Blood Lies (Dark Brothers of the Light #9) Read online

  "No." Chinisi's voice caught as she shook her head. "No, he hasn't. I'll cut the cords off."

  "Not with that blade… If you so much as prick yourself, you'll die." Stygean's words became steadily more sluggish and blurred as he spoke them.

  "I'm not giving up." Chinisi pulled Stygean's arm across her neck, slipped her other arm around his waist, and stood, bringing him with her. She staggered under his weight, heading for a clump of pine trees whose low-hanging branches reached the ground. There she laid him down, crawled under the branches and reached back for him. She dragged him in, using her weight as leverage and tugging strenuously.

  She gathered more branches and built it up around them until the wind could not get through on any side of them. Stygean's eyes fluttered closed, and she snatched at his arms, shaking him. He opened them again.

  "Don't sleep, Stygean," she pleaded. "Don't sleep. You'll never wake up if you fall asleep before I can make it warm here."

  Her determination to keep him alive made it harder upon him. It would have been easier if she would just accept the inevitable and hold him. He wanted to be held, to feel the comfort of her arms as the end approached. "Chinisi – don't. When sa'necari kill sa'necari, they do it well."

  "Don't say that!"

  "It's true." He sounded so impossibly tired. "Hold me…."

  "I will. As soon as I get us settled here." Chinisi touched the wound on his neck, trying to remember the words he had used that first morning after his fight with Jingen in Ildyrsetts. "He took you to the edge, didn't he?"

  Again, that exhausted fluttering of Stygean's eyelids. "Yes."

  The only thing that had prevented Jingen from simply continuing to stab him until he died had been Chinisi's escape, which had forced him to chase her. That and the lateness of the day when he returned for the horses.

  Chinisi scraped her arms against the sharpest rock she had been able to find and wished she had had Stygean's blades, but she had no idea what Jingen had done with them. He might even have taken them with him as a trophy. "Stygean, let your fangs down."

  He blinked at her dully. "My fangs? Whatever for? Blood won't heal me."

  "I'm going to use your fangs on the rope."

  Stygean managed a faint smile and allowed his fangs to come down. "You're always full of ideas."

  It took several minutes, but Chinisi got her wrists free and formed a wall of heat without fire around them. She stabilized it and calculated how much power she needed to apply to the stones she set out as an attraction ward to hold the spell in a fixed position.

  "If you can hold out until morning, I can find a large enough clearing where I can send up a distress signal without firing the forest and burning us to a crisp."

  "I'll try."

  "I doubt they'll come looking before morning. The forest is too risky for horses after dark."

  She tried to remember everything she had heard the healers talking about concerning exposure and wounds, and in this her insatiable curiosity served her well. She made heat around a single finger and shoved it into Stygean's wounds from both sides, cauterizing them.

  Then she made a bed of pine needles and placed heated rocks under his armpits. Body warmth. They had talked about body warmth. She stripped off both their clothing and combined their cloaks over him. She could not resist peeping at his manhood, which lay like a mouse in a nest of black, curling hair. Then she slid in with him and wrapped her naked body around his. Stygean's flesh was chilled and goose-pimpled; he was shivering. Chinisi laid her head on his shoulder.

  "I love you, Stygean. I do. I never liked Jingen at all."

  "I know." His head shifted and he kissed her hair, and then went so still that it frightened Chinisi. She pressed her head to his chest to find that his heart continued to beat. Satisfied that he lived, she fell into exhausted slumber.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PUNISHMENT

  Melupo 2-3, 1077

  In the gathering darkness at twilight, Nevin began lighting the lamps in the outer room to the suite where Isranon sat with Cordwainer, going over lists of the supplies they would need to purchase from the shops in Ildyrsetts. Isranon glanced up with a smile and a nod at this: Nevin was always there doing the small stuff for him. The changes in their relationship amazed him at times, filling him with warmth and gratitude.

  Isranon pushed the paper over to Cordwainer. "Can you think of anything more to add?"

  "No," replied Cordwainer. "You've got everything down that we discussed, including the dark arcanes, which I hope we will not require."

  "Weren't there more of those on the previous list?" Isranon asked. He recognized that Randilyn's deft hand had recopied it.

  Cordwainer ran his fingers through his bushy flame-colored hair. "My wife insisted on doing her own shopping, rather than have them bulk purchased for the company. Amiri has no problem with that. Lobelia is a master of the dark arcanes. She studied in Shaurone at their top apothecary college. She's why we have found so many cures for the creations of the Romilay clan in Waejontor."

  Anksha came in growling. "I can't find Stygean. No one has seen him since early morning. Two people say they saw him riding into the forest."

  Isranon frowned. "Was he alone?"

  Anksha nodded, flexing her claws in irritation. She had become hugely swollen; the birth was only two months away, yet she still moved easily as if the bulk of their child did not inhibit her at all.

  Lobelia, Cordwainer's wife rushed in, fluttering her hands nervously. "Pardon, but we can't find Chinisi."

  "Stygean's got her," growled Anksha, ever quick to put two and two together, especially when it came to sa'necari. "He's back to his old tricks"

  Nevin scowled, exchanging a glance with Isranon and Anksha. "Stygean would never hurt her."

  "The boy spends more time with Chinisi than is seemly," Lobelia snapped. "He's lured her into the woods."

  Isranon's heart sank. He had wanted to believe in Stygean, yet now he had to face the possibility that the boy had given himself over to the dark side of his sa'necari nature. He had never been able to completely get past his doubts, the possibility that the others were right about Stygean and Jingen being too old to give up the teachings of their people. He prayed to Kalirion silently that they were not going to find the girl dead and violated, shattered in a rite of mortgiefan. It was an easier way to power than the one he had been forcing the boy to walk; yet his sharp ambivalence made him still hope that the temptation had not overcome him. Isranon wondered how his own father had managed, and the other Dark Brothers of the Light. They were all dead now, murdered by the sa'necari, and he could not ask them. He hefted Warrior and walked out of the room with Anksha beside him and Nevin following close.

  Anksha stalked along on the balls of her feet, looking worriedly into his face. "You care for the boy?"

  Isranon flinched, his eyes half-closing as if in pain. "That's irrelevant. When we find them – if he's guilty – then Anksha, he's yours." Then he turned away to hide the tears. Why did you have to do this, Stygean? Why?

  Nevin squeezed Isranon's shoulder. "I don't think the boy would hurt her."

  "He's sa'necari," Isranon replied, as if that said it all.

  Nevin turned to Anksha. "Come on, pet. We'll set after them."

  "What are you going to do about this?" Cordwainer demanded, emerging behind him.

  Isranon did not meet his eyes in an effort to hide the wetness on his cheeks. "It's too dark for us to search. I will send the lycans to try and pick up their trail. They should find something for us to follow by morning."

  Nevin and Anksha swept past as Grygg and Dahnig bolted into the corridor in time to hear part of the conversation. They had learned that Anksha was searching for Stygean. Grygg immediately headed for Isranon. "He wouldn't hurt her. He loves her."

  "Grygg, I know he's your friend," Isranon said. "But he is sa'necari. I know my people." I want to believe you, but I can't let go of my fear.

  Grygg spat on the ground.
"If I find out that someone set him up, I'll kill them. We'll be out looking come dawn, just like the rest of you."

  Alassance pushed between Grygg and Dahnig, gazing up into their faces, dread clutching at him, making his heart pound like the reverberation of a kettle drum. "Come with me, we need to check on something."

  "Does it concern Stygean?" asked Grygg.

  "It might. Come on." He started silently praying that his net was still on the shelf. His pride at netting Jingen faded into anger at himself for allowing his ego to overwhelm his innate caution.

  Alassance took them to his rooms and into the closet where he pointed at the top shelf, "Pull down what's up there so I don't have to climb."

  Grygg, who was the tallest, felt all around on the shelf and then rose on his tiptoes to look. "Nothing up there."

  "I want to see." Alassance nudged Grygg, who lifted him up: his net was gone. He swore a blue streak so profane that it made the older boys blush to hear it.

  Grygg returned Alassance to the floor. "What was up there?"

  "Something I was not supposed to have. It helped me escape Charas."

  "What?" Dahnig's eyes were large.

  "A net with spellcord braided through it. Whenever a sa'necari or their ilk caught up to me, I netted them and then cut their throats. Jingen knew about it, but Stygean didn't."

  "Jingen set him up." It became Grygg's turn to swear and his best attempts were pale in comparison to Alassance's.

  "Only way to prove it is to find Stygean and Chinisi."

  "Can you do life scans?" asked Dahnig.

  "No, but Zorrance can. If he'll agree to it, we can start searching tonight."

  "Lead on, Alassance." Grygg gestured at the corridor and they followed him.

  * * * *

  Chinisi woke, cloaked her body in magic, and crept to the edge of their shelter to see that the snow had stopped and the day had dawned clear. Then she returned to Stygean. Her movements had not awakened him, so she touched Stygean's cheek, which brought no response.

  "Stygean?" Worry cut through her like a slender blade. She shook him, remembering his insistence that he was going to die. "Stygean!"

  His head moved limply with her shakings. Fear emerged as a series of gasping breaths that caught in her lungs, chest and throat. Chinisi put her ear to his chest and listened to his heart. When she did not hear it she nearly came apart, mastering herself with an effort as her self-control threatened to split into shards and fall through her fingers. Chinisi tried again, straining her ears, and steadied when she found the small irregular, struggling beat of it. Chinisi sniffled for a few minutes, then pulled herself together. She kissed Stygean, and dressed, leaving her cloak with him. She would use magic to stay warm, but that meant she would also need to find something to eat soon. Magic burned energy as fast as physical exercise.

  As she walked back into the glade, something caught her eye down among some sloping rocks, and she found Stygean's sword and his knives, where Jingen had tossed them. She buckled them on, but the belt was too large for her and sagged around her hips. So she pulled the belt as tight and twisted the end around the center to get it cinched enough not to slide down her slender waist.

  Chinisi stared at the sun for a moment to gauge where they were in relation to the manor and began to walk, periodically marking the trees with Stygean's belt knife. Whenever she found a clear spot, she set rocks out in ranger code like she had learned from Travis.

  She walked until noon before turning back.

  * * * *

  Jingen carried an armload of firewood to add to the wood bins in the nibari section of the manor. He laid the firewood on top of the pile. Despite the alarm over Stygean and Chinisi's disappearance and the search for them, chores still needed to be done. Nainee had begun to cook several large kettles of spiced rice and sausages in the big hearth. There were currently too many staying in the manor house for the kitchen staff alone to deal with all the cooking required, so the nibari fixed their own meals here. Jingen inhaled the tasty scent rising from the kettles and drew his belt knife. "May I?"

  Nainee nodded. "Yes, but just one. You can eat your fill at serving time, since you get to eat at Edvarde's table and we don't."

  Jingen stabbed a sausage and stood blowing on the end to cool it before biting into it. "What will they do when they find them?" Jingen asked, nibbling at the sausage.

  Nainee looked up. "Stygean will be given to Anksha."

  Jingen would have liked to have seen that. He imagined the screams Anksha would have gotten from Stygean. Jingen would have liked to listen to Stygean screaming. He had gotten very few screams from Stygean before his rival lapsed unconscious. 'They make more noise when they're fresh,' his father used to say. But Jingen was certain that Chinisi and Stygean would not be found alive; which meant they would never know who had killed Stygean.

  He walked away, making an O of his mouth and teasing his lips with the sausage in a sexually suggestive manner before biting the other end off. With all of the uproar over Stygean and Chinisi being missing, attention had been focused away from the nibari sections of the manor and Jingen had taken full advantage of that. He had enjoyed Farris and her son last night, who was two years older than her daughter. Liuthan had been a careful breeder, giving his nibari a year between the time they gave birth and the time he bred them again. Perhaps tonight, he would add the five-year-old girl into the mix, the one that Stygean had been so protective of. It was rumored that Liuthan had gotten that girl on Farris.

  * * * *

  Nevin and Anksha had ranged far ahead of the others long before dawn, mounted on horseback while two lycans ran before them. They had found each of Chinisi's rock markers, stopped long enough to gauge when they had been left and then went on.

  When they reached the little glade, the lead lycan sniffed at the pegs where Chinisi had been bound and then at Stygean's blood staining the snow and soil. Nevin dismounted and joined his kinsman there. He ran his fingers through the wet snow-mixed blood and sniffed them.

  Nevin's face screwed up in distaste and the beginnings of anger. "It looks like a rite was performed here."

  Anksha's nostrils flared and she sucked in the air before dropping from her mount to sniff further. Her eyes fell upon the tree with its sheltered boughs added like walls.

  "Nevin." She pointed at the shelter.

  The older wolf nodded and followed her.

  Zorrance burst into the clearing at the head of the four boys and threw himself from his horse, screaming, "Don't hurt him! He's dying."

  Nevin straightened. "What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

  "We've been tracking Stygean all night by life scan. Blundering around, running into obstacles and having to backtrack. All the time I've felt his life force fading."

  "Jingen stole my net of spellcord," said Alassance. "He must have used it on Stygean and Chinisi."

  Anksha stalked across the clearing, so focused upon her prey that she had closed out their voices. Sniffling greeted her ears as she reached for the branches. The sniffling turned to sobbing and then hiccupping before becoming sniffling again. Anksha cocked her head, listening briefly before parting the branches to stick her head in. Her eyes glowed red in the dim interior of Chinisi's shelter. Stygean lay to one side of the trunk, unmoving, and Chinisi sat near him with one of his hands pressed to her cheek as she cried.

  Anksha's hair haloed as her power rose. She squirmed in on her side, her belly catching a bit in the branches, and grabbed Stygean, dragging him from beneath the blankets. Anksha hesitated at the way his nude body hung limp in her hands. She shook her reaction off and flashed her fangs at him. "Mine."

  Her musk intensified as she prepared to take him and still she got no reaction.

  Chinisi spun about as Stygean's hand left hers. She snatched Stygean from Anksha's grasp, throwing herself atop him and trying to cover him completely with her body. "No!" She screamed. "Nooooo!"

  Anksha's hair settled about her shoulders again, a
nd she blinked, cocking her head in a quizzical fashion at Chinisi's unexpected reaction. "Why not? Isranon says he's mine."

  Chinisi struggled to find words: Anksha frightened her. Lifting only her head lest Anksha try for Stygean again, she said, "He tried to save me. He's wounded."

  Anksha blinked. "Save you? He stole you."

  Fire entered Chinisi's eyes as she recovered from the fright Anksha had given her. She sat back, holding Stygean firmly pressed to her chest, grabbed a cloak and wrapped him again. "No, he didn't. Jingen did."

  "Jingen," Anksha hissed. She had never trusted that one.

  Nevin pushed through in his transitional form, and Chinisi’s eyes went wide as she choked back a scream at the sight of his snouted, hairy head. Nevin glanced from Stygean's still body to Anksha. "Is it done?"

  Anksha shook her head. "Jingen did this. Not me."

  Nevin turned his gaze to Chinisi. "What happened?"

  "We told you." Alassance crawled under the shelter beside Nevin, lifted a corner of the cloaks, took a single look at Stygean's wounds and dropped it shrieking, "Bloody fucking dick in a pig's craw."

  "Shut it and let her tell it," growled Nevin.

  Chinisi wiped her tears on the back of her sleeve. "Jingen sent Stygean and I both letters. Mine said it was from Stygean, asking me to ride with him. I arrived and Jingen was waiting for me. He threw a spellcord net over me, knocked me out with a spell, and carried me off. When I came to, I was laying tied between the pegs over there." She pointed. "Jingen told me that he intended to kill Stygean and violate both my mind and my body. Then even I would believe that Stygean had done it…." Chinisi's voice tightened. "But I got loose while he was ambushing Stygean."

  Anksha crept close to Stygean, sniffing his mouth like a cat. She felt him, but without a link there was little she could tell about his condition beyond that he was weak and close to death. "This is bad." Anksha sighed.