Wolf's-own: Weregild (11 page)

Jacin.... When have you ever failed at anything?

Oh, no.
No.

He couldn't look up, couldn't meet Joori's eyes, couldn't bear the love, couldn't stand to see the forgiveness for his sin of survival, because love wasn't a pretty thing for Jacin, not something warm and comforting in which to hunker when a storm set to brewing. It was loss, it was bitter hope, another soul strapped to his back, another danger of grief, another motive to wear like armor when his knives sang.

Ah, my own
. A soft touch to his cheek, cool against his hot skin.
Don't cry, love
.

Jacin kissed her palm, whispered,
Mother
, choked and thin.

Mustn't fail them. Promise me
.

Jacin swallowed, nodded without thinking, the steady faint tattoo of petals on his bare skin and
thwip-thwip-thwip
in the back of his head.
I promise
. He could have dropped to his knees and howled, it hurt that bad, wrenched, but the shadows were curling again, restless, and he didn't want them to see him, so he stayed still and silent.

No laws
, she whispered as she kissed his brow, and Malick squeezed his hand again, but Jacin didn't squeeze back.

I'm sorry
, was all he could manage, hoarse and hollow.
Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Malick only shook his head, peering at Jacin's mother.
She wouldn't want you to be.
He turned back to Jacin.
Open your eyes, Fen. C'mon, wake up.

Are you dead?
Jacin asked his mother.

She smiled, and he could see it in his mind, but he couldn't open his eyes, he
couldn't
.

No
, she said.
I can't die
‘
til you save my soul
.

He thought about that for a long time. With a reckless snatch at hope, he asked,
Am I?

There was a touch at his brow, and he worried that someone was trying to paint the prayers on his skin. He didn't want them. He didn't want to go to the gods. Fuck the gods. He batted the hand away.

Malick growled at him, but his father shook his head.
You're an abomination, my own. You must set the Balance before you can rest.

Abomination...?
He opened his eyes, looked at Malick, but Malick turned away, so he shut them again. He'd never been called that before, but his father said it, called him “my own,” and he'd never said that before, either, so it must be true. And it felt too right.

Nothing, you're nothing.

Why did they keep telling him things he already knew? And if he already knew them, why did it hurt so much to hear them?

My twice-born, my boy of too many lives.
Save him, her hands felt so good on his face.
It was you that first time, too, though that wasn't
your
first time, oh no. Lives uncounted, my sad little Ghost. I knew when you came to me again—they thought I wouldn't know my own, but I did. Snapped your neck the first time because I couldn't bear for the Ancestors to have you, but you....
She sighed, stroked his cheek, wiped his tears like she'd done when he was small and his father wasn't looking
. You were determined. You
would
be born, and Wolf
would
have you
.

He didn't know what to say. What was anyone supposed to say to that? And of all the things he could have said, strange how,
Why couldn't you have done it this time too?
came spilling out before he could stop it.

Is that what you want, Fen?
Malick asked him, except there was no stranglehold this time, only that hand gripping his own.
You think dying will fix it all for you?

No
, he whispered. He opened his eyes, watched the petals fall and coat the little cupboard where the moth lay, brittle and ragged-winged, dead. No more
thwip-thwip-thwip
, just a soft fall of cherry blossoms threading itself into a shroud. He wanted to howl.
No, not fix it—just... make it stop hurting so much
.

Everything hurt. Everything.

I know.
A heavy sigh, and more cool-wet at his brow.
But dying won't fix it. Living is your sacrifice, Fen. I'm sorry.

Sorry
. Jacin snorted, squinted through tears at the husk of the moth.
We're all made for sacrifice
, and he shut his eyes, let himself fall—

Yes
. Soft and faraway.
But I can help you endure this one.

—and for a little while, it felt like flying.

"If you're so worried about keeping it quiet for him,” Umeia had told him, eyeing Malick's hand where it enfolded Fen's atop the coverlet, “I can always go down and get your ring for you.” He hadn't been able to tell if she was smirking or sneering.

She hadn't wanted to give Fen suuzai—too strong, she'd argued, too addictive—but it was the only thing she had that would put him deeper than the xsinzaua, would sink him down to a level where the voices couldn't go while Malick took care of other things.

"No ring,” Malick had told her, taking care to make his voice hard, to rule out argument. “Not yet."

Umeia never was easily intimidated. She ignored his tone—no, she smirked at it. “Afraid of what might happen if he can have the quiet without having you?"

Malick hadn't answered.

The suuzai did the job, put Fen under deep. He wouldn't have to suffer the Ancestors while Malick briefed the others and set them to their jobs for tonight. That was all he cared about. Fen had made it through the cutting and cleaning and stitching last night with only the xsinzaua, but it wasn't strong enough to keep him under when he didn't have the quiet. Malick had been sitting here for a night, a day, and now going on another night, and he'd seen what happened when he let go, listening to it all, which was harder than he'd imagined it would be. It was disquieting enough when he was holding on, so he tried not to let go if he didn't absolutely have to. Fen's mind never seemed to bloody
stop
—not even when Malick had curled up with him last night, held on—but at least now the rest of him was still, and the constant anxious muttering had stopped. Malick didn't like to think what had been happening on the inside while he'd been gone, though.

He willfully pushed aside Umeia's knowing mockery. She could think what she wanted, but there was a point to not giving over everything all at once. Fen had to be in exactly the right place, exactly the right state of mind, before Malick could hand him silence without the tether of Malick himself.

It would have to keep.

Joori was sitting on Fen's bed, glaring at Malick, when he got back to Fen's room. Malick ignored him, sat in the chair Samin had dragged in from Malick's own room, shucked his boots, and propped his feet on the bed, digging his toes under Fen's leg—contact—and getting himself as comfortable as possible. And he was
sure
he wasn't imagining the slight release of tension around Fen's mouth and eyes when Malick touched him, which only made Malick feel worse for having left, which was stupid, but still.

He'd only been gone less than an hour, after all, but it had been longer than the quick piss breaks and the hurried bath this morning. He wouldn't have left at all, but Umeia had insisted that Morin and Caidi needed to spend some time with their brother, and she knew damned well that Malick wouldn't give Yori and Samin and Shig their instructions in front of them. So he'd agreed on the condition that she'd dose Fen with the suuzai, and then gotten his people together in his own rooms and mapped out what he wanted from them.

A survey of Yakuli's estate—nothing more. A count of guards, some idea of the routines of the place, and a detailed map of the property, or as detailed as they could get without being detected. No killing tonight, no being seen, nothing at all that might alert the Councilor that he was next on the list and spur him to hare off, like Pon had been trying to do. Malick wanted to know exactly what they were up against, wanted to make bloody sure Yakuli was the man who had Fen's mother, before he even considered a course of possible action.

Malick stretched in the chair, bones not quite realigning and muscles too tight, wound through with knots. Still a little sore from the night before. He wasn't used to spending so much time in one place, and certainly not used to spending so much time on a metaphorical tether. He made sure his socked foot stayed in contact with Fen's shin through the blanket and stretched again.

"D'you have to put your feet all over him?” Joori griped.

Malick rolled his eyes, made it a point to rub his toes farther up Fen's leg, smirking as Joori's lip twisted and he pointedly looked away. “You had a hissy when I curled up with him, and my hands are starting to cramp,” Malick told him. “So, yes—since this is the most comfortable I've been in two bloody days, and I'm a little tired of giving a shit about your delicate sensibilities—I do have to ‘put my feet all over him'."

Joori glared, too clearly annoyed when Malick only gave him a flat stare. He'd been subjected to Fen-glares for a while now; Joori-glares were pretty mild, by comparison.

"You didn't ‘curl up with him',” Joori snapped. “You were all over him. You think I don't know what—"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure you know fuck-all about your brother,” Malick bit back, “and I
know
you know fuck-all about me, so maybe it would be best if you just kept your bloody unhelpful opinions to yourself."

"You're
Temshiel
.” Joori said it like it was the vilest curse he could muster. “What more do I need to know? You use and hurt and kill, and you aren't capable of caring who—"

"Yeah, I want to watch while you say that to Umeia. I'll make snacks and charge admission. Should be fun, since she's not slept much the past couple of days, what with trying to
keep your brother alive
and all, and she gets a little... cranky when she's tired."

Joori's mouth thinned, and he looked away, sullen, before he stood and made a slow circuit around the room. He paused at the clothespress, like Malick had watched him do every time he came to sit vigil by Fen. Fen's knives were all laid out atop it, cleaned and sharpened—Samin's alternative to taking a turn on bedside watch—the new long knives set carefully beside the others, lined up by size, with the little throwing knives taking up an entire row all by themselves. Belts and sheaths and straps were all oiled and hung neatly on the hook on the back of the door. Joori never paid much heed to any of them, other than a quick once-over, like he was taking inventory, making sure no one had made off with any of it, which pissed Malick off some, but was a small annoyance in the grander scheme of things about Joori that annoyed Malick.

Slump-shouldered, Joori paused to run careful fingertips over a small knife that looked like it couldn't be good for much of anything but perhaps whittling. The one Malick and Samin had missed that night when they'd disarmed Fen. The one Fen had used to break into the leathersmith's. Malick had wondered more than once why someone like Fen—a man who obviously had an eye for quality and a practical preference for utility—would even bother to carry a knife so useless when he had so many others.

"What d'you want with him?” Joori asked quietly, sincere and with as little rancor as Malick had heard from him yet.

It did nothing to assuage the annoyance. Malick leaned his head to the back of the chair and shut his eyes. “You're a rude, nosy little shit, Joori, and I don't like the way you ask that question.” So he felt no compulsion whatsoever to answer it, any more than he'd felt compelled to answer it the other twelve times Joori had asked it—or snarled it—which was good, actually, because even if Malick did feel obliged to answer, he wouldn't know how. There were too many things up in the air right now, too many possibilities, and Malick wasn't quite sure exactly how Fen—or his family—was going to fit into them. All he was sure of was that Asai was using Fen, had been using him for years, and Malick didn't like it.

"I tried to kill him with this,” Joori said quietly.

That
got Malick's attention. He popped his eyes open. Joori's head was bowed, the useless little knife twisting at the ends of his fingers, eyes watching the lamp's light slide up and down the flat of the blade as it turned.

"On the day of his Change.” Joori's hand went around the small hilt, almost obscuring it completely, and he held it up, swung it in a halfhearted arc from his shoulder. Shuddered. “Except I couldn't do it. And later, when
he
came for him, he watched me cut Jacin to calm him down....” He trailed off, shook his head, thumb testing the sharpness of the blade. “It was the only way—at least the only way I could figure out, the only thing that... that made it a little quieter for him. And
he
just watched me do it, and d'you know what he said?"

He turned to Malick, like he really expected an answer, and when Malick just stared at him, Joori's mouth curled up in a bitter smile. “He said, ‘How very... interesting.’
Interesting
.” His jaw clenched. “And then he used what I did, what
I
showed him, to....” He set the knife gently on the press, pulled his hand away, and wiped it on his trousers, like he didn't like the feel of it on his skin.

Bloody hell, this family's fucked-up-edness was so monumental Malick could earn himself a blissful eternity on Wolf's moon just by pulling
one
of their asses out of the fire. “Your brother used it to stay sane,” he offered, deliberately keeping his tone even—neither forgiving nor accusing, because it wasn't his place to tender either.

"Sane.” Joori heaved a weary snort, shook his head. He turned to face Malick, propping himself against the press, and crossed his arms over his chest. “He's my brother. He's my other Self. I love him more than I love myself, but I couldn't do what needed to be done to save him, not... not then."

Malick narrowed his eyes. “And you could now?” Joori merely stared at him, calm and seemingly reasonable; it sent a frisson up Malick's backbone. “Say what you mean, seyh.” Malick's tone was soft and deadly quiet. His eyes cut to Fen, lying on his back between them, as deeply unconscious as Umeia would risk, defenseless. Malick's posture tensed, his hand going slowly to rest over the knife on his belt, abruptly aware of all the weapons just lying there, right in Joori's reach.