Bloodstone (24 page)

Frozen in place, he watched while the lion rose, stretched, and exposed long, curving claws. Then the big cat sauntered to the woman, who’d faltered to a stop by the fire-pit, and twined its sinuous body around the woman’s legs like a housecat asking for cream. After the second turn, the lion paused and, with half-lidded eyes,
smiled
at Durren.

****

Despite her bravado, Mirianna quivered every time the shelion yawned, stretched, or even twitched an ear. Up close, the creature was huge, longer from whiskered snout to the black tip of her tail than Gareth was tall, and undoubtedly heavier. Even though Mirianna’s heart told her she was safe in the cat’s presence, her mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around the idea, and she understood why the Shadow Man kept his distance. While the lion oozed tranquility and confidence, the Shadow Man regarded the beast with suspicion and something like animosity. The conflicting auras pulled at her all afternoon until she thought her nerves would fray.

Helping the Shadow Man skin the deer carcass, cut it up, and set it to smoking in a stone hut he apparently kept for the purpose, left her jangling with his unease as he constantly looked across the courtyard at the lion. When Mirianna returned to check Gareth, who continued to sleep while the lion watched over him, the lion’s deep-throated purr soothed her. Later the Shadow Man took her into the main building and showed her a chamber with an intact roof and door where she and Gareth could lay their bedding.

When she’d been looking for the Shadow Man earlier, she’d found another such door nearby, but it refused to open. She’d thought it merely blocked or jammed, but now she wondered if behind that door was a chamber where he lodged. Clearly, he hadn’t spent the night on the paving stones with her and the boy.

While she wondered whether he lodged above ground or below, Mirianna uncovered a broom behind the chamber door and shook cobwebs from it. She was sweeping when the Shadow Man brought her two short benches and a table with uneven legs.

“I hadn’t planned on company,” he said as she rocked the table under her hand.

Flattening her palm on the scarred surface, she digested his unspoken message. He’d lived for more than a dozen years, alone, in this wreck of a fortress. By necessity he avoided people. Something had changed that, and he’d acquired the blind boy, a useful servant for a being who couldn’t be looked upon without consequence. Then, for reasons she preferred not to consider just yet, he had
acquired
her. Was the Shadow Man implying he’d made these
acquisitions
on impulse? That he had no clear idea how to deal with either or both of them? The idea shook her although the evidence had been building all day. Did that mean he wasn’t quite the creature she’d imagined?

When she raised her head to look askance at the Shadow Man, he said, “You’re welcome to comb through the buildings for anything you can use, but be careful where you walk. Not everything is as stable as it might appear.”

“You do realize—” She cleared dust from her throat and collected her wits. “Gareth won’t be able to see the dangers.”

He nodded, the movement stirring the fabric of his hood. “I’ll mark pathways for him. For now, keep the boy close to you. And stay out of the tunnels.”

Mirianna was gratified he took her concern seriously, but his warning about the tunnels sounded as if he didn’t want her intruding on his privacy—as if she actually
wished
to go farther into pitch darkness than she already had—and the high-handed way he’d dismissed her faith in the lion still rankled. “How do you know the lion won’t harm him?”

The Shadow Man gave no indication of being startled by her question, but he said nothing for so long, she bent to look for a bit of flat stone to level the table. “She saved him from some Krad. Shortly before you arrived.”

Straightening, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. Framed in the late afternoon glow of the doorway, he looked less like shadow and more like silhouetted substance. In the close quarters, Mirianna was acutely aware of sun-warmed wool, of the faint, oily scent of human hair, of the raw, clean smell of masculine exertion. Emboldened, she ventured, “The Krad don’t seem to fear you.”

“The Krad aren’t human. You are. Remember that.”

He hadn’t moved, yet everything had somehow shifted and she was more aware than ever of the blank hood where his face should have been. She swallowed and forced herself to speak anyway. “And the lion? What is she? Why are you afraid of her?”

When his gloved hand curled around the hilt of the broken sword in his belt, and his thumb rubbed the stone in the crosspiece, Mirianna worried she’d pressed too much. Yet the gesture didn’t seem threatening, and she thought she’d seen him perform it before. She was wondering about its significance when he crossed his arms and startled her with the force of his scrutiny. “You said the lion spoke to you. What did she say?”

“I—she said ‘Come,’ and—and ‘Not all of the beasts.’ Twice.”

“‘Not all of the beasts’? When did she say that?”

Mirianna flushed. Enduring Rees’s assault had been humiliating enough without having to relive it for this cold column of blackness bent on interrogating her. She wished she hadn’t started the process by trying to get answers from him. Answers he hadn’t yet deigned to give. Scowling, she muttered, “Rees—uh—one night Rees tried to—he wanted—”

“The bastard forced himself on you?” She detected anger in the harsh, clipped words. “And the lion attacked him?”

“No—I mean—yes, Rees tried, but the lion didn’t attack. She screamed. And then I saw her eyes. And she spoke to me.”

“‘Not all of the beasts.’ And you took it to mean...?”

She shrugged. “Rees. The Krad. Anything living in the Wehrland. Rees had just said our fire would keep the beasts at bay, but she seemed to be telling me...”

“That there are beasts in the Wehrland that aren’t afraid of fire? Beasts, perhaps, like me?”

Her gaze shot to his hood, then dodged the empty blackness. She trusted the lion, and the lion had brought her to the Shadow Man, so she ought to trust him—whatever he was—if the lion did so. “No. She brought me
to
you. She saved me from the Krad and brought me straight to you.” Mirianna licked her lips. “Who or what is she?”

She thought he wouldn’t answer as he stood with arms crossed and hood tilted toward the floor while dust motes her broom had stirred floated on the air.

Finally, he sucked in a breath that pulled at the fabric of his hood. “My sister. Perhaps.” And he walked out.

When Durren returned to the courtyard, the lion was sauntering toward the outer gate. The beast paused at the sound of his boot kicking a pebble and looked over her shoulder.

What do you want from me?
his mind messaged.

What I’ve always wanted, Durren. But you’re not ready to give it. Yet.
She flicked her tail, and the black-lined lips curved.
Enjoy my gifts. Both of them.
Then she faded into thickening shadows.

Durren kicked another, bigger stone. He wanted to throw it, but he knew the lion would evade his best effort, and an emphatic kick at least gave him the satisfaction of thumping something. Besides, in the unlikely probability the lion were truly Ayliss, she would do as she damned well pleased regardless of what he thought, wanted, or said. Just as she’d always done since they were children and she’d watched his training with cool emerald eyes...

“That sword should be mine,” Ayliss was saying as she looked over the top of the scroll she’d been studying. “I’m the firstborn by more than a year.”

“Don’t be daft.” Durren hefted the Sword of Drakkonwehr once more, enjoying a balance so perfect he could imagine himself easily fending off the mage-spawn of Beggeth even though the weapon wouldn’t come to him until his sixteenth birthday. Four long years. He sighed and replaced the weapon in its sheath over the mantel. “Koronolan gave it to his sons. His
sons
, Ayliss.”

“Can you recite the Deeds of Kiros? In Shadowspeech? I can.”

“I’ll know it when I have to. I need to learn the ways of a warrior first. I can’t spend all day reading Owender’s
History
—”

“No,” she said with a look he couldn’t decipher, “you’ve better things to do, training to protect the world and all that.”

“Look, I didn’t choose when to be born, and I don’t make the rules—”

“Rules? Or traditions?” Ayliss tossed aside the scroll and stood. At thirteen, she was already as tall as a young willow, and he had to look up at her. Durren couldn’t wait for the growth spurt his feet promised was coming. Then she would see what it felt like to look up to
him
for a change. But Ayliss was already speaking. “Did you ever think—isn’t it possible that one person can’t possibly know everything? I mean, have you any idea what’s in these scrolls? There are spells and chants here and—”

“Father will teach me everything.”

Her eyes flashed with more heat than he’d ever seen in them. “Yes, everything
he
knows. Listen, I could help you. We could work together and—”

“You?” He stared at her, aghast at the idea she could have any part in his training. She was just jealous, as always, wishing she hadn’t been born a woman.

Her face shut down, the animation gone like the flicker of a firefly, vanished before the viewer realizes what he’s seen. “Forget I said anything.” Scooping up her scroll, she swept from the room...

She never broached the subject with him again but buried her nose in the scrolls stuffed into chests and stored in the crannies of chambers deep beneath Drakkonwehr. At some point she must have uncovered the Dragon Chant, deciphered it, and realized its significance. And then she’d sought out the mage. Or Syryk had sought her. Sinking down onto a fallen granite block, Durren ground bits of rubble under his heel. Who had sought whom didn’t matter. Either way, she’d betrayed them all: her heritage, her very own brother, even Errek—the lovesick fool!

Pain twisted in Durren’s chest, as sharp and breath-stealing as the first time—every time!—he relived his best friend’s death at his own hand. With a shuddering effort, he bundled up the misery and flung it at his sister.
Why did you do it, Ayliss? To ‘ride the Dragon’? What in Beggeth did you mean by that?
The Dragon was the tool of evil, of the Black Mages. She knew as well as he that it had to stay buried or the world would come to ruin.

The ache always concentrated itself just below the arch of his ribs, and he pushed there against it, holding it in so it couldn’t rip him apart. But his memories refused to be contained. Whatever it was Ayliss wanted, she hadn’t succeeded because she’d died when she closed her hand on the bloodstones. With his own eyes Durren had seen her die.

Hadn’t he?

Illusion.

The idea seared like acid through his consciousness, burning holes in what he’d thought to be truth, shredding great gaps in what he’d believed for all these years to be reality, dissolving—at last—the fundamental belief he’d been stubbornly clinging to despite the jarring events of the past few days. His hand fell into his lap, and the pain in his chest rushed out, firing along all of his nerves. He could barely breathe, but the pain was secondary to what swept through him on its heels, the shock of letting go, of seeing—now—how he just might have been...wrong.

If Ayliss didn’t die...if she were in fact still alive...still living...then that changed...
everything.

Durren reeled, staggered by the earthquake-like shift in what he knew, what he thought, what he thought he knew. If Ayliss didn’t die, if he’d been wrong about that, what else had he been wrong about? Was it possible...could it be...was her betrayal some kind of...illusion?

He gripped his head while questions buzzed like a nest of stirred wasps inside it. He tried to hold them in before they overwhelmed him, but they squeezed out in a rush. If Ayliss didn’t die, what had happened to her after he interrupted the Dragon Chant and broke the mage’s crystal column? The blast of spell energy had thrown him leagues away and rendered him what he was now. Had it thrust her into the form of a lion? Was she now trapped in the body of the beast? And why hadn’t she appeared to him before? Fourteen years had passed—why the demon hadn’t she appeared? Why had he been left all alone for so damned long!

He must have made some sound, for the boy sat up and yawned. With a mighty effort, Durren tamped down his frustration and misery. “Feel ready to work, Gareth?” he said when he could control his voice.

“Oh yes, sir.” The boy grabbed his staff, and Durren let him struggle to his feet.

“The horses need grooming. Can you manage that?”

“If you’ll show me the gear, I’ll get right to it, sir.”

While he led the boy to the packs beside the wall, Durren shoved the maelstrom of his thoughts about his sister to the back of his mind and forced himself to assess the boy’s condition. Gareth looked rested, not so pale, and the gash on his forehead seemed to be healing. The woman had done well to feed him and dose him with the herbs.

She’s resourceful. You should trust her.

Ignoring the voice in his head, he wondered instead if he should ask the boy about the lion, whether Gareth knew the beast had been practically cradling him all afternoon. Since the boy’s face seemed unconcerned, Durren decided not to disturb his equanimity. If the lion were truly Ayliss, she would be back. This was her home, after all.

And if the lion isn’t Ayliss?

The idea raised chills along his backbone. He wanted to believe she was alive, that she had returned, that—
by Koronolan!
—she wasn’t the traitor he’d believed she was, but the skeptic in him had been wary too long of illusions, however appealing.