Bloodkin (8 page)

“Are they right?” His tone said he already knew.

“Probably,” I answered reluctantly. “Likely enough that we might as well pack up and get it over with. They wouldn’t have stepped in to take our weapons if we weren’t almost there.”

I turned to start packing up our camp, and Vance followed suit. The process didn’t take long, and as we finished, Vance asked, “When you said you had an open invitation to visit the Shantel, I guess I thought that meant they saw you as a friend. What do I need to know before we walk into this?”

“Shantel don’t really see anyone outside their own kind as a
friend
,” I admitted. “I think they see me as a … a responsibility I was a child when I was here last. They promised me I would always be allowed to return if I had a need, but I’ve had no desire to do so.”

I could see the curiosity on Vance’s face, but I didn’t want to go into detail when I was sure the Shantel guards were still standing nearby, probably close enough to see and overhear us.

For the rest of our trip, our escort remained mostly invisible, only noticeable as occasional shadows in the corner of my vision. I caught sight of the witch again as we approached the low stone wall that marked the edge of the Shantel village. His gaze was on us, but he made no attempt to speak to or restrain us.

The woods did not end here, but they thinned slightly. Cobbles took the place of dense underbrush, and younger trees had been trimmed away, while statuesque red cedar and fir trees still dotted the sprawling, winding space. The buildings looked like they, too, had been grown from the forest. Stone walls blended into clay brick and then natural branches and bark, supplemented with thatched or woven curtains or roofs.

As we stepped past a break in the wall, the other guards appeared around us, forming a corridor I had no doubt led directly toward the sakkri. Outsiders were not permitted to wander Shantel land without an escort, but this was extreme.

“This is the Shantel Family Courtyard,” I explained to Vance, trying to fill him in on crucial information while ignoring our armed companions. “If someone here says ‘the Family,’ they mean the
royal
family. Unless they’ve had a birth I don’t know about, that means King Laurence, and the two princes, Lucas and Shane.”

“Big courtyard,” Vance observed, with a quirked brow. “No women in the Family?”

“I’m not sure what happened to the queen,” I answered. “I know King Laurence married and had children when he was older than usual, so she may have been older, too. They had no daughters, but even if they had, the boys still would have been ahead of her in line for the throne.” With a shrug, I added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the magic selects male offspring for the royal family. They have a family tree posted on the wall of the receiving room, going back generations, and it’s heavy with men.”

“Huh.” Midnight was ruled by a woman, and the serpiente believed a woman was as capable as a man, so this was Vance’s first exposure to a patriarchal system.

“Their sakkri, the high priestess, is always a woman,” I added. “I think they believe the male king and female priestess provide balance. Or something.”

I heard one of the guards cough in response to my vague, dismissive description. Somehow, I couldn’t find it in myself to be concerned that I had offended him.

Though I knew all three Shantel royals, I had never met the sakkri, with her gift of prophecy. The Shantel’s most sacred witch was chosen by the land itself, and recognized at birth by the “white curse,” a mark visible on both her human and animal forms. In order to maintain her tie to the magic of the land, she was never given a name. She could be claimed by no one; even the woman who gave birth to a sakkri would never claim the infant as “hers.” A sakkri had no parents, no lovers, no friends.

No wonder they call it a curse
, I thought.

“The deathwitch said the sakkri sent him to Midnight,” Vance remarked, his tone as controlled as if he were discussing the weather.

I didn’t know any words powerful enough to soothe him, so I reached out and squeezed his hand instead. Vance shot me a grateful smile, and I tried not to let him see my anxiety.

There wasn’t time to say more before we reached the temple, which was a low, round building whose doors were covered by an elaborately embroidered tapestry. Cowrie shells sewn against the fabric had become leaves in an elaborate tree, whose trunk was made of wooden beads, each carved with a different design. The green-and-white shells sparkled in the dappled light.

I forced my feet to move forward, and my hand to reach for the curtain. I smelled the rich aroma of incense and beeswax candles as we stepped into the antechamber. Vance and I both stopped with our toes barely past the threshold, leaving as much distance between us and the two women who seemed to be waiting for us as possible.

“This is a surprise,” one of the women said. I was startled to see that she couldn’t have been much older than I was, though she was clearly the revered sakkri. Her skin was a deep plum-black, and the “white curse” was visible as markings throughout her long, jet-dark hair. The white strands made striking streaks of silver in the black tresses.

“Liar,” I grumbled. “A half-dozen goons showed up to fetch us.”

“Did they,” said the sakkri. It was not a question, though it was accompanied by a pointed glance to the other woman.

I knew there could be more than one of any of the other witches, but the Shantel always spoke as if there was only one sakkri. I was looking at evidence that my impression was wrong, however, because the second woman also had white markings. She was older, though her face had a timeless quality to it that made it hard to tell her age. Her skin was red-brown, except for the milk-white markings visible along one side of her face like a tiger’s stripes.

“Yes,” Vance said. “So tell us what you want.”

The two sakkri did not look offended by our bluntness. They looked serene. I wanted to say or do something extreme, to break that calm the way they had broken mine.

“We were coming to Shantel land willingly,” I snapped. “To
help
. Was a show of force really necessary?”

“We were not convinced you would come to
us
,” the older sakkri said, with a glance to her … friend, guardian, mentor? I had no idea what relation to each other these two might have. Either way, the look said that this subject was a contentious one.

“My sister insists that you can aid us,” the younger sakkri said.

Sister
, then. The white curse was not inherited, and
the age difference between the two women suggested the relationship was ceremonial, not literal. I said, “And yet you claim our visit was a surprise.”

“We were not certain if our message had been received, or understood,” the older woman said. “You have a connection to our magic from your time here as a child, but it is tenuous. We also tried to reach the white prophet, but he is … unreliable. Even if our message was received, we had no way to know if you would respond.”

I thought about my dream, and Malachi’s garbled words. The dream-image of Shane had gnawed at me, driving me here in a way that I now realized was more than simple memory and concern.
If I had realized it was a deliberate message
, I thought,
I probably
wouldn’t
have responded
.

“Who gave you the right?” I demanded, unable to bite back my fury when I realized they had manipulated me magically. “I am
not
one of your people! I’m—”

“
You
gave us the right,” the younger sakkri answered, her voice rising with as much hostility as mine. “If it were not for your interference, the exile’s crimes would never have been blamed on our people. Midnight would not now be demanding
payment
, not in coin but in our flesh and blood. We—”

The older sakkri placed a hand on her sister’s arm, and spoke over her in cool, controlled tones.

“There is no point in our arguing guilt or innocence,” she said, quieting the younger woman. “All we ask of you
two,” she said, “is for you to carry a message. I am aware that you were endangered without your consent by the exile’s scheme, but I am also aware that you eventually chose to ally yourselves with him, and actively assisted him. In that way, you are more culpable than we.”

Slyly, the younger sakkri suggested, “We could perhaps ease some of Midnight’s wrath were we to share that information.”

“But we will
not
,” the older woman snapped. “Our king has forbidden it. He sees you as an ally despite your rather tarnished reputation. If you will assist us, we will not betray you.”

A chill went down my spine as I watched the two sakkri glare at each other. Surely, this kind of dissent in the temple, where Shantel were supposed to look for guidance, did not bode well. I had been sure the sakkri would be able to explain to the Shantel that we were not the guilty party here. I hadn’t realized they would spin it the way they had, putting the blame on us regardless of our intentions.

“What is the message?” I asked. I didn’t plan to go to Midnight proper—and who else could they possibly need to communicate with?—but there might be a way to pass information to someone in the market.

“Prince Lucas will explain,” the younger sakkri said. “They are ready to receive you now, and you are ready to hear what they will say.”

I didn’t feel ready to hear anything the royal family
might tell us, especially given the way the sakkri had all but threatened to turn us over to Midnight as criminals if we refused to help with whatever it was they needed.

“Let’s go see the prince, then,” Vance said, with a slight quaver in his voice that suggested he felt as trepidatious as I did.

The sakkri nodded, giving us permission to leave but apparently not intending to come with us. Had we been asked to see them just so they could threaten us?

If this was the welcoming committee, I was not looking forward to the main event.

OUR ESCORT HAD
fallen back slightly by the time we left the temple, but unsurprisingly, no one offered to return our weapons before we went to see the king and princes.

The Family’s receiving room was pretty in the same style as most Shantel buildings, built into the forest instead of in competition with it. It was hard to tell which parts of the buildings were growing and which had been constructed, where evergreen canopy ended and manufactured roofing began. Breaks in the walls and ceiling let in ample light, but I couldn’t help but wonder how they kept out the rain and the cold in worse weather.

King Laurence was an elderly man, with old scars marking the side of his face and streaking the back of one hand.

Prince Lucas, Laurence’s older son, was by Shantel law and tradition the day-to-day ruling power. The king was
only involved when the prince felt uncertain about resolving matters on his own or when someone questioned his judgment. When we entered the receiving chamber, Lucas was standing beside his wooden throne, as if too anxious to sit still.

Shane, Laurence’s younger son, paced behind his father and brother. His closed-off expression made him seem older than I knew he was, and the knowledge that the sakkri had used my warm memories of him to manipulate me into coming here made me even more unsure about how to greet him.

As Vance and I approached, the guards flanking us bowed. I did not. I also did not step forward or offer a hand to shake, though I knew that touch was considered essential to communication among the Shantel. Refusing to touch someone in greeting was generally equivalent to spitting on them.

The way Lucas’s eyes blazed when he saw me, however, made me realize I was right not to attempt a friendly greeting. Instead, I stopped as far away as I could without our needing to shout at each other, and Vance followed my lead, lingering just behind my left shoulder.

“Kadee,” Lucas said, with a flat, unwelcoming tone that made me shiver. “We did not expect you. Who is your companion?”

Vance spoke for himself. “Vance Obsidian,” he said, “formerly Vance Ehecatl. I don’t work for Midnight anymore,
and I don’t work for you, so stop with the ceremony and feigned surprise and tell us what you want from us so we can leave.”

Silence fell like a hammer.

At last, King Laurence sighed and said, “Please, be seated.”

There were two chairs set up, somewhat closer than I wanted to get, and naturally somewhat lower than the chairs available to the royals.

“No,” I said immediately. “Thank you,” I added, in a belated attempt at basic courtesy. The sakkri had suggested that Laurence at least had protected us and refused to betray us to Midnight. I didn’t want to antagonize him more than I needed to.

“The fact that you carry the name Obsidian does not require you to be contrary,” Lucas snapped.

“Your king sits on a dais, and you two stand on a raised platform,” Vance said. “We came here to
help
you, but first you threaten us, and now you ask us to sit at your feet. We are not your subjects, and we will not be manipulated.”

“Your upbringing is making you paranoid,” Shane suggested, his voice kinder than that of his brother’s. “We just asked you to sit, not to worship.”