Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (3 page)

“It’s
my
damn land,” Scratha answered. “I can do any damn thing I like.”

Evkit shifted as though to stand; cast a sullen glance at the floor and bared his teeth at Scratha instead.

“Let’s not start shedding blood
this
early,” someone said acerbically, and smiles flickered around the table again. “Certainly starting off with a bang,” another voice murmured.

“Easy, Evkit,” said Lord Faer, who was seated beside Evkit. He reached out, not quite putting his hand on the teyanin lord’s shoulder. “Scratha, really, that’s unmannerly—”

“I don’t care for what you call manners these days,” Scratha snapped. “My family was slaughtered by assassins that came through those passages. I’ve the right, and the need, so don’t you wave
unmannerly
in my face, Faer!”

A silent flicker of something Alyea couldn’t name went around the table. It felt, in that moment, as though everyone were trying very hard
not
to look at one another; she blinked hard and dismissed the thought as the product of nervous imagination.

“The teyanain have always had passage-right—” Irrio objected.

Scratha’s hawk-glare turned on the Darden lord.

“Yes,” he said, “let’s talk about the teyanain’s infamous
passage-right
, shall we? And their guardianship of the hidden ways. And the death of my
entire godsdamned family
.”

By the last words, his gaze was fixed on Evkit, and the teyanin lord, heedless of dignity, had climbed atop his chair to glare at the tall Scratha lord.

“
Say it
,” Evkit invited, his lips writhing into a ferocious snarl. “Say accusation; say! I love to hear this.”

“So you can declare blood feud on my family and muddy the issue past all recognition or sense?” Scratha bellowed, the veins in his neck standing out and his face nearly black with fury. “Not godsdamned
likely
, you little
ta-karne
!”

Alyea felt scarcely able to breathe through the tension cresting in the room. Several other desert lords rose to their feet, clearly unsure whether to physically intervene or let events play out.

Deiq showed no such hesitation. He stood and in one smooth movement leapt onto the table itself, stamping both his feet loudly.

“
Stop
,” he said; and while his volume remained low, the command, along with his leap, drew every eye to him. “That’s enough, my lords. With all due respect: that’s enough. You
cannot
afford to lose your tempers with a full ha’rethe below you.
You
—” He turned to point at Lord Scratha. “You most of all. So
stop it.
”

He turned in a slow circle, looking down at each lord in turn, then sprang to the floor as lithely as he’d ascended and took his seat amid utter silence.

“What would Conclave be without everyone losing their tempers?” someone said a bit shakily, obviously attempting to make a joke out of the moment; it fell flat.

Deiq didn’t even smile. “Other places,” he said, “fine. But not here.
Not here
.”

Evkit, Alyea noticed, had lowered himself into his seat once more. He studied Deiq with a speculative, narrow-eyed stare, seemingly unsurprised by the ha’ra’ha’s pronouncement.

“I suggest, Lord Scratha,” Deiq said, his tone still level, “that if you cannot discuss that particular matter
calmly
, you drop it altogether for the moment.”

Scratha’s face flushed dangerously again; Deiq met his stare without flinching.

After a moment Scratha straightened and said, in a reasonably steady voice, “Lord Evkit. During my travels, I saw marks on the hidden ways that indicated, to me, that the teyanain had left directions on which tunnels led to Bright Bay, the Wall, and Scratha Fortress, among others. Can you explain why the teyanain, who should know such things by heart, felt the need to mark out such spots in
kaenic
?”

Evkit studied Scratha, his gaze thoughtful; he passed a slow glance around the table, then said, flatly, “No. No can explain.”

Scratha made a choked sound and clenched his hands, dropping his chin to his chest and glaring at the teyanin lord. After a visible struggle to keep from bellowing, he said, rather hoarsely, “Lord Evkit. As host of this gathering, I have the authority to
require
an answer.”

“No can explain,” Evkit repeated stubbornly. “Without knowing answer, no answer to give.”

Deiq’s eyebrows lowered into a dark frown, and he regarded the teyanin lord with deep suspicion but made no open protest.

“You claim you don’t know why those marks were made?” Scratha demanded, incredulous and openly disbelieving.

“No answer to give,” Evkit said, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat. He caught Deiq’s hard stare and shrugged, pursing his lips as though amused.

“Can you
guess
?” someone else said, sounding exasperated; Evkit shook his head, obdurate.

“No guess at such important answer. Not fair to Scratha, no? But I say again: teyanain not kill Scratha Family. Not one drop, not one hair, not one wound. We not kill.”

“I think that’s the best you’re going to get, Scratha,” Lord Rowe murmured, his face puckered in deep worry.

Scratha drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Then can
anyone
at this table answer the question of
who
—”

“Don’t ask that,” Deiq cut in swiftly, on his feet faster than Alyea had ever seen him move before and his face closer to white than she’d thought it could go. She felt an icy chill dribble down her spine, and her bladder felt overfull for a moment.

“Move on to something
else
, Lord Scratha.
Right now
.”

Everyone stared at Deiq as though he’d gone completely mad. He glared them down, defiant and unapologetic; a sensation like being brushed gently by the very tip of a powerful wing on a down-beat shivered through her. The assembled lords clearly caught the full buffeting power: questions and protests died unspoken, and one by one they dropped gazes to the table or looked away.

Scratha drew in another deep breath, swallowed hard, and looked down at the parchment in front of him. “The matter of Pieas Sessin has been settled,” he said thickly, flicking a glance at Rowe. “His name was cleared in full by his honorable behavior during Lord Alyea’s blood trial.”

After another long beat of silence, Rowe shifted in his seat, his frown moving from Deiq to Scratha, and said, “You should have waited on me, Scratha. You knew I was on my way; I should have been here!”

Deiq let out an almost inaudible sigh and sank back into his seat. Alyea realized, astonished, that Deiq’s hands were
shaking
. She murmured, “What just—”

“Later,” he whispered back. “Much later. Please.”

Alyea nodded, a chill writhing up her back;
You can’t trust him ran
through the hindside of her mind. Deiq tilted a darkly sardonic stare at her, and she suspected he’d heard the thought this time. To avoid looking at him, she forced herself to focus on Scratha’s answer.

“At the time of the trial,” Scratha said with careful precision, “I did
not
know you were on your way, Lord Rowe.”

“You bloody well knew a Conclave would bring a Sessin representative!” Rowe snapped, leaning forward, hands resting against the table edge as if ready to push himself to his feet. The backs of his hands were decorated with swirling lines that appeared to extend up under his long sleeves. Alyea wondered if the bright blue color of the ink had a different significance than the red, black, or green designs other lords displayed. “Don’t play idiot with me, Scratha!”

Deiq didn’t react; Alyea shot him a worried glance and he whispered greyly, “Posturing.”

Scratha matched glares with the portly Sessin lord. “Pieas Sessin admitted to a number of serious indiscretions in front of a full desert lord, a ha’ra’ha, and a Callen. I’d prefer to avoid relating the details.”

Rowe’s face settled into grim lines.

“The misdeeds he confessed,” Scratha went on steadily, “would have been cause for dishonorable execution on the spot. The witnesses constituted a legitimate triad of judges. I allowed Pieas the mercy of an honorable resolution because he seemed. . . .” Scratha paused, an odd expression crossing his thin face, then finished, “seemed honestly repentant.”

With a sudden flash of understanding, Alyea remembered Pieas’s plea to Scratha:
My lord, give her another chance. I’ve never seen Nissa so heartbroken before. Don’t hold her to blame for my sins.
She wondered if that, more than anything else Pieas had said during her final blood trial, had earned the wayward Sessin an honorable death.

She also wondered if she’d ever truly be at peace over killing Pieas. At the thought, the room seemed to rock slightly, and Deiq’s hand closed tightly around her arm.

“
Don’t
,” he said in her ear; she swallowed hard and redirected her thoughts back to the moment with a fierce effort. The room steadied. Deiq released his grip and returned to sitting with his arms crossed, a faint frown seemingly etched into his stern features.

“I see,” Rowe said, and slumped in his chair, his anger visibly draining away. “I didn’t know that. I thought . . . You’ve made no secret of how you hate my family. . . . “

The last words seemed to blur and drawl with honeyed, weary slowness; Alyea blinked hard, and the long pauses snapped back into focus.

Rowe’s voice now sounded tart, not tired. “And considering how you treated Nissa. . . .”

Scratha winced, then seemed embarrassed at showing a reaction. “That had nothing to do with my decision,” he said a bit roughly. “Are you going to call challenge on me, then, Lord Rowe, over Nissa? Or bring it up as a Council matter?”

He waited, his long hands clenched into fists, knuckles barely touching the table. The array of ebony and silver beads on the ornate bracelets climbing from wrist to elbow on each arm rattled and hissed; Scratha glanced at them, his frown deepening, and flattened his hands out to rest on the table, quieting the noise.

Rowe studied the tall Scratha lord, a faint frown creasing his forehead. “No,” he said at last. “She wouldn’t thank me for getting involved.”

Scratha let out a hard breath and relaxed, although his expression remained grim. “Thank you, Lord Rowe,” he said.

The Sessin lord nodded and looked down at his hands, still frowning, as if regretting his decision.

“The question of Pieas Sessin does, however, bring us to another matter of Conclave business,” Lord Faer said. “The investment of Lord Alyea.”

As if he’d been waiting for that, Evkit sat up straight. “Challenge,” he said before anyone else could speak. “Irregular trials, invalid process. I challenge.”

Alyea’s stomach contracted. Scratha shot her a hard stare and shook his head slightly, as if warning her to stay quiet; and nobody else seemed to react, as though this were simply more posturing on Evkit’s part.

“She bears all three marks,” Faer pointed out.

“Bribed,” Evkit said baldly.

A shocked hiss sounded around the table, indifference evaporating; so this wasn’t routine political maneuvering. Alyea glanced at Deiq; his face remained serene, his arms folded across his chest.

“You’re accusing Callen of accepting bribes?” Lord Rowe demanded.

Evkit pointed at Deiq, the motion made threatening by the angular black lines that ran from his fingertips to just below his elbows. “He make arrangements,” the teyanin lord declared. “Who will argue with ha’ra’ha? He is too powerful.”

Everyone turned to look at the tall ha’ra’ha sitting beside Alyea.

Deiq blinked lazily and said, “She passed all the trials by her own wits and strength.”

“All three trials, in less than two tendays?” Irrio said. He narrowed his eyes at Alyea, a half-smile on his lips. “Impressive, given that preparing for each trial normally takes years.”

Azaniari raised her eyebrows and stared hard at Lord Irrio. “
Does
it, now?” she said. Irrio flicked a hand in an apologetic motion.

Aerthraim-Darden
, Alyea remembered; the woman claimed two Families. Through marriage, obviously; and Irrio represented Darden, which meant Azaniari’s home Family had to be Aerthraim.

Now,
that
was a story she’d be interested in hearing one day.

Deiq spoke, and Alyea blinked back to the moment, wondering why she kept drifting; it seemed as though everything were moving so slowly, the conversations interminably drawn-out and the speech patterns drawling, ambling, boring.

“It does make one wonder about people who need all that preparation,” Deiq said amiably, then glanced at Alyea and added, “If you doubt me, my lords, just
look
at her; she’s barely listening half the time. You’ve all seen that look on new lords before.”

Alyea stiffened as every eye suddenly turned to her, squinting and intense. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered; Deiq just grinned.

Scratha cut in, after a sharp glare at Deiq. “
I’ll
speak to the legality of her trials. The Scratha Fortress ha’rethe upholds her claim. Are there any
valid
challenges remaining to Lord Alyea’s investment?”

“What Family blood does she intend to claim?” Rowe asked.

Scratha nodded at Alyea, granting her permission to speak; she cleared her throat and said, “None. As far as I know I’m not directly related to any of the desert Families.”

Expressions around the table ranged from Deiq’s smug smile to Rowe’s thunderstruck gape.

“Good gods, Deiq,” Lord Rest of Eshan Family said, speaking for the first time. He sounded utterly shocked. “You put an
independent
through the trials? Are you
mad
?”

“I can’t believe she survived,” Rowe said, looking at Alyea with a new respect. “I thought she was some desert lord’s by-blow, raised north to avoid scandal!”

Deiq sat quietly, expression bland, hands folded in front of him on the table.

“No,” Alyea said, torn between amusement and annoyance at both the assumption and their insistence on speaking of her in the third person. “As far as I know, my family have all been tidily chasing northerns for bed-partners over the past five generations.”

Deiq leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter, although Alyea didn’t think the comment that funny. Several of the desert lords, including Scratha, grinned openly; the remaining tension in the room dissolved like smoke in a strong wind.

“You do have a way with words, young lady,” Faer murmured, smiling. “Tidily chasing, indeed.” He shook his head.

Deiq faded into chuckles and then into a wide grin. Watching his eyes, Alyea caught a calculating glint as he looked round the table, and realized his over-loud laughter had been a deliberate manuever.

He tilted a sideways glance at her; seeing her regard, he pursed his lips and took on a bland expression.

Don’t trust him
. . . Chac might be right.

“Well,” Rowe said, “that still leaves the question, doesn’t it? If you don’t claim Family blood, then you’ll have to apply to be accepted into a Family, and there’s not many who would take anyone outside their bloodline.”

“There’s Aerthraim,” Rest said, looking towards Lord Azaniari.

Several people snorted; Azaniari, expressionless, met Rest’s gaze levelly and said nothing. After a bare heartbeat, Rest dropped his stare to the table, looking rather chastened.