Wolf's-own: Weregild (32 page)

"So, Joori's not going anywhere, then?” Yori asked, which had only pissed Malick off more, though he shouldn't blame her for being pleased about the idea—she'd never formed an attachment to anyone else in all the years he'd known her; he should be delighted for her—but it was so far beyond what was actually important that it made him grind his teeth.

"The Ancestors seem to think he's significant to what's going on,” Malick had told her as evenly as he could, because it was just one more thing on which Fen would lay distrust, and it wasn't bloody
fair
, damn it. Malick had
meant
to get them out, he'd
wanted
to get them out—who wanted the annoying, jealous twin about mucking up the works, anyway?—but he'd forced the issue with the Ancestors for a reason, and now he had to suck it up and deal with what he'd gotten. Joori was some kind of key, according to the Ancestors, and there were bigger issues at stake here than Fen being pissed at Malick for not coming through on his promise.

They sat now in Xari's dark little parlor, listening to Husao blather about changing fates and what Wolf
really
meant—because, of course, Husao, one of Dragon's,
would
know better than Malick how to interpret Wolf's directives; Malick didn't even try not to roll his eyes—Yori listening attentively to Xari and Husao debate, and Malick grinding his teeth down to almost nothing. The day just kept getting better and better.

"But he clearly said that he was calling Kamen to his
duty
,” Husao argued. “'All fates rest on the Heart of the Null'. Surely that means—"

"The hand of Fate itself safeguards those who would mock Balance,” Xari put in wearily. “What Asai is safeguards Asai. Fate safeguards Yakuli. It does not mean what you want it to mean, and no amount of debating and choosing those things you want to hear will make it any more what you want it to be. The Balance comes before your vengeance, Husao.” She turned to Malick. “Your god has commanded you to risk your soul to do his work, to see to Asai, to see to Yakuli—and I would hazard any other who has dared to use Wolf's children so badly—but you have not been given leave to destroy out of hand. You risk the suns only if you disobey your laws while obeying Wolf. That is your conundrum. Only you are Wolf's-own. Only you can judge best what your god wishes of you."

"Yeah,” Malick snapped. “All I have to do now is kill Yakuli without actually going near him, and then let Asai walk away because Fate says I get to kill everyone but the people who badly need killing."

"You do not need to let Asai walk away,” Xari said quietly. “You promised—"

"No, I didn't.” Malick kept his tone firm and even, his stare hard. “I told you that there would be opportunity, but neither Fen nor I will wait for you to take it. It's up to you to be quick enough."

Xari might well want redemption for her god, but Malick wasn't about to let Asai slip away while she dithered about taking it. Because if Malick had made any promise at all about Asai's intended fate, it had been to Fen. Which brought up another point about which Malick wasn't too happy:

"Oh, right, and I also get to keep Fen's brother here—where Asai
knows
he is—and defend him against Asai,
also
without killing him, even though it's already pissed Fen off so badly he may never trust me again.” He slouched down in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared like a petulant child, and he didn't fucking care. “Oh yeah, I forgot—not only can I not fail Wolf or I burn, but I also can't fail Fen or I burn, even though keeping his family here instead of sending them away so they'll be safe is already a pretty big failure. I might as well just say, ‘Fuck it,’ and kill everyone, because I'm fucked any way I turn."

Xari
tsked
, shook her head. “Always you think in terms of who to kill and how to do so.” Her tone was chastising, but her hint of a smile was kind. “Do you never consider other paths?"

"Like
what
?” Malick wanted to know. “Tattle on Yakuli to the Doujou?
Right
. There are two judges I know of who don't have a full-Blood of their own or aren't waiting for one—
two
. Probably half the lords and prefects have been bought, and those who haven't are being steadily plotted against by those who have. The only people in Ada who
aren't
abusing magic, or are unaware that it's being abused at all, are the people themselves."

A grim, muffled snort from Yori's direction caught his attention, and he turned to her, asked, “
What
?” perhaps a little too sharply.

Yori's face flushed a little, and she sank in her seat, green eyes flicking around the table, overfaced. She hadn't said a word since introductions were made but for a soft, “No, thank you,
misin
,” when Xari had offered her tea, merely sitting quietly and trying not to stare at Ragi, who'd been equally as silent. Now, she gave Malick a wide-eyed look full of nerves that made him feel even worse. Made of stern stuff, Yori, a little biddable, perhaps, but not easily intimidated. She cleared her throat, glanced once again to Xari then Husao, then settled her gaze on Malick.

"Nothing,” she said with a self-conscious shrug. “You just said it: the people don't know. And the Adan fear magic, above all else.” She paused and waited for a beat, but when no one shushed her, she went on, “They're not going to like finding out they've been ruled by it all this time."

"True.” Husao sat back in his chair, his face, for the first time since they'd gotten here, thoughtful rather than imperious. He studied Yori for a long moment, so intense Malick could actually see Yori trying not to shift and blush, then he peered at Malick, head atilt. “I imagine that's what Yakuli's for."

Xari scoffed. “Even my arrogant get would not think to so blatantly usurp the Adan,” she protested. “Free the Jin and enable their rise back from enslavement, yes, but true rule? Such open involvement by a maijin—for
that
the gods would never stand. No.” She shook her head, eyes narrowed. “No, he is more subtle than simple revolution. Yakuli is a distraction and a tool, else Asai would have hidden the magic better. Yakuli might think he is to lead a coup, but Asai has no use for the Adan, for they have no power.” She flicked Malick a meaningful glance. “His cards still strive beyond his reach. He would grasp for the Sorcerer's mantle still."

Husao answered something, but Malick was no longer listening.
Subtle
.

Asai was subtle, yes. Too subtle for armies and revolts, unless there was something else beneath it that served his purposes. He might want a revolt, but if he stayed true to his patterns—and he hadn't done anything yet to make Malick think he wouldn't—Yakuli was a tool to be used and betrayed. Not meant to succeed, but to be conveniently disposed of by other hands besides Asai's own. No blame to Lord Asai. No crimes of which to accuse him. Asai meant to come out of all this as a savior, clean of all blame and able to stand before the gods and claim his place with Wolf.

Banished by Raven, but... had he been? Really? Could he have been sent to finish what had long been suspected Raven had started?

Wolf suffers not the duplicity of weaker gods

Right.

And was it possible that Asai was actually weaving between the two gods? Covering his steps in his intricate dance to appear as though he were adhering to the wishes of both, and all the while plotting for his own ascent to a status that rivaled them all?

The Adan would find the will to stand against magic. They'd done it before, when they'd marched on the Jin. They didn't hate the Jin—the tribes had blended too much; there were too many among them who had Jin blood in them for that—they feared them. They feared the magic that ran through Jin veins. The people of Ada didn't want the extermination of the Jin, or they wouldn't have bothered with camps. They wanted the extermination of magic. And if they knew that the elite who governed them—those who condemned and punished magic; those who made them fear even the smallest hint of it in themselves or their children—had all the while been torturing full-Bloods and using their magic themselves....

"Revolution” would be putting it mildly.

The government of Ada would be lynched wholesale. The people would be leaderless, directionless, ripe for subjugation. A repeat of the pattern that had been the doom of the Jin when they'd lost their Ancestors.

A raid on the camps would be the first step, Malick supposed. That was what Yakuli was for, though Yakuli likely had no idea he would be saving the Jin, rather than destroying them. In fact, he likely had no idea he was to be a mere captain to Asai and not a leader in his own right. Malick had no doubt Yakuli had very different objectives, and they were very probably implanted by Asai himself, or at least seized and encouraged. Because Xari was right—Asai didn't want rule, Asai wanted power. And what better way to get it than to have it handed to him willingly by those who'd been persecuted for it for a century and a half?

Free the Jin from their imprisonment, subtly guide them toward vengeance, because Asai was a subtle man. And while the Adan were distracted by the upheaval of their government, their beliefs, their lives, the Jin would walk back into their city and take back what had been theirs. Asai would not march at the front of the mob, but behind it somewhere, lending little pushes where necessary, using his talisman of Heart's Blood to “guide” them all, keeping his influence oh so subtle, because Asai was an oh so subtle man.

"Bloody damn,” Malick murmured. He looked up and caught Yori's eye, ignoring the droning of Husao as he continued to speculate with Xari.

It wasn't a bad plan, really. Malick even grudgingly approved of some of it. If it hadn't been Asai, who perverted everything in which he had a hand, and if it hadn't been for the fact that it happened to require Blood—
any
Blood; the Heart's Blood had become more and more academic as Malick thought the plan through—he might just sit back and watch it all happen. He was no longer just incensed by the fact that Asai had “purchased” Fen, made him a killer, manipulated him and used him, and all to crack open Malick's chest and siphon off his Blood. He was incensed that Asai thought he had the right to wield the power of gods. He was incensed that Asai had enabled Yakuli to build himself a full-Blood “farm” for the purpose, and he was profoundly offended that Asai could very well walk away from it all with ostensibly clean hands and everything he wanted.

"You've got it, Yori,” Malick went on slowly. “I think you—"

Pain
first, driving right between his eyes, hitting him like a spike, then an overwhelming awareness of
wrongwrongwrong
.

"Shig,” Malick gasped, because it felt like her, and then it was gone, all at once, winked out, like a shout cut off. He snapped his glance back to Yori, saw that she'd felt it too; her face had gone pale, and her eyes had sprung wide and worried.

"Not dead,” Malick told her, because it felt wrong, but not
that
wrong. He yanked Yori out of her seat and snapped, “Let's go.” Because wrong was wrong, and speed felt very necessary. He didn't need to drag Yori after him, she was already on her feet and headed to the curtain that hung at the doorway, but he latched on anyway, told Husao, “We've got trouble,” and he yanked Yori out.

Yori, more than any of them, appreciated the experience of being one place one second and another the next. Malick had always brushed off her inquiries about the hows of it all with vague explanations of altering perceptions and sleight of hand, because it was a lot easier than trying to really explain it. Anyway, it fit with her reality of Malick as a lazy reprobate who happened to be good at killing the people she wanted dead—a lazy reprobate who had a little magic she couldn't quite classify. It worked for both of them, but it wasn't that simple.

Even as Malick stalked through the Stallion, dragging Yori behind him, Husao and Xari following after with a mix of annoyance and worry between them, Malick was already dismantling their physicality, breaking it down and dissipating it through the winds. Sternly, he called the captive ghosts of the earth, drawing in the life force of the air, blurring the reality all around them, and warning the spirits against laying claim to Yori's soul while he heaved her through their bounds. Still, they reached for her as Malick yanked her through. He could feel their euphoria at once again touching a living soul, a beacon of corporeal strength and the physical existence they either couldn't or wouldn't leave behind. Hungry ghosts, bound to the earth for so many reasons Malick had stopped caring, craving the flesh they could see but not have so fervently that it scattered their reason like the seeds that fed them but never satisfied.

Their whispers and pleas crowded in, but Malick didn't hear them as well as he did when Shig was with him. Yori might love it when he did this, but Shig hated it, and Malick couldn't blame her—for Shig it was like living for a second's-worth of eternity inside Fen's head, except Fen's spirits shrieked, where these only sighed and muttered longingly. It wasn't nearly as intrusive for Malick or Yori as it was for those two, and not for the first time, Malick was thankful he didn't have to hear it all the time.

He bulled through them all, ignored their shadowy grasping. Tightening his hold on Yori, Malick launched them both through the periphery of reality and took them home.

He guided them to the roof of the Girou, because he might be in a hurry and more alarmed than he could remember having been in a very long time, but he wouldn't help anything by blundering into an ambush. “All right?” he asked Yori as he let go of her hand and pushed her to lean against the door of the stair.

Yori's knees seemed a bit wobbly, and she was somewhat shaky, but the dreamy little grin she usually got when they did this was notably absent. She made a visible effort to clear the exhilaration from her mind and channel it into the job at hand.

"Yeah,” she said. She nodded sharply, took a long, cleansing breath, and straightened from her slight slouch. “Ready."

Good girl. More clearheaded and dedicated to her job than even Samin. Malick wanted to give her a quick hug, but she was working so hard at gaining all of her concentration, and he didn't want to break it. He could already hear the alarming sounds that were coming up from the back alley, and he felt Yori tense as she heard them too.