Bloodkin (6 page)

Farrell, as usual, tempered Misha’s caustic words with his own logic. “Malachi does sometimes get timelines confused. He might have been thinking of a future visit. Or perhaps—”

He grabbed Misha’s arm at the same moment that I looked back up at the empty space that had been the wreckage … and found myself staring into familiar garnet eyes. My blood ran cold. My heart raced. Every muscle in my body quivered, preparing me to flee. I felt my companions go still around me. Even Vance apparently recognized Hara Kiesha Cobriana, heir to the serpiente throne.

The first time I’d seen her, I was seven years old. I had never met another serpiente, and I feared that she might be a demon. Her black hair and blood-red eyes had terrified me. I hadn’t seen Hara since I was thirteen years old, and now, that old horror crept in.

For what seemed like an eternity, we were all frozen: me, Farrell, Misha, Vance, Hara, and the serpiente guards behind her. The shapeshifter nations weren’t allowed to
keep a standing army, but they were encouraged to have guards to police their own people.

With one hand still holding Misha’s wrist, as if concerned she might bolt, Farrell put his other hand on my shoulder. He gently turned me away from Hara as he whispered, “Look over there.”

Over there
was the guard Vance had spoken to a moment ago.
Midnight’s
guard. He was watching our tableau with sharp attention, one hand at the hilt of his sword.

Remembering that even the heir to the serpiente throne was helpless here, I let out the breath that had been locked in my chest. Hara had probably come to review her accounts … though that wasn’t a comforting thought either. A balance on Midnight’s sheets would mean soldiers in our woods, like the ones who had taken Misha and Shkei last year.

That last thought made me so angry that I turned back to Hara without fear of her royal power or her red gaze. “Move along, cobra,” I said as boldly as I dared. “There’s nothing for you here.”

Farrell squeezed my shoulder in what was probably meant to be a warning. We were safe here as long as we didn’t start a physical fight—which would get us hauled in for disrupting trade—but antagonizing the royals still wasn’t necessary, or wise.

“We should go,” Farrell urged us. “Just—”

“Run?” Hara suggested, her tone cutting. She took a
step closer. Her gaze flickered to Midnight’s guards—others had drawn near now, intrigued by the sight of two enemies squaring off—and I saw her pointedly move her hand away from the dagger she wore at her belt. Softly, so she wouldn’t be overheard, she hissed, “Please do. I would love to continue this conversation more privately.” Her eyes scanned our group, and then she added, “I see one white viper who should be in Midnight’s cells, but I don’t see your witch Malachi. I doubt you can slip out of sight as easily without him.”

Misha lunged forward with a curse, and Farrell and Vance only barely managed to hold her back.

All I kept seeing were these soldiers grabbing Misha and Shkei, on what was supposed to be the holiest night of the year. Misha was certainly reliving those memories, too, along with ones far worse than I could imagine.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “How do you sleep at night?” I demanded of Hara. “You claim to stand for a nation that worships freedom. How do you justify selling a sixteen-year-old boy into slavery to pay
your
taxes?”

The royal house was known for its temper, and Hara would have struck me if her own guards hadn’t restrained her.

“It helps that I have better bedfellows,” Hara snapped, shaking off her guards’ hands. “I’m not beholden to a murdering rapist.” She glared at Farrell. “Or the bloodtraitor who sold out the Shantel.” That was directed at Vance.
Then she turned back to me. “Then again, your hands aren’t exactly clean. I would love to believe the white viper bewitched you, like legends say they can, but he never could have convinced you to commit treason if you hadn’t already let him in.”

“We leave
now
,” Farrell hissed. “Misha. Come on. Vance. We need to—”

“They can’t assault us here,” Vance said, stubbornly holding his ground as Farrell tried to herd us away. “I’ll leave when our trading is done. I won’t let them chase us away. Besides, I’m curious about what I supposedly did to the Shantel. Care to enlighten me, Hara?”

She responded with incredulous laughter. “Are you trying to claim
ignorance
?” she asked. “You’re standing beside the man who murdered the serpiente queen—my
mother
, incidentally—the girl who murdered my would-be mate, and a woman who would be in Midnight now if the vampires hadn’t oh-so-conveniently released her. You’re keeping company with the guild that abducted Alasdair, princess of the avians, and sold her to Midnight. Are you really going to pretend that you are innocent?”

Vance blanched before saying simply, “Excuse me?”

My whole body chilled, in a too-familiar way. When I had been a child, that sensation had preceded seizures.

“We didn’t murder Naga Elise!” I protested, uselessly and perhaps even more damningly, because every other accusation the cobra made was true … and Vance, quite
obviously, hadn’t known most of it. I had thought that Malachi might have told him about the hawk, Alasdair, but that had obviously been wishful thinking.

As for Paulin, Hara’s supposed would-be mate, I hadn’t spoken to
anyone
about him since I had joined the Obsidian guild. As far as I could tell, his death had elevated him to a far higher place in the princess’s esteem than he had held in life, a fact I knew well since he had blamed
me
for his failure to make any progress in his attempted courtship. My entire life as a ward of the serpiente king had ended in blood, but I wasn’t the heartless assassin Hara described.

I don’t know what would have happened if Midnight’s guards hadn’t decided that this had gone on long enough. They broke up the argument, pushing us apart and demanding, “Do you have
business
here?” They were asking the same question of Hara’s group.

“Yes,” Farrell answered instantly. He lifted the goods we had brought with us and handed them over for inspection. “We intended to trade with the Shantel. That’s why we were asking about them. What is their situation?”

“We’ll buy your wares,” the guard replied. “Who else do you need to trade with?”

“The Azteka, if they’re here,” Farrell answered, “and the blacksmith.”

The guards consulted each other, and then they gave their orders.

“Make your trades quickly—then
leave
,” they said.
“The princess needs to tend to her accounts, which will take time, and then she plans to travel east to the Shantel. We will ensure that
all
of her people go that direction, so none can stay to follow you back to your camp.” They had obviously heard Hara’s implied threat, and intended to ensure that Midnight’s laws keeping us safe on their land were enforced even once we left the market. It was odd to realize that, in this place, the Obsidian guild was considered
more
trustworthy than the serpiente.

“I thought trade with the Shantel was forbidden,” Farrell commented.

“It is,” the guard replied, “but the serpiente are in good standing, so their travel is not restricted. They are bringing no trade goods with them, and are aware of the consequences if they violate trade sanctions.”

Emboldened by that response, I asked, “I was planning to try to reach the Shantel as well.”

Farrell shot me a long-suffering look. Not only did we have no such plans before that moment, but he was specifically barred from trespassing on Shantel land. It didn’t matter; I didn’t need his consent. I wanted to know what was happening with the Shantel—Shane in particular—and I had more reason than most to believe I might be allowed into their land so I could assuage my curiosity.

The guards, however, looked skeptical. They were obviously about to deny me permission when support came from an unexpected quarter. “
We
were planning to, she
means,” Vance said, gesturing to himself and me. “While Farrell and Misha returned to the camp.”

Vance was one of us these days, but he had once been highly ranked in Midnight, and the empire’s guards still seemed uncertain as to his authority. They weren’t going to argue with him. I wanted to do so myself—Vance had been afraid to even set foot in the market or approach the Shantel stall, so why was he offering to go with me? But I would save my questions for later.

“In that case, you two should go now,” the guard told us, “before the royal party begins traveling that direction.”

Another added, “If you’re planning to try to collect the bounty, you can bring their people here or directly to Midnight proper.” My stomach rolled at the casual assumption that we might be going to Shantel land to find someone we could sell. Like Hara had said, we were far from innocent, but our crimes had never been about greed. I had never needed coins so badly that I would trade in flesh to get them.

I didn’t bother to argue with bloodtraitors, though. Their perception of us was surely part of the reason Midnight would block trade to the Shantel without blocking access. The vampires didn’t need to get past Shantel magic, if they trusted that someone else would do their dirty work for them.

There was no more time for discussion. We redistributed
our supplies quickly, and Farrell gave me his knife with a whispered plea to be careful, since I hadn’t yet been able to replace my own. Then we started out to the east, with the serpiente royal party behind us, and the unknown Shantel woods before us.

“THANK YOU FOR
helping me,” I said to Vance as we set out on the road that led east from Midnight’s market toward Shantel land, “but I understand if you do not want to go any farther. I know you’re no fan of the Shantel.” Vance had no reason to care about the people who had bewitched him, then sent him back to the vampires like a gift of poisoned wine. They had surely expected him to die, after he passed their disease on to the immortals.

Vance shrugged, his expression distant, lost in thought.

“We don’t know what the Shantel think happened,” I warned. “If they think we betrayed them, I can’t promise we’ll be greeted warmly.”

Vance and I were the only people alive who had seen four of Midnight’s infamous trainers lying, cold and still as corpses, on the stone floor. We had been present when
the Shantel witch responsible for poisoning them had been killed by an Azteka woman seeking to keep Midnight’s wrath from falling on her own people. That woman never knew we had just infected Jeshickah, and that if she had stayed her hand Midnight’s leader would have been destroyed. Since we didn’t dare share the real story, it made sense that other shapeshifters apparently thought we had somehow betrayed the Shantel.

Shantel magic was supposed to be powerful, especially when it came to prophecy and knowing about events they had not witnessed. I hoped, even if they thought we had worked with Midnight against them, they would let us speak and would have some way to confirm our account. But I couldn’t guarantee that.

“If you’re worried, why are you going?” Vance asked at last.

“Because …” I trailed off. I couldn’t articulate the horror I had felt at the end of my nightmare. I didn’t even want to
think
about it. Instead, I said, “Malachi said to look for the boy with the harp. His name is Shane, and he is one of the Shantel I once knew. Malachi wouldn’t have mentioned it if it weren’t important.”

Vance didn’t respond, but now my own thoughts were swirling too fast for me to take note. It had been years since I had seen Shane. Back then, I had been a sick, terrified child, and he had been a sweet young boy who had tried to comfort me. Now I was an outlaw, accused of
—guilty
of—treason
against the royal house of the serpiente, and Shane was a prince.

Was I being a fool, putting myself in his land?

The sound of the shattering harp and the stink of burning bodies pervaded my memory, as if to say,
What choice do you have?

We were almost in Shantel land when Vance broke his silence, and said, “Tell me about Alasdair.”

God help me
, I thought. I had been so focused on my immediate concerns, I had actually forgotten how Vance had reacted to Hara’s accusations.

“I trust you to tell me the truth,” Vance added, when I was quiet too long. “That’s why I volunteered to go with you.”

“I … We …” I tried to gather my thoughts. “A few months after Misha and Shkei were sold to Midnight, a mercenary came to us. She said a hawk had crossed one of Midnight’s trainers, and he wanted her. Midnight’s laws include a clause that says that shapeshifters can’t be made slaves unless we disobey those laws, or our own kind sells us in … so he couldn’t take her, legally. Not unless someone … other shapeshifters, like
us
 … sold her to him.”

Repeating the tale with Vance frowning at me left a foul taste in my mouth. The rest of the story seemed obvious enough, so I didn’t say it aloud.
We agreed. We sold her, and we got Misha back in return
.

“I met her, you know,” Vance said, once I had stopped speaking. “Gabriel owns her, or did when I was there.”