Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
A SON FOR A MOTHER
“ T his is a trap, Rinne,” Numair says like I didn't understand his bleating the first forty times. His words hang in the stale warehouse air like a death omen.
And not a clever trap, Darkan says. If he were corporeal, his eyes would be narrow though mine aren’t. It's night out, and there's no moon to shine through the dirty windows. My half-human eyes are having trouble. The boy is. . .correct.
You didn't tell me I shouldn't go.
Would you trouble yourself to listen?
No.
At least, he says dryly, you don't try to lie to me.
How could I lie to myself?
I've accepted the role of death. Death to Tybien, death to Montague, death to the fucking Prince. I grind my teeth, holding back. I'll avenge her. I'll make this pain go away by drinking their blood and playing in their entrails. All of them. All of them. Allofthemallofthemallofthemallofthem.
That will solve little, Harpy. But his voice gentles. While creating more difficult problems.
I'll feel better.
Will you. I'll not dissuade you if that is what you wish. Prepare to accept the consequences of that path, Aerinne.
How could my life get worse?
Halfling babe, it could get far, far worse.
Tears prick my eyes. I squeeze them shut to clear my vision. I don't know why my alter ego is trying to talk me out of this. Darkan always sounds reasonable, and. . .that's not really my strength.
Juliette smacks Numair upside the head. “Stop saying that. She knows, dummy.”
“Then wh hhhhhy . . .”
Males are so whiny.
Boys are whiny, Darkan snaps.
Like I said, males are so whiny.
“Because,” I say, my ravaged voice as cold as my mother's tombstone, “if we don't spring the trap, we don't know what Tybien really wants.”
Juliette stills, looking at me. “She speaks,” she says softly.
“I speak.”
“To who?”
“Dark angel.”
“What? Who? Did you sneak a boyfriend?” she demands in a whisper. “Danon will kill him! Slow, Rinne. Like slow slow. ”
“Not a boyfriend.”
Certainly not a boy. Darkan gives a delicate mental sneer.
“Focus,” Numair mutters.
I haven't talked to them for months. Gestures, body language, notes when forced. I can't let words out because as soon as I open my mouth what spills out is nothing as coherent as words. Screams. Baba is scared. They think I'm going mad.
“She lost her mother, Otieno,” Tata Fatma says, speaking in Kikuyu as Baba's kin do when we are alone. “Horribly.”
“And I my wife, horribly.” He takes a deep, ragged breath, smoothing his broken voice. “But this grief—I've never seen its like. It has been two years. Two, Tima.”
“Those Kuthlieles are close. Two golden gods and our fierce little raisin between them. I don't know what you were thinking.”
“You do not tell a High Lord no. You navigate, and survive. I did—do—love Muriel. She was as kind as she could be. She loved Nya and she lost her life for that love.”
Tata pauses a while. “This may be a Fae thing. Let her work through it. Nyawira is of our clan. She will settle. We can take her back home if she doesn't.”
“Danon would take my head,” Baba says curtly, “if I took his sister to Limuru. He doesn't care that she is my daughter. He sees her as Kuthliele, and so, his. He loves her almost like she is his child. Friend, Guardian, or no, I am mortal and irrelevant.”
“These damn Fae. I told you to stay away from that man when they brought you to the University. And what do you do? Marry his mother. Eh. Nevermind—I do know what you were thinking, but it was not with the brain between your ears.”
“Kindly recall my previous statement.” His tone alters. “Nyawira. Come out, my stealthy one. ”
Numair grimaces. “I'm going to be chopped meat if anything bad happens to you girls except I'll still be alive.”
The only reason Juliette doesn't physically demonstrate why that was the stupidest thing to say is because we're supposed to be being quiet. I don't think either of them got the damn memo.
“Both of you shut up.” It's an order, and they both kind of obey, mostly because they want to.
We're crouched behind stacked pallets of rice and spices.
Shadows pool like spilled ink between the crates, and somewhere in the darkness water drips with the steady rhythm of a funeral drum.
The rice and spice trade used to belong to my House, but Lord Baroun is spiteful and he sucks too, so he yanked our permissions and stole that income source.
“Embriel is supposed to be your friend! Why is Montague doing this!” I demand Danon tell me. He sighs, glancing out the window of his University office.
“They want me to do something I don't want to do. It's punishment.”
“These are your friends? ” I gape.
He laughs, eyes creasing. “Yes, little thorn. It's complicated. Relationships between immortals always are.”
I guess the Montague fucker figures that if we're too busy trying to eat grass to fill our bellies, we'll be too busy to fight.
Joke's on him. I don't mind grass, and dandelions are pretty fucking tasty too.
You can candy them. Kind of. I tried once, with some sugar we got from a raid on Labornne. Wasn't half bad.
Danon has more money on the way from the Kuthliele estate in Ninephe, but it'll be a while. It's not a hop skip jump and there's paperwork. And groveling. He may have to go in person and I don't want him to go. At least not without me.
“I will never take you to Ninephe.” This is the sharpest he's ever spoken to me. “Don't ask.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my throat closing like a tightening noose.
Money he only has access to because our mother was murdered.
I wrap my hands around the hilt of my sword, feeling the cold metal leech warmth from my fingers, and deep breathe.
The air tastes of wood shavings and dusty concrete.
It's not all right, but I'll make someone from Montague pay today.
A door opens and slams shut on the far side of the warehouse with the clang of a coffin lid dropping, and in walks Tybien. It's more of a saunter, and if I had any feelings left, I'd roll my eyes. His footsteps echo in the cavernous space, each one a countdown to violence.
He's technically way older than me, but full-blooded Fae development is fucking weird, so he's the equivalent of my age. Sixteen is old enough to fight and kill. Too bad it's old enough to die too.
Numair and Juliette are tense beside me, quiet and waiting orders. Numair's a few decades older than Tybien and Juliette too.
When we're all old enough, they'll both swear into House service.
They've been acting as my informal guards since I started training at twelve and I was a natural, like my body already knew the moves.
Ard—that moody asshole—says the bond is stronger between those who train and grow up together.
We all kind of grew up together. Juliette was a kid when I was a baby, and she stayed a kid for years but by the time I was old enough for playmates, she'd caught up with me .
I'm fucking stalling and I don't know why.
Oh yeah, because this is a trap. A really obvious one too.
Again, because I can't feel anything these days, I'm not insulted.
Well, I feel rage. Bloodthirst. They burn in my chest like coals from a pyre.
But other than that, nothing. I had to cut off my feelings, or I would've slit my own wrists.
Not before I burned down a few buildings though.
My mother is dead. Murdered by the Prince. Because she wanted to save me.
I swallow the agony that wants to shape itself into an awful sound. Business time.
“You two stay here,” I whisper. My breath forms ghostly wisps in the cold air. “I'll spring the trap, and if I need help, Numair you come. Juliette, you're faster, you run to get backup. We'll survive. If whoever is behind this sent that scrawny lackwit Tybien, they don't want me dead.”
I agree with your assessment. This setup is too incompetent to be about a simple political assassination. Or I would not have allowed you to come, he adds.
But they do want to talk. The question is, why the fuck why? This doesn't make any sense.
It only makes no sense because you do not have all the pieces.
They would've sent Lord Baroun if they wanted me dead. No, they knew Tybien's stupid little note demanding a duel and setting the time and place would piss me off enough to leave my house. I was told to come alone, which, again, I wish I could roll my eyes.
Fucking really? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
Come alone to a duel in an unknown warehouse in Montague territory to fight Tybien, who's one of the main cousins of Montague House, and I'm not gonna fucking bring guards with me.
By the Realms, they must think I'm dumb.
Or, it's a double feint. They want me to think they think I’m dumb. I'm betting Numair's money on that one.
When Tybien reaches the middle of the warehouse and starts looking around, arms crossed over his chest, I start to rise.
“Where are you, yapping little bitch?” he calls out. His voice echoes off the rafters where I swear I can see shapes moving in the darkness—crows or worse. “Halfling of Faronne! Will you hide like a cur or will you face me?”
I almost hate that I've given this male any of my time. What a posturing moron. How much trouble will I be in if I finally kill his ass dead? Things can't get worse.
That child is rather tedious, Darkan says. Killing him is beneath me, but dignity is fairly superfluous at my age.
Age sixteen? Sounds right. It's not beneath me.
I straighten and walk around the pallet, stopping when he turns to me. The space between is charged with malice, the air itself holding its breath.
“I'm here.”
Tybien sneers, and starts blabbering. I tune it out because my ears have better things to do.
Like figure out how many Montague warriors are already in the warehouse.
I hate fucking talkers. What is the point of talking before, and especially during, a fight?
You should have better things to be thinking about.
The training in Montague must really suck balls.
My sabre makes a clean, chillingly sweet song as I unsheathe it. “Defend.”
It's all I say before I launch at him. I won’t use Skills in case someone’s watching—and there are always eyes. My fingers flex. He wouldn’t have come alone, and I won't let the enemy learn what I can really do.
You do not need Skills against this one, Darkan says, almost bored. Your training is far superior. Hmm. . .what is Tata Fatma making for evening meal? I can almost taste food with your mouth now.
Tybien curses and yanks his sword out; too slow. I catalog his weaknesses. He fights like coward prey, trying to tire me out rather than engaging directly.
I slip a blade down from my arm sheath and throw; Tybien shrieks, stumbling back, clutching his bloodied eye. Weak, soft-bellied male. The dripping blood arrests my attention, feral satisfaction and. . .thirst. . .rising up my throat. My shoulder blades flex, the beds of my nails aching.
Darkan makes a disgusted mental huff. Baroun has grown lazy. This is nearly an intolerable insult.
“It will heal,” I say, “if I don't kill you. You are too noisy.”
“That's enough,” a deeper voice says, smooth and edged with the upper caste’s intonation.