Bloodkin (12 page)

So much for hoping she would try again
, I thought.

“They were all children once, you know,” the deathwitch said, again looking away from me. “Even the mighty Jeshickah was born human. The trainer known as Jaguar has a blood-sister among the Azteka who cannot help but seek the brother she once knew. The one known as Gabriel is as dark a villain as any of us can imagine, but they say he loves his hawk.”

Alasdair
. The woman we sold. “His slave, you mean.”

“I do,” she agreed. “He loves her, nonetheless. But he is broken, and does not know how to love something and let it be free at the same time.”

“Are you trying to convince me the trainers aren’t evil?” I asked incredulously. With her own prince on the brink of belonging to them, how could she make such a claim?

“They
are
evil,” the witch said flatly. “But once, they were children. I cannot prophesy the future, the way the
sakkri can, but I can see and mourn what they might have been, if they had not been twisted into what they are.”

Can you see who Alasdair would have been, if we hadn’t sold her into that place? What about Misha—who would she have been, if she had never entered those stone walls?

I didn’t ask. Some questions were better left unanswered.

I TRIED TO
conceal my frustration as I returned to Shane, though I realized it was probably futile. What was the point of
prophecy
, of magic, if it did nothing to help us? I was sick of saying “someday, things will be better,” but not being able to do anything!

“Your people have spent
centuries
refusing to bow to Midnight,” I told him. “You can’t convince me they’ve never threatened you before. How is this time different?”

“Part of Midnight’s hold on people is its rigid adherence to its own laws,” Shane answered. “As long as Midnight doesn’t cross its own lines, obeying the vampires’ laws remains safer than standing against them. Submission ensures safety and survival, while rebellion … well.” He shook his head. “Midnight could never bring its full force against us without breaking its own rules. Arbitrarily crushing us
would send a message to everyone else they rule that there is no safety in obedience. It would ensure an uprising.”

“But now Midnight can blame you,” I said, filling in the blanks. “You struck first.”

“So they can strike back as hard as they want,” Shane replied. “They cannot afford to back down, not when they say we tried to assassinate the trainers.”

“You’re really going to go through with this?” I asked stupidly. Did he have any other choice?

“Sometimes, there are fights you can’t win.” He sighed heavily. “We tried to stall and wheedle our way out of this, and Amber paid the price. She was just a merchant delivering a message, but when Midnight stopped playing around, she was the one within their reach.” His gaze slid to me, and I saw the wry acknowledgement in it. “I suppose that’s the kind of sin a child of Obsidian expects from a prince. The Family played power games while inside this forest, and let one of our subjects pay the price. We should have protected her.”

What could I say to that?
You should never have let one of your people try to fight Midnight
. Or,
You should have rolled over the moment Midnight asked for payment and given them anything they asked
. Those options weren’t any better.
You should never have hoped to win
. I couldn’t believe that.

If I believed that, everything we had ever done was useless.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He took my hand and squeezed it. “None of this is your fault.”

But it is
, I thought.
If we hadn’t involved ourselves, Jeshickah never would have connected the plague with your people. Malachi and I would probably be dead. Vance certainly would be. I am not sorry we chose to stay alive … but I am sorry that you are the one who will pay for it
.

Shane shot to his feet and started forward before I realized anything was wrong. As I followed, I began to hear shouting, and recognized Vance’s voice. It was too soon for him to have made it to Midnight, negotiated a deal, and returned to us, but he was here anyway, pushing his way past the guards, toward the temple.

“You can’t just—”

“Let go of me,” Vance snapped at the guards who were trying to restrain him. “Unless you want to discuss the definition of ‘impeding trade.’ ”

Vance’s dark hair had come out of its tie and was rumpled around his face, not quite concealing the scratches on his cheek and jaw. Some of them were still bleeding. Those crimson beads brought a sick feeling to the pit of my stomach, as if they portended far worse to come.

The guards, who had hesitated at Vance’s words, drew back to let their prince pass.

“What is the meaning of this?” Shane demanded, grabbing Vance’s arm before he could storm into the sakkri’s receiving room.

“That is what I would like to know,” Vance answered. Raising his voice, he called, “Are you in there?”

The older sakkri emerged and looked at Vance, and then Shane. “What can I do for you now, mercenary child of blood?”

Vance frowned at the appellation. “Odd name to give me, when you are the one who is trying so hard to sell your prince into slavery—or so you say. Do you think Midnight is going to be swayed by a ruse like this?”

“What are you talking about?” Shane asked.

“I’m talking,” Vance bit out, “about the fact that the forest will not let me pass. It wouldn’t even let me above the treetops to fly. It nearly broke my wing knocking me to the ground, and then gave me these.” He tilted his head and brushed his hair back. In the light, the cuts and new bruises down the side of his face looked even worse.

I had been worried about him going to
Midnight
. I had never even stopped to wonder if he was safe in the Shantel forest. How many of the Shantel believed, like Marcel, that the Obsidian guild was responsible for their current predicament? How many of them thought Vance and I were traitors?

“The forest answers to the sakkri,” Vance said, “so I want to hear what they have to say.”

The sakkri stepped forward and reached toward Vance, who jerked back.

“I just want to check the wound,” she said.

“Let me,” I said, stepping between the sakkri and Vance. It would be a long time before he would let another Shantel magic user put hands on him, even when it was supposedly for his own good.

“It’s fine,” Vance said, shaking me off. “I want to know why it happened in the first place.”

“I am sorry you were wounded on our behalf,” the sakkri said. “I did not intend it.”

“You, singular?” I asked. “What about your sister?”

“I am certain she did not wish a guest to come to harm either,” she responded, “but she is indisposed at the moment, so I cannot ask.”

“Is she ill?” Shane asked, the concern in his voice comical. With everything else going on, his anxiety over the sakkri’s sniffles seemed overblown.

The older sakkri shook her head. “Sometimes the power speaks very loudly. It can be overwhelming, especially when one has just come into the visions, as my sister has.”

“So, if you didn’t mean to stop him,” I said, interrupting, “and your sister didn’t, and the entire royal family is behind this mission, then why wasn’t Vance allowed to pass?” A more personal concern struck me. “Are we trapped here now? I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that if Midnight burns this forest, I do not want to be in it.”

“It won’t come to that,” Shane said, with the absolute certainty of a man who has never doubted his power or his place in the world. “Vance, what exactly happened?”

I remembered Shane’s description of his tie to the people on his land, and how he could sense an intruder crossing the border. “Shouldn’t you already know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I love my people, but I have been working very hard
not
to feel the way they do about the current situation. Thanks to years of study in the temple, I can do that … mostly. I’ve been sensing their anger and grief for days. If I felt the attack on Vance, I didn’t notice it as anything different.”

“All I know,” Vance answered, “is that one moment I was flying, and the next, something hit me hard enough that I blacked out. I woke up just outside the village.”

Remembering the argument we had witnessed earlier, I said to the sakkri, “You and your sister seem to disagree about this plan. Could her magic be overriding yours?” I knew the Shantel men had objected to the idea that the two sakkri might not agree, but surely someone had to recognize there was some dissonance here.

Some of the guards who had run toward the ruckus looked like they would object to my question, but the sakkri answered first. “She does not
like
this plan, but we both understand what we must do to survive. She would not sabotage that.”

“
Someone
did,” Vance pointed out. “You’re damn lucky I’m trying to help you, and not actually on Midnight’s payroll. What do you think would have happened if your magic had assaulted one of the vampires?”

There is no luck in the Shantel woods
, I thought.

“If our power had turned on one of the blood-drinkers,” the sakkri replied calmly, “it would not have brought him, mostly uninjured, to the Family Courtyard. The forest did not want you to leave, but it knows you are not an enemy.”

“Stop blaming
trees
,” I snapped. Vance already held a grudge, and didn’t trust the Shantel. If we didn’t sort this out quickly, he would give up on helping them, no matter what he might get out of it. I wasn’t in any position to go to Midnight and negotiate on the Shantel’s behalf on my own, and I couldn’t stand to just walk away—assuming I even
could
leave anymore. “The Shantel have never traded with Midnight before. Whether or not you think this is necessary, I’m sure none of you thinks it’s a good idea. Maybe the forest is responding to your desires, instead of your commands. Either way, I’m sure the sakkri can control it. One of you can escort us—”

“The sakkri doesn’t leave Shantel land,” Shane reflexively interrupted.

“The sakkri is going to burn with the rest of us if we don’t do something differently,” I replied.

“If Shane travels with us, and the sakkri leads us, we can all reach the edge of Midnight’s land together,” Vance suggested. “Shane and the sakkri can stay behind while I go ahead to make the deal. That way, once the arrangements have been made, we don’t have to worry about any of us being stuck in the forest.”

“No,”
Shane protested vehemently. “I am not going to bring her—” He broke off, dropped his gaze, and took a deep breath. “I’ll speak to my father and see if he has any other thoughts. In the morning, we will all confer to make sure we are all in agreement,” he continued, looking at the older sakkri, “and then I alone will accompany you and Kadee out of Shantel land.”

I knew how the Shantel felt about their sakkri, and I was not surprised that Shane would flat-out refuse to let one of them bring us out of this forest. A royal escort should prove just as effective … but none of this
should
have happened in the first place.

Vance and I exchanged a skeptical glance. I shrugged. It was probably the best offer we would get at this point.

“I will meet you in the Family home in the morning,” Shane said as he turned to leave.

With those words, he left the two of us alone with the sakkri.

“If Shane is the one supposedly leading us out of the forest, and he decides that he does not want to sell himself into Midnight, what happens?” I asked.

“Shane is a prince dedicated to his people,” the sakkri replied. “Our magic will respond to his will and his deeply set beliefs, not to his fears and whims.”

“That’s nicely optimistic,” Vance remarked. “Kadee, where do we sleep around here? I’m exhausted.”

I glanced at the sakkri, but she had already turned back to the temple, dismissing us.

“This way.” Marcel had stayed out of the way during my conversations with Shane and the deathwitch, but now stepped up again to act as escort. “I am sure the Family will allow you to stay in the royal home if you wish, but we also have campsites, which are normally used by traveling merchants. I suspect children of Obsidian would be more comfortable there.”

“Thank you,” Vance said, looking at Marcel with curiosity.

There was a long pause, during which I wondered if I should introduce them. I ended up saying, “Vance, this is Marcel. She …”
She kidnapped me once
. “She’s our escort while we are here.”

“Nice to meet you,” Vance said, in a questioning tone that said he had heard the hesitation in my voice, and wasn’t sure whether or not he was supposed to dislike Marcel. He started to offer his hand and then withdrew it, his eyes taking in the marks of power along Marcel’s skin.

“It’s a pleasure to meet another wanderer,” Marcel replied. If Vance’s refusal to shake her hand offended her, she did not show the emotion. “You are a long way from the home of your blood.”

Vance shook his head incredulously, not deigning to comment, and Marcel led us to the merchants’ campsite.
Each site had a lean-to–style tent set next to a fire ring. Heavy trunks inside each shelter held additional supplies, which were available for visitors.