Daughter of Dusk (25 page)

“We change in front of you to show our trust, but you look away,” she said. “Does it frighten you?”

“I, uh…it’s not that. We just don’t customarily go without clothing.” Sometimes honesty was the best approach.

Adele cocked her head, then seemed to dismiss the idea as strange. “This is Stepan, my clan mate. He wanted to meet you.”

Stepan came forward and extended a hand, which was a relief because Flick didn’t really know how the Makvani greeted each other. He had seen a few variants of bows, but had a feeling that
there was much more complexity to them than Flick could figure out. The Demon Rider’s handshake was firm.

“Idalee,” said Flick, catching her eye. “Mayhap you could bring out some food to share.”

Idalee tilted her head, trying to discern if Flick’s request was a real one or a signal to run for her life. Flick gave her a subtle nod. If the Demon Riders were being friendly, they
would be friendly as well.

As Idalee gathered her skirts and hurried back to the house, Stepan looked around and inhaled deeply. “Livestock,” he said.

Flick froze. “You’re not going to…”

“What would you do if we were to raid these farms?” asked Adele.

Flick swallowed and took some time to consider his response. Was Adele testing him? She was certainly watching him with interest, and he didn’t think she was bluffing about raiding the
farms. But neither did he think she was toying with him.

“I suppose there’s not much I could do,” he said. “I can’t outrun you, so I wouldn’t be able to warn them, and I can’t fight you without any weapons. I
might follow, to see if I can help get the farmhands to safety.” He watched the Demon Riders’ expressions carefully, alert for any sign of offense. “I wouldn’t try to stop
you, but it would sadden me. I’ve enjoyed your company, and I imagine it would drive a wedge between us, if you were to raid the nearby farms.”

Adele cast her gaze down as she thought this over. “Are most humans like you, using their words to fight instead of their claws?” she finally asked.

Despite the tension, or perhaps because of it, Flick had to laugh. Kyra would have appreciated that description of him. “Can you blame me, since I don’t have claws?” Flick
curled his hands, with their stubby nails, into his best claw impression and showed her. He thought he saw the corners of her mouth creep up. “But no. There are many in Forge who prefer
‘claws’ over talk.”

“We won’t take anything from the farms,” Adele said. She seemed to be talking as much to Stepan as to Flick.

Idalee arrived just then with a platter of bread and cheese and a wool blanket to spread over the snow. Flick hoped that the girl didn’t pick up on his residual nerves from that last
exchange. Adele and Stepan took their time with the food, savoring each bite and stopping to inhale the bread’s aroma. “We have not been able to cook in the past year, since we’ve
been traveling,” said Stepan.

“Czern tells me that we used to have cheese often, back when we raided more villages,” said Adele.

Idalee choked on her bread, and Flick himself had a hard time keeping a calm demeanor at yet more talk of raids. Again, Adele noticed.

“It bothers you to speak of raids,” said Adele. Flick would have laughed at the magnitude of the understatement, but Adele looked genuinely concerned.

He wondered how to respond. “A good friend of mine, like a mother to me, was killed in a raid. It’s hard for me to think about them.”

To his surprise, Adele’s features softened in understanding. “I lost two brothers and a sister to raids. It saddens me still.”

Idalee looked up from her bread, dropping a piece of cheese on the blanket. “Your clan was raided?”

Adele nodded, surprised at Idalee’s surprise. “By another clan.”

“Did this happen often?” asked Flick.

“There were many of us over the mountains,” said Stepan.

“And you were constantly at war?”

“There were many of us,” said Adele again, as if that were the answer to his question.

Flick chose his next words carefully. “Did anyone try to put a stop to the fighting? I imagine it would have been taxing on your people.”

Adele and Stepan looked at each other for the length of several breaths. “That is not the way we do things,” said Adele.

At that moment, both the Demon Riders looked toward the road. Flick had been around Makvani enough times now to realize that they were hearing something he couldn’t. He turned and saw a
rider in official Palace colors coming from the city. News from the Palace, and it must have been important if a herald had come to announce it. Flick exchanged glances with Idalee. The last
courier to be sent out like this had borne a description of Kyra and an announcement for the bounty on her head.

“Mercie will know the news when she comes back,” said Idalee.

“It might be too late by then,” said Flick. Idalee didn’t argue, and Flick stood. “I’m very sorry, but I must go.”

“I understand,” said Adele. The two Demon Riders dusted the bread crumbs from their clothes and left with little ceremony.

Flick looked back toward the city. The heralds traveled the main roads, stopping to announce their news at crossroads, squares, and inns along the way. “There’s an inn up the
road,” he said. “If it’s important news, the people there’ll be talking about it.”

“Will you go by yourself?” asked Idalee.

He nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

The fields were quiet, and every farmhouse he passed had smoke coming out of its chimney. Folk were holed up inside, where it was warm. It was a long walk past the farms, but as he came closer
to the inn, he noticed more people than usual about on the road. Flick slowed and listened for snippets of conversation.

…A Palace building burned down
….

…magistrate make an example of him…

His pulse quickened, and he ducked into the inn’s dining room. It was a small establishment compared with the ones in the city, but it should be busy enough to get him the news he
needed.

The energy level inside was certainly high. While the dining room was usually divided into separate tables, the majority of the patrons were seated near the center, participating in one big,
disorganized discussion.

“They say he single-handedly took out a dozen Red Shields,” one potbellied man was saying. “And his lackeys killed even more with that fire.”

Flick took a seat near the side and settled down to listen.

T W E N T Y

L
eyus was her father.

Even after she said good-bye to Craigson and started making her way back to her cave, the knowledge sat awkwardly in her mind. Kyra circled it warily, afraid to delve too deeply, yet unable to
forget it.

You don
’
t choose your family.
Kyra had known this. Yet in her imaginings, she’d still conjured the warm, loving parents that every orphan wanted. This hope had
taken a blow when she learned she was half Makvani, but even then, she hadn’t completely given it up. She’d just re-created the picture into someone like Pashla—dangerous yet
gentle.

Kyra would not have chosen Leyus. He was distant and intimidating, and he frightened her. Yet it all made more sense than she cared to admit. Leyus had always been a little too lenient with her.
He’d had reason to kill her many times when she’d lived among his people, especially after he found out she worked for the Palace. But instead, he’d always sent her off with a
warning.

And then there was the way the clan kept track of her movements in the forest. Pashla had made it sound as if they watched all comers, but with Kyra it was more than that. Kyra thought back to
that time Leyus rescued her from Zora’s attack, and the two times Pashla had saved her, once when Zora threatened her in the clearing, and once when Adele attacked. No, Leyus wasn’t
just having her watched. He was having her protected.

It was that thought that spurred her into action. Even now, Kyra could sense someone watching her, and the questions became too insistent to ignore. Why would he do this, yet stay so cold and
aloof? How long had he known?

“I know someone’s watching me,” Kyra called out into the trees. “Pashla? I need to speak to Leyus.”

The forest went quiet at her voice. She cast around, alert for any response, but nothing came, and slowly the sounds of the forest returned—the fluttering of a winter bird’s wings,
the high bark of a fox. Kyra leaned against a tree, swallowing her disappointment and trying to make sense of everything Craigson had told her. Her mother was a woman who led a village an
unfathomable distance away. And her father…

Something shifted around her. “Anyone there?” Kyra asked. She definitely sensed someone coming toward her now, someone quiet enough to keep her from zeroing in on a specific
direction. It might have been Pashla, but it didn’t
feel
like her. Kyra fell still, ready to run or fight if needed.

Leyus stepped out from between the trees as naturally as if Kyra had been waiting in the antechamber to his throne room. She looked at him, really looked at him this time. He was tall, larger
than life, bronze-skinned, and strong despite his age. She didn’t resemble him at all. His face was square and angular, his nose and eyebrows pronounced, in contrast to Kyra’s
heart-shaped face and softer features. But something stirred within her when she studied his eyes. They were amber, just like hers, and the arch of his lids felt familiar.

Craigson’s story just seemed so unlikely. How could this imposing Makvani man possibly be her father? He certainly wasn’t looking at her like she’d imagined any long-lost
father would. Leyus regarded at her as he always had, with the same distant, proud gaze, and a touch of wariness or disdain.

“I met a trader,” said Kyra, glad that her voice didn’t shake. “Or he used to be a trader. By the name of Louis Craigson.”

There was a flash of something dangerous in Leyus’s eyes. “And what did he tell you?”

Kyra couldn’t do it. Couldn’t come right out and ask him if he was her father, like some waif in a talesinger’s ballad. “Why did you protect me when Zora tried to kill
me?”

Leyus gave a grunt of disgust. “The caravanner should watch his tongue. I spared his life once, but I may not do so again.” He looked at Kyra. “You’re Maikana’s
child—is that what he thinks?”

It was surreal, hearing the same name coming out of Leyus’s mouth. “Aye.”

He looked her over carefully, just as Craigson had, though Leyus’s scrutiny was more severe. “You have the look of her people, as well as some of their…peculiarities. Though
your face resembles her sister more than her.”

That repeated detail about Kyra’s aunt drove it home for her, made it clear they had moved beyond her childish daydreams to a reality that was so much bigger than two imagined parents.
There was an entire world Kyra didn’t know about, with implications and echoes that she was just starting to feel. Kyra realized she was trembling, and she pressed her arms to her sides in an
attempt to stop. It was suddenly important to her that Leyus not see her shaken.

Leyus gazed into the distance, as if looking into the past. “Maikana trusted Craigson. When I heard rumors about a halfblood in his caravan’s care, I immediately
suspected.”

How had this Makvani man, the same one who looked at her and other humans with such derision, ever been intimate with a human woman? “What did you do to her?” Kyra whispered.

Leyus turned furious eyes to her. “Is that what you think it was? That I ravished her like some base human bandit? Watch your words carefully, Kyra. I will not be insulted
again.”

The strength of his outrage caught her off guard. Had he actually cared about her mother? “I don’t understand.”

“It is not for you to know,” he said. Under the anger in his voice, there was a layer of pain. Kyra stared at Leyus, drawn to this crack in his mask. But he looked away, and when he
turned back, there was no more trace of that pain on his face. “Take care you do not put too much stock in your bloodlines, Kyra. And do not expect to hide behind your parentage. Blood
relations are earned. Respect is earned. Do not expect any special treatment from me.”

She widened her stance, as if somehow it would lend her strength. “Why haven’t you let me die, then? You’ve had plenty of chances.”

The smile he gave her had very little humor in it. “Misguided hope, I suppose. Maikana was a capable leader and stronger than any human I’d met or have met since. She knew who she
was, and she knew what she wanted. She didn’t run from her troubles.” He said the last part as if it were a rebuke to Kyra. “It looks like that trait was not passed on to her
daughter.”

The judgment in his words was unexpected and so harsh that her uncertainty turned to anger. Heat flooded through her. “I’ve known my mother’s name one day, and you’re
expecting me to live up to her example?”

“As I said, blood relations are earned. It shouldn’t matter who gave birth to you, though it’s a disappointment that you are so different from what you could have been.
Physically, you have the strength of our people, but you shrink away from your fights, worrying about what you are and wavering between choices. Your mother would never have done that.”