the seer was no longer there, disappeared back to whatever place she occupied, or perhaps unravelled completely.

“They” was what she had said, and Kelanim knew at least two of the forms that would come. They had tried to trick her into destroying the person she loved, and she could feel her own rage at that bubbling like a sickness in her belly.

Her ears were straining as hard as her eyes, and she suddenly discerned a rustle of pine needles and leaves deep within the forest. Some large animal was moving back there, and her imagination conjured what it could be.

“She forgives you,” Kelanim said to the Caisah, rubbing his back, and trying her best to pass along some of the warmth of her body to his. “You weren’t meant for this. Putorae understands that. She wants you to live.”

The seer hadn’t actually said that, but why else would see have bothered to warn the mistress of the onrushing danger?

The Caisah looked up at her, his eyes bleak, and his whole body rigid. “I didn’t know what would happen. I was just so angry with her, and then it bubbled up. The earth listened to my rage, and it took her. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t stop it. I tried.”

All those powers the Kindred had given him, and he hadn’t known how to control any of them. Kelanim’s heart went out to him, imagining herself easily lost in all that magic. Underneath it all he was just a man.

At this moment she needed him to be more than that, because even though she didn’t look over her shoulder, she could hear more movement. It was no longer stealthy at all. She had no weapons, and even if she did, Court life had not prepared her for battle. All Kelanim had was the man at her side, the one she had unhinged.

So she grabbed hold of his hands and pulled his attention to her. “You have to fight on, love. Your sons and this world need you.” She had no idea if this were true, but she had to find some way to reach him. “I need you, too . . .”

His young face, with those old, weary eyes shifted from upset to something that might have been determination. Together they rose from the dirt and looked around at the forest.

The sounds were now emerging into forms around them. With the glow of the Steps the only light, the creatures of myth and legend stepped nearer to the Caisah. The centaur was at their lead, his dark, shaggy head bent, but his gleaming eyes remained fixed on them both.

They darted once to the uncovered bones. “Another of your victims, abomination. My masters will be glad to know that you have finally begun to remember all that you have done. At the end, it all comes back.”

The nagi emerged with a rustle of dry skin on leaves. Its many heads, with many flickering tongues, darted forward and back as if eager to taste flesh.

Kelanim felt her skin trying to crawl off her body. “How did they follow us?” she whispered under her breath, but the centaur heard her.

“We are Kindred. Beneath it all, we remain.” His front hoof stamped the ground with an impact that made the mistress jump. “All of Conhaero is open to us. We fold it around us, much as your tyrant here does.”

“I struck her down once,” the Caisah spoke, ignoring the centaur’s jibes. “When we met in the Salt, she came at me, and I turned her aside. I would think she hasn’t forgotten that.”

“Indeed not,” the nagi hissed, “but this time she is not alone. The Phage have grown, and become more powerful with time. The arrival of the White Void brings strength to them that would take it.”

More movement sounded around them; the Named were encircling them.

“It seems fitting that this is the place you will die,” the centaur continued with a grim smile. “The first place you touched our sacred soil will be the last place, too. You shall lie with the fool Putorae once again—but this time in the earth.”

The forest was suddenly full of forms rushing at them; faceless crones with bony arms, women with the faces of foxes, and stout green men with only one eye. Kelanim only had time to catch glimpses of them before the Caisah whipped her behind him.

It was a gesture to make her weep. She had done this, brought them here in her own way, and yet here he was protecting her. As the Named began to circle, she blurted out the truth.

“I did this to you! I did!” She would not resort to tears. She would stand up and own up to her part in this.

For all his strange behavior, the Caisah heard her. He turned and his eyes darted to her face, searching it for answers.

“Your lover gave you up so easily,” the centaur stood a little away from them, in the shadows of the trees, and pronounced the death of Kelanim’s hopes. “She wanted you to be hers, even if it meant giving up your immortality.”

The mistress understood betrayal—she had seen it many times in the harem—and she also understood the twisting of the knife. The Named had meant to do this all along. The only way to draw out the poison was to confront it.

“I love you,” was her only reply. “I am not sorry for that, but I am for what I did.”

He looked at her steadily, not as the implacable Caisah, but with a touch of vulnerability in his gaze. “Is this how you want me?” he asked softly. “You want me mortal?”

Kelanim nodded, keeping herself erect and ready for whatever punishment might come.

The Caisah looked around at the circle of Named, with long teeth and knives ready for him. “Well then,” he said simply. “Then my name is Vitus, but my men in the Void called me the Eagle King.”

That was enough; the Named charged at him, snarling and hungry for his blood. Vitus spread his arms wide, and the earth obeyed him.

It rolled up around them. A small cry of alarm escaped Kelanim as the earth took them, and she thought of the body of the Last Seer. Was that to be her fate, too?

However, he was with her, whispering in her ear, something that sent shivers up her spine. “Now is the time, Eagle King.”

When Kelanim looked into his eyes, they were clear and seeing her for perhaps the first time.

The howls of the Named seemed like nothing at all when compared to that. It was just as the legends had said: the Caisah commanded the very earth. This was why the Named, and whoever their masters were, had wanted him removed.

He crushed them, taking them down into the depths of the world. Blood and bone, even of the Named Kindred, could not resist that.

When the earth had finished with them, it rolled back, leaving them in a circle of red and mangled flesh. Kelanim smiled up at him. She had been a fool to want him mortal. He was magnificent like this. He shone.

“It is time to go to the Belly,” he said. “The Eagle King will be free, and then you will truly know him.”

Finn and Talyn leapt from the bed. They shoved their clothes on as best they could in the darkness.

He grabbed Talyn’s hand, since she had no idea of the layout of the village, and pulled her along with him. His first thought was of what was happening to Ysel. Could Fida protect him properly without the Gifts? Concern for his brother’s life made his legs pump harder.

“Wahirangi!” he bellowed, as behind him he heard Talyn draw her sword with her free hand. Talespinners were racing past them, many in states of undress and wide-eyed. Still, they had spoken enough tales about surprise attacks, so they didn’t start screaming. They were making for the entrance, while Finn and Talyn were working their way in the opposite direction. It was lucky he knew the village so well or the twists and turns would have stymied him. Hours upon hours traversing the swaying bridges as a child now held him in good stead; he kept his feet and quickly found the nest where his brother had gone to sleep for the night.

Fida was standing on the swaying netting, her sword drawn, and seemed eager for some kind of target. Ysel was calm and ready, too.

“The Phage have found us,” he said simply looking up at his brother.

“How?” Talyn demanded. “They had no idea where Finn was . . . even I didn’t until . . .” Her face turned pale. “Could . . . could they have some way of tracking me here?”

It appeared from her expression that Fida wanted to strike Talyn down right there and then. Ysel merely looked her up and down, his head tilted to one side. “Perhaps . . .”

That was when the leader of the Swoop appeared, diving down in eagle form and taking her human shape before them. She had her armor on and was wide-eyed.

“Talyn!” She grabbed hold of the Vaerli’s arm. “You need to get out of here now!”

Azrul was a brave soul, since at any time she could have used her wings and escaped. Instead, she tugged her friend after her. Finn, and Fida with Ysel kept protectively behind her, followed the two women as they ran through the perilously shaking rope bridges toward the one entrance. It had seemed like a fine idea at first—one entrance in and out—but now the attack was from above and they were out of options.