Chapter 24 Pearl Encrusted Daggers #2
Brune had never been a pup. His earliest memories were not of fond chastising or of hugs.
No one had ever ruffled his hair or made sure he was warm enough.
He wasn’t told stories to help him fall asleep.
Parents were a foreign concept to him. He knew he had them at some point, and maybe on the nights when he was most curious, he would try to picture them.
Wonder if he looked like them or if they loved him. But he never missed them. Not really.
But when Sehleh looked at him like that, the way a parent should, something twisted in his heart. A bitter injustice he didn’t know he had inside him. Why didn’t he have those things?
And as quickly as it came, it was gone. Because Brune might not have had those things before, but he did now.
And in some ways, it was better. There was no obligation here.
No innate sense of familiarity that drew them together.
This was his pack. One that, against all odds, chose him.
A pack that looked past his past, his flaws, his inadequacy, and opened their arms anyway.
“Thank you,” he croaked, hugging her back just as tightly as she hugged him.
“Sweet boy,” she cooed. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
With food warming their bellies and a fire chasing away the chill from the morning, it was only a matter of personal discipline keeping their eyes open.
Ridan felt every muscle in his body. He was familiar with the ache of a fight.
Of the stinging pain from an injury. But this was different.
There was a heaviness in his chest he couldn’t quite place, a sense of responsibility that only grew with every passing moment.
It dragged on him. Tugged at his mind when his body begged for sleep. He stared into the fire with half lidded eyes and relished the way they burned.
Fingering the bandage around his arm, he pressed into the wound with a hiss.
The hurt was minimal. It was nothing compared to the pain he couldn’t see.
The kind of pain Halm couldn’t heal. The pain of seeing his people murdered.
Of watching his home burn to the ground.
Of losing his nest, the last tie to his parent’s scent and his safe haven.
Knowing that this was just the beginning.
Brune caught his hand as he went to press again, wordlessly interlocking their fingers. He held their joined hands in his lap, thumb stroking over Ridan’s battered knuckles. It was such an innocuous gesture. But Brune had always been good at saving Ridan without ever having meant to.
“Why are we still alive?” Jonen asked, his voice cutting through whatever peace they found sitting beside the fire.
Corric lifted his head from where it had been resting on the short alpha's shoulder, blinking up at him sleepily. “Because Kaldonea soldiers are poorly trained and given shoddy weapons?”
“No, I mean Sinestrus,” Jonen’s eyes were calculating, his ample cheeks hidden under the layer of filth. “Why hasn’t he used his magic against us? Decimated us? He’s done it before, hasn’t he?”
Ridan felt his mind sluggishly begin to work again. “You’re right,” he agreed, only chafing a little at the admission. “Why does he need Kaldonea at all?”
“To break him from the scale?” Brune suggested.
“But he’s been freed,” Jonen continued. “Krait served his purpose.”
Ridan nearly shouted in frustration. More questions with no answers. It was endless, just getting enough information to ask more questions. Building like a storm over the plain until there was nothing they could do but take cover and hope everything looked the same on the other side.
“He doesn’t have a body,” Corric said, sitting up to look at Ridan across the fire. The sleepiness was gone from his eyes. “Think about it—why does he need the mountain at all? Why would he try to get back into his prison?”
“Because he needs something from the mountain,” Brune answered, looking between them to see if they agreed.
“That’s the answer.” Jonen said excitedly, head snapping up. “Sinestrus needs something from the mountain. Something he couldn’t take with him because Corric wouldn’t give him his body.”
He stood, beginning to pace around the fire. “And there’s only one reason he hasn’t killed us all yet—he can’t. He must need whatever is in the mountain to do that.”
Ridan tried to follow him. While Jonen muttered and paced around him, he put everything he knew together.
Sinestrus may have freed himself, but he didn’t have a body. That must have put a halt to whatever plans he had. So he must have had to regroup, get Krait to do whatever dirty work he couldn’t do without a body.
Staring into the fire, it suddenly hit him.
“Magic,” he breathed. “It all has to do with magic.” Standing, he looked around the area until he saw Buzzard and Schok huddled together. While no one had said anything to them, they were still sitting a respectful distance from the others, just close enough to feel the weak heat from the fire.
“Remember what Buzzard said? Humans aren’t able to produce magic, they can just manipulate what's already in the land. Sinestrus was, at one point, human. He can’t produce his own magic.”
Jonen’s eyes widened. “And the magic in the land is poisoned, too weak to do anything substantial with. That’s why Cyrill and Krait were torturing Buzzard—to see if he could produce more magic.”
Brune looked between them, his head on a swivel with eyebrows raised so high they were nearly hidden in his hair.
“Sinestrus is free, but he can’t practice any real magic. That’s why he needs Krait—to help him get whatever it is he left in the mountain.”
Corric caught on, his face paling. “Artrax’s scale. It’s the only thing left in the land born from a powerful magical being.”
“It must have residual magic. He used Artrax’s left over magic to keep himself alive, and then free himself.
” Jonen finished. “And why he needed Corric’s body!
He must need the scale to take over a body.
Corric was with him and the scale, but when he thwarted his attempts, he left Sinestrus without magic and without the ability to get a body. ”
Brune whistled through his front teeth. “Sinestrus needs a body to practice magic. He needs the magic in the scale to get a body, but he can’t get the scale without a body.”
“You really fucked up his plans, Corric.” Ridan said with a tired smile, watching the haze of guilt begin to dissipate from Corric’s eyes.
Jonen knelt beside his omega, kissing his cheek and murmuring praise against his grimy skin.
Sinestrus has a weakness. It’s thin, but it’s there. An opportunity to stand on equal ground with the incorporeal monster. Their mission was unchanged: protect the mountain. As long as it was standing tall, unmarred by Kaldonea scum, Sinestrus couldn’t regain his previous power.
As the wind blew through the trees, Ridan shivered. Brune wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close and lending him some of his body heat. Ridan closed his eyes and allowed himself to bask in his strength. Just for a moment.
The dark bags under Gustall’s face did nothing to lessen the intensity of the glare he was shooting at Ridan. “You want to do what?”
Trying to keep the irritation from his voice, Ridan forced his face to remain placid. “I want to send riders to the other clans to ask for their aid.”
Ridan was aware of what he was asking. He didn’t need to see the shock on the faces of the small group around him to know that.
While they were all descended from one clan, the clans of his day were not exactly of one mind.
Over the years, they’d become more insular.
As time and distance grew between them, they sometimes wavered closer to enemies than family.
It was more than competition for resources. There was also a heavy dose of pride. Each clan thought it was the best. Problems needed to be solved internally, and other clans kept at a distance.
Asking the other clans for help was akin to rolling over and exposing his belly.
Ridan was admitting weakness in a time when their clan was already fragile.
Thewn, especially, would not hesitate to take advantage.
Whether it be in the form of asking for territory or some kind of boon, it would certainly hurt the Stone Blade in more than just their pride.
Even Auhert of the Windy Cliff, who was generally tolerable, would use this to his advantage.
Hell, Areine certainly would. Ridan just found her slightly more palatable.
Perhaps because she was a fellow omega. Or because she had been honest with him from the beginning.
Either way, the prospect of asking Areine for help chafed him far less than asking the likes of Thewn.
Ridan would rather eat Jonen’s hair than ask Thewn for anything. But this was beyond him. It was beyond the Stone Blade, beyond petty squabbles or pride. This was Artrax’s Sacrifice. Not just their history, but the act the Clansmen built their entire life around.
When the only response he got was incredulous looks and mumbled disgust, he dug in. “You heard the sentry’s report. Krait brought a force three times larger than the one led by Bargrave.” The one that killed my mother remained unsaid, but everyone heard it, anyway.
Osmond crossed his arms, leaning back against a large slab of granite. “Kaldonea soldiers are poorly trained. One of our warriors is worth three of theirs.”
“And what of the magic users?” Ridan asked, rounding to his youngest lieutenant.
“Can you fight what you don’t understand?
” he let that sink in before making eye contact with everyone present.
“The magic users we fought last night were weak, and we still almost lost to them. If it weren’t for Schok, we might not be here to have this discussion.
” His arm still hurt where that magic user had attacked him.