Blood Lies (Dark Brothers of the Light #9) Page 18

  Chinisi gingerly showed them the dagger, handing it to Anksha first.

  Anksha gave Nevin the blade, and he examined it, reading the runes and recognized it as a sa'necari dueling blade, made to take out an opponent with the first cut. A wordless snarl spiraled up from Nevin's throat. "I doubt Isranon can save him."

  Alassance scrambled out and shared a grief-tinged glance with his friends.

  Grygg put the side of his fist to his mouth. "Deed was already done long before we started searching. Jingen was standing in the corridor as we left."

  "Son of a bishop-basher." Anksha growled the term she had picked up from the Rowdies.

  Nevin's eyes softened as he extended his arms. "Let me have him."

  Chinisi clutched Stygean tighter. "He tried to protect me. Please don't hurt him."

  Nevin gave her shoulder a pat. "I won't."

  Chinisi surrendered Stygean and sat back on her haunches. Nevin opened the cloaks wrapping him. He glanced a question at Chinisi when he saw the boy was nude. She blushed as bright as her hair.

  "Exposure," she said. "I was keeping him warm…."

  Nevin gave a grunt and a nod. He ran his finger over the cauterized wounds. "You did this?"

  "With my finger once I got the cords off."

  "Smart girl. Tough one too." Nevin turned Stygean's head and found the feeding mark. "Jingen took him to the edge, did he?"

  "He stabbed him first."

  Nevin's expression went grim. He knew enough of the sa'necari and their ways to make some shrewd guesses. "That's a dueling blade; there's probably pieces of it inside him."

  "Oh gods." Chinisi gave a gasp that showed she had finally begun to accept the fullness of what Jingen had done to Stygean; and the evil that characterized the darker side of the sa'necari.

  "Get him dressed." Nevin kept his tone steady, reluctant to upset Chinisi worse than she already was. "It won't do for myn to know you slept together, regardless of your reasons."

  Nevin knocked the walls away, sending the branches scattering while Anksha and Chinisi dressed Stygean. Then Nevin lifted Stygean in his arms. Stygean's head fell against his shoulders. Nevin pressed his cheek against Stygean's hair, remembering another dark-haired young boy. "Howl wolves. Let the others know we've found them."

  Chinisi threw her cloak over Stygean as well as his own and wrapped him tightly. She placed a warming spell on the cloaks.

  Anksha frowned, seeing that Chinisi had given her cloak to Stygean. "Aren't you cold?"

  "I'm a fire mage," Chinisi said, as if that answered the question. "But I am hungry."

  Anksha reached into her pouch and filled Chinisi's cupped hands with candy.

  Chinisi smiled a bit. This was not exactly what she wanted, but it would do. So she began to suck on a mouthful of pieces.

  They did not have long to wait, for Isranon and the others came riding through the trees. Cordwainer, Lobelia, the healer Deryna, and a second set of lycans arrived from another direction. Chinisi's uncle climbed down from his horse and headed for her with relief written large upon his face.

  Darianna changed into a woman and approached with Travis. She frowned at the way Nevin held the boy. "Is he dead?"

  Nevin gave a slight shake of his head.

  "Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one." Travis touched the bite marks on Stygean's neck.

  Anksha slapped Travis' hand away from Stygean. "They aren't mine."

  Isranon dismounted. Gordain swung from the saddle beside him. Seeing the way that Stygean lay in Nevin's arms, Isranon felt grateful that he had not been there to hear the boy's screams when Anksha took him. He had begun to love the boy like a younger brother, something he had never had before. Isranon's distress deepened as he approached Nevin, and he had to force himself to go the last few feet to their side. Anksha must have torn through Stygean savagely for him to be so still in Nevin's arms.

  He restrained himself from touching Stygean, vowing to never see him again. Isranon felt disheartened and crushed by his failure with Stygean; his feelings pulled at his shoulders like a heavy weight across them. He had believed so strongly that the boy had turned around, that Isranon had allowed himself to love him. "So it is finished." He spoke low, struggling to hide his anguish, the way his heart felt shattered.

  Gordain shook his head sadly, refusing to look at the boy.

  Chinisi, who had rushed into her uncle's arms the moment he dismounted, turned at the sound of Isranon's words. Her voice sharpened with ire. "All of you think he kidnapped me? Well, he didn't. Jingen kidnapped me."

  "My love." Anksha's voice dropped to a low growly protest. "I didn't touch him."

  Isranon's eyes widened. "What?"

  Nevin lifted Stygean toward Isranon. "Jingen stabbed him with a hellblade and then bled him to the edge. Stygean pursued Jingen as you once pursued Troyes."

  Isranon turned to Gordain. "Get back to the manor quickly. I want Jingen secured before he can either escape or hurt someone else."

  Gordain returned to his horse and started back with two wolves running before him.

  Chinisi pulled out of her uncle's arms and went to Isranon, dragging him to Stygean. "You'll heal Stygean? They say you can heal … that you're a master lifemage."

  Isranon felt as if Chinisi's desperation were tearing the heart out of him. "Not everything can be healed, but I'll try." Isranon found all of Stygean's injuries, his appalling weakness, the effects of exposure which Chinisi had partially mitigated, and the spells – worse there appeared to be slivers of the blade moving around inside him. "You have the blade?" He dreaded the thought of Jingen being loose with a blade that could do this to someone.

  Chinisi produced it, wrapped in a piece of her tunic. Isranon examined the flaked, obsidian blade and felt sickened.

  Then he stretched his awareness into Stygean's body and began unraveling the dark magics killing him; however, the blade shards sent vines of bane spells lacing up through Stygean as swiftly as Isranon cut them away. Isranon forced himself to stop, determined to try again later in civilized surroundings. He turned his attention to the wounds, healing them to make it more difficult for the shards to continue working their way to the boy's heart. He warmed all the coldest places in Stygean's body. Then he took his flask of Sanguine Rose from his pocket and poured some into the boy's mouth, and made him swallow. Stygean did not respond to the power of the brew, and Isranon could hear Chinisi weeping. Isranon cast shared life to increase Stygean's strength and prayed that it would be enough to get the boy back to the manor. The apprentice who had betrayed him had not been Stygean; it had been Jingen. Jingen had always been so compliant, so helpful and never a moment’s trouble. He had been too perfect. Stygean had been the defiant one, the grieving angry boy, conspicuous in his rebellion and demanding every effort Isranon could devote to him. It had been so easy to suspect and accuse Stygean.

  How could I have been so wrong?

  "We must return swiftly," Isranon told them. "Nevin, once I'm mounted, hand him up to me."

  Nevin nodded.

  The four boys had tears in their eyes as they remounted, commiserating quietly among themselves.

  Chinisi rode behind her uncle, and they set off for the manor.

  * * * *

  Gordain stalked through the halls of Edvarde's manor with an expression of rage on his face. Many stared, but none approached until Luck fell into step beside him.

  "What's going on?"

  "Just come with me."

  Gordain spotted Jingen sitting in the drawing room and strode over to him. The boy looked up at him.

  "What is it?" Jingen asked, his eyes guileless.

  "You know what," Gordain growled. "We found them alive."

  Jingen inhaled sharply, caught the breath halfway and nearly choked. Practice smoothed his features back into his helpful mask. "That's good isn't it?" Jingen said.

  Luck glanced from Gordain to Jingen and back, frowning.

  "Yes. Considering you stabbed Stygean when h
e tried to rescue Chinisi from you."

  "I don't know what you are talking about," Jingen protested. "I didn't see either of them yesterday."

  Disharyl, who had been returning from her daily chores refining dried herbs for Amiri, ran over to them as Gordain jerked Jingen to his feet and looped his wrists with spellcord. He snapped the silver seals to the cords that would kill Jingen if he tried to remove them.

  "Mother, help me." Jingen cast pleading eyes on his mother.

  Disharyl grabbed Gordain's arm. "Let my son go. He was with me yesterday. He never left the manor."

  "That's not what Chinisi says."

  "And what does Stygean say?" Disharyl protested. "How can you take his word?"

  "He's unconscious. Jingen put a dueling blade in his ribs."

  Luck looked sick, snatched Jingen and tied his hands behind his back. "I've never heard of anyone surviving a wound from one of those."

  "Nor have I." Gordain shook Disharyl off. "Your son stands accused of attempted murder. By day's end, that will probably have become murder."

  "I didn't do it! Chinisi must have done it!"

  "Bloody, fucking liar." Luck backhanded Jingen across the mouth.

  A pair of guardsmyn passing by caught hold of Disharyl at Luck's gesture and restrained her. Then the two officers dragged Jingen through the manor and down into the dungeons where they locked him in a cell.

  * * * *

  On their return, Isranon went straight upstairs with Stygean. Nibari ran ahead of them to get the fires going in the hearths of the suite. Nevin carried the boy. A nibari folded the blankets back and placed several layers of pads across the bed, and Nevin slipped him in beneath the top sheet. Basins and ewers of water and wine were brought; herbs, potions and blood in bottles; bandages, washing cloths and towels. Randilyn appeared with Isranon's satchel.

  "If you need us…." Randilyn said.

  Isranon shook his head at her. Randilyn left and Nevin started to.

  "Stay with me, Nevin. This will take all I can give just to twist the spells out."

  "You care for him."

  "My son by Anksha is not yet born. My son by Merissa I may never meet. Stygean … fills a void in me, Nevin."

  "As you did in me, Isranon," Nevin replied. "Can you now accept that I was right and you were wrong about the lad?"

  Isranon looked suddenly tired and soul-worn. "I doubted myself and my choices every bit as much as I did the boys – especially Stygean.. I worried that I might be seeing their progress through my need for them to change. I do not remember ever doubting Jingen. I know now that he deliberately deceived me and others. Stygean, because he was so openly defiant, was the more honest of the two. Yes, I was wrong to doubt him. I'll never forgive myself."

  "Give it time."

  Isranon nodded. "First we get the pieces of that god-forsaken blade out." Isranon took a small sharp blade and tongs that were barely larger than tweezers from his satchel. Nevin fetched the table from the sitting room and placed it near Isranon, where the mage could reach it.

  Nevin washed the area around the first wound with wine, then Isranon re-opened it with the small blade. Isranon set the blade aside and took Stygean's wrist. By extending his awareness through the boy's body, he could sense every piece of the blade and their dark arcane power.

  Isranon probed patiently, pulling the chips of obsidian out of Stygean and dropping them into a basin. He sweated with the effort and the stress. Nevin wiped Isranon's forehead, and Isranon smiled faintly at the wolf. Nevin seemed to sense Isranon's needs as keenly as Isranon sensed Stygean's. When Isranon had gotten everything out that he could, he sealed the wound and shielded the power of the fragments he could not reach so that they would not become active again, blunting them. He repeated the procedure with the second and third wounds. Yet he could still feel Stygean fading beneath his hands.

  He threw power into Stygean, searching for what more he could do and found nothing. Isranon felt a warm stickiness around his mid-section, leaking into the quilted padding he now wore in the places where his old wounds kept returning. He had to stop or risk damaging himself.

  Isranon rose unsteadily to his feet. "There's nothing more I can do."

  Nevin supported him, eyes hard, reading Isranon's face. "Nothing?"

  Isranon shook his head. "I can't save him. I don't know why. But I can't."

  "Will you try again?"

  "After I've rested and had a little of the Rose."

  Nevin helped Isranon to his rooms.

  * * * *

  Grygg and the others walked Chinisi to Stygean's chambers. When they entered, they found Randilyn sitting with him. The nibari swiftly wiped the tears from her eyes and put on a brave face. It was common knowledge that Randilyn loved Stygean as if her were the son she would never have: Ymraude nibari did not reproduce.

  When they came in, Randilyn excused herself, and the boys and Chinisi moved chairs close to the bedside. Iyan wept and sobbed. Dahnig had tears in his eyes.

  "You can't die on us, Stygean," Dahnig kept repeating, grasping Stygean's hand. The youth looked as if the life had already gone out of him, frail, lost in the netherworld of coma, his disheveled black curls making his face ghastly by contrast.

  Grygg sat with his arm around Chinisi, calm and stoic. "He isn't going to die, Little Sister. He's too tough. A little piece of shit like Jingen could never kill him."

  Chinisi turned into Grygg's arms and wept against his chest.

  "If Dawnreturning doesn't order Jingen executed, I'll slit his sorry throat myself."

  "I agree," said Dahnig.

  "Me too," said Iyan.

  Chinisi swallowed, her lips parting slightly in distress. "Thank you, but I don't want any of you getting into trouble for our sake. Besides, I have every faith in Lord Dawnreturning's judgment."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ENGAGEMENT

  Melupo 5, 1077

  "They spent the night alone together." Cordwainer said as he scrubbed his back with a soaped brush on a long handle.

  Lobelia rolled her sleeves up. "Let me do that for you."

  She took the brush and set it aside, soaping a wash cloth instead, which she ran over her husband's lean back.

  "Feels good, Lobelia." He bent forward so she could get all of him. "No matter the circumstance, it wasn't seemly. People will draw their own conclusions."

  "Where are you going with this?"

  "Chinisi told me she's in love with him."

  Lobelia made a disparaging sound. "A young girl's fancy. It will fade."

  "He went after her at the risk of his life. That counts. There's courage there."

  "Where are you going with this?" Lobelia asked again, impatience threading her voice.

  "An engagement if he survives. After all they did spend the night together."

  "Don't be foolish. I'll have the midwives check Chinisi. If she's still virgin, then none of this matters."

  "It's appearance that matters, Lobelia. That and the fact they love each other."

  "I refuse to watch Chinisi make the same mistakes – or worse – that others have."

  Cordwainer scowled. "Like a rushed wedding because of a pregnant bride?"

  Lobelia's face went florid, and she slapped him, her hand making a loud splat on his wet back. "Twenty-six years of marriage and you still bring that up?"

  "I married you anyway. You had neither parents nor guardians to force a match. I could have tossed you aside and taken a higher caste bride."

  "Shut up!"

  "I am trying to make a point here." Geoffry dragged his wife sputtering into the water with him, which caused the tub to overflow. "Chinisi will be no more harmed by a match with Stygean than you have been with me."

  Lobelia laced her fingers across her soggy lap, her face set in a mask of disapproval. "You're wrong. The male's rank is taken on by the female."

  "You are missing the point, Lobelia, my dear. There's no way Chinisi will be considered untainted having spent the night in t
he forest with him. General opinion will always hold that he must have gotten his knob into her. For the sake of her honor, she must marry him if he survives."

  "I refuse to accept that."

  * * * *

  Lobelia came to Stygean's room expecting to find Chinisi there. The girl had developed what she considered an unhealthy obsession with Stygean. She hoped the boy died. Chinisi deserved better than a filthy sa'necari. I'll poison him before I'll let him marry Chinisi.

  She saw Chinisi holding Stygean's hand and tried to snatch her loose. "Come away, there are things for you to do."

  Chinisi twisted free and Grygg interposed himself between her and her aunt.

  "Let her be," Grygg growled.

  Lobelia glared, her eyes full of disdain. A lowborn kandoyarin had no place defying her. "I decide what is and is not appropriate for my niece."

  "Chinisi is fourteen, old woman," Grygg snarled. "She's of age."

  "You can't take me away from him," Chinisi said.

  "He isn't fit for you," Lobelia snapped. "He's sa'necari."

  "He's a good mon," said Grygg.

  Lobelia had a suspicion that if Stygean died, Chinisi would turn to Grygg and become as fixated on him as she had been the sa'necari. Neither of them were acceptable. "Come with me, Chinisi. Or shall I speak to your uncle about this?"

  Chinisi threw a despairing glance at the youths clustered around Stygean’s bed and stood up. "I'm coming."

  Lobelia pulled her from the room. "What could you have been thinking, girl? Everyone is saying that you opened your legs to Stygean. I intend to have the midwives check your virginity. Two of them are waiting for us now."

  Chinisi quailed. "I'm still a virgin, Aunt Lobelia."

  A smug look settled on Lobelia's face at Chinisi's reaction to the thought of having the healers putting their fingers inside her to check that the hymen was still in place. It was one of the few things that could not be easily Read for.

  "So you say. I'm beginning to wonder. Only a slut with her legs open would associate with such lower caste scum."

  Her emotions already jangled and raw, Chinisi winced, and tears streamed from her eyes. She felt vulnerable in ways she never had before. "They're good myn, all of them."