Chapter 9
NINE
“You were bold to come back, girl.”
Leick has aged, and he’s only second gen, the first generation born to the original crash survivors—who are still walking around because Immortals.
There’re crinkles at the corners of his eyes, eyes that stare at me as if the hostile meanness in his soul is now his sole personality trait. His braids are scruffy, meaning his wife hasn’t tended to his hair in some time. No one looking at him right now has any love in their eyes.
Next to me, Iloni is rigid. I don’t respond; it’s not my place. I told Rathhur what my requirements are.
“You answer when I speak to you, girl.”
“You didn't ask a question, or make a statement that requires a response,” Iloni says.
“You'll pay for disrespecting your Mother,” he snorts at his daughter.
Iloni gives him her bored look. “No, I won't. It's female’s circle business, and you'll stay out of it unless you want the circle to respond. ”
His expression darkens. If he has an ounce of sanity left, he won't escalate that line of discussion. No one messes with a female’s circle, even a fractured one.
Uthilsen females turn savage in a second. And what do we call a group of savage Orc females?
An annihilation.
Leick scowls at Iloni, then shifts his attention back to me. Smart. “You go on, now. You're not welcome in my clan. If not gone by morning, you’re meat.”
At those words all talking stops. I stare at Leick, unsurprised despite the shock on faces around us. That kind of threat. . .it's just not done. Ever. Even with a non-clan female. Bullying and harassment, ordering Rath to make my life hell in secret and influencing the clan to shun me are all one thing—though in a healthy clan that never would have happened either—but threatening me with mass assault?
He's gone too far.
From the way his expression twists, he knows he crossed the line.
Iloni stands. “Da, I'll give you one more chance to retreat and let the female’s circle handle Harry’s daughter.”
My judgment must be slipping, because I think he's about to retreat but instead he backhands her.
There's a collective feminine snarl, and several of the females begin to approach. Iloni absorbs the blow, blotting the blood at her split lip.
“Well, you did it now, you old troll. And don't blame Ky’a either. ”
“You’ll answer for your behavior, Leick,” an older female calls out, her voice firm. “Iloni’s well within her rights to?—”
He spins, glaring at the female. “She disrespected her own mother! You're going to let her get away with that?”
Huedda, who I now recognize as a distant maternal cousin of Leick’s, crosses her arms over her chest. “Iloni rightfully accepted a challenge on behalf of her sister.”
Leick snorts. “Sister. This wench is no sister of?—”
“She's Rathhur's wife. Even if she wasn't, she's Harry’s daughter. She should've been blooded into the clan years ago, but we let Idunna set the tone. We thought she’d get it out of her system—we coddled you both. We’ll answer for that. Either you and Idunna turn from this path, or we’ll beat you down another.”
Close to a hundred gathered adults, adolescents, children. No one speaks, no one contradicts her. Though Idunna is technically head of the female’s circle, Huedda is stepping out as the real Matriarch.
“Why hasn't Huedda challenged your mother?” I say very quietly to Iloni, stepping close so I can whisper in her ear.
Iloni shrugs a single shoulder. “They still feel bad for her. What she and Da went through. All that’s dried up now.”
Leick faces Rath. “You’re going to choose vermin over your own, boy?”
He’s lean and cold and lethal looking next to Leick’s worn down belligerence. But still oddly respectful. “You and Mother suffered. We made excuses for you both. Deal with your shit, Da, or I will to protect my wife and our young.”
I don’t miss the implication I’m already pregnant. No one else does, either. I suspect he’s trying to cement me in with the female’s circle.
Leick laughs harshly. “It’s a challenge, then? You think you can defeat me, a boy tried by nothing more than a few raiders and the occasional beast? I fought in the Wars!” His voice rises to a roar.
Iloni grunts and sits back down, dragging me with her. “Here we go.”
Rath watches him. “You've spent the last thirty years drinking yourself into a nightly stupor and nursing your wounds when you should've been strengthening the clan.”
Leick lunges at him; it's fast, vicious, and everyone scatters except for Iloni and I. We don't move.
Rath spins, his only weapons now his unsheathed talons. He’s fast, light on his feet, his expression shut down and focused.
“You've gotten slow,” Rath says. “You and Ma deserve some time to yourselves. Work on your marriage, travel. Get ready for grandbabes.”
They’ll be grandparents to our children over my dead body, but Rath is being a politician. I think.
Leick snarls, spittle flying from his tusks. “I'll show you slow, boy.”
They circle each other, the gathered Uthilsen forming a wide berth .
Leick taught Rath how to grapple and it shows as they engage; Leick anticipates his son’s moves. Rath allows this then engages his Da in a series of breathtakingly fast strikes I know he didn’t learn from any Orc. Maybe the suggestion about travel was from experience.
“Is that all you've got? Fae tricks?” Leick sneers. “Pathetic.”
Rath stays silent now. He’s like Iloni that way. Talk game at the start, then buckle down and get to business. It’s clear he’s not enjoying himself, which is unusual.
Decades of pent-up rage fuel the clan leader. He recovers from a blow quickly, swiping Rath’s legs out from under him in a surprising show of agility. Leick presses his advantage.
Rath explodes upward, his head connecting with his father's jaw. There's a sickening crack, and Leick stumbles back, blood trickling from his mouth.
“Come on, Da, yield,” Rath said. “I’m your son. It’s no dishonor.”
“I'll yield over the defiled corpse of your bitch.”
I close my eyes. I almost don’t want to see what happens next. The merciless flurry of blows as Rath unleashes—he’d been holding back.
It’s brutal, and if I wasn’t used to violence I might sicken.
Leick is on the ground, groaning, clutching a broken jaw which is the least of his injuries.
Rath stands over him, lips peeled back in a snarl. “If there will be any corpses tonight, it’ll be yours. Yield, Da. Or I'll end it now.”
“I don’t think he can speak,” Huedda says, staring down at Leick. “Let the male’s circle decide.”
Rath straightens, exuding menace, and turns slowly, meeting the gaze of every male present.
“My father yields,” he says, and no one contradicts him.
“Can we drink now?” Hathhur drawls.
“Not yet.” Rath turns and stalks towards me, eyes feral, blood dripping from his wounds though he moves as if he doesn't feel the pain.
He halts in front of me and tilts his head. “I kept my oath.”
I push to my feet. “You did.”
“Will you make me wait an entire year?”
The gleam in his eyes morphs from feral to nearly mad. He takes another step forward, hands trembling as they open and close in fists. He smells of lust; for blood, for power, for sex.
For conquest.
He’s barely on a leash.
I don't move, waiting. There are rules. Rath and I have already crossed boundaries.
He closes his eyes and shudders, and when he opens them again his shoulders are loose, his hands relaxed. Only then do I step forward, lifting my hand to cup his cheek, then swipe my thumb over a drop of blood.
Rath takes a deep breath, glances at his sister and then turns slightly to include the Huedda. “Blood Ky’a into the clan. Do it now.”
Huedda purses her lips. “These things take time and ceremony. Would you shame her with shoddy blooding? ”
“You can do it fancy later,” he snaps. “Give her the protection of the clan now.”
Huedda sighs. “We’ll do it the right way later, mark me. Every girl deserves the ceremony done proper.”
The males back away as the females come forward, circling me until it’s Iloni and I in the center, shutting out the male’s view of us.
“Kyona Lethergen, by right of blood and majority you claim your place among us,” Huedda says.
“To join us is to bleed with us, to fight with us, to die with us. Our strength is your strength, our enemies your enemies. Do you accept this burden and this honor?”
“I do.” My voice is steady, though not loud. I don’t let my mixed feelings show on my face.
Iloni produces a blade. I watch it, not reacting.
“Then let the blood of the clan flow through you,” Iloni says.
The females blood themselves one by one, someone having produced a cup that smells like apple mead.
I’m the last to take the blade, pressing it against my arm and letting my blood flow free into the cup.
They begin the clan chant, which is really a long poem telling one of the stories we pass down about the Mother. Everyone sips from the cup, including me.
“I don’t have the scarring salve,” Huedda says to me quietly as the females chant. “We’ll redo the ceremony proper once you’ve settled in, but your male was looking wild-eyed. Poor boy has had a night.”
I snort.
“Kyona Lethergen,” Huedda says, raising her voice. “Blood of our blood.”
The Uthilsen erupt in a fierce war cry, a few grins aimed my way when I swipe at tears that have mysteriously appeared on my cheeks.
“We still have shit to answer for,” Iloni murmurs. “We let Ma go too far. But this is a start.”
It’s a start.
Rath pushes through the circle and drops to his knees, head tilted slightly back so he can keep his gaze on mine. He angles his neck, taking his hair and draping it on the opposite shoulder.
“I’ve got a blade,” Iloni says, finishing off the cup of blood.
I hold out my hand. The hilt presses against my palm and I wrap my fingers around it. Then, slowly, I press the edge of the blade against his neck and draw it down in one gentle line, parting his skin just enough for more blood to seep through.
“Fiuthen,” he says, not breaking our gazes.
Fiuthen comes forward, a small leather pouch in his hand. His dips his fingers inside and begins to spread the scarring salve over the fresh cut.
“Well, why didn’t you say you had some?” Huedda says.“Males.”
“At least he don’t have to carve her name in his back like some of the clans do,” Iloni says.
Rath’s eyes brighten and he opens his mouth.
“No,” I say .
He frowns at me.
I hand the blade to Iloni and take a step back, and then another one. “We’re not married yet.”
Turning, I run.
Behind me, an Orc warrior roars.