Kindred and Wings (5 page)

The confident and powerful Witch was gone, revealing a shaking and very young Phaerkorn. She was holding herself still, as if afraid that movement would break her composure.

Byre sighed and turned his gaze on her. “Think of it, Pelanor; they left us here and we haven’t seen them for . . . well, however long it has been. It’s impossible to tell time in their realm. What if this is the test? Sooner or later you will have to eat, and if you leave it too long you may not be able to control yourself.”

She looked down at her small brown hands that were shaking. Clenching them into fists, the Witch’s gaze narrowed and her lip pulled back from her fangs. “You are as ignorant as everyone else in Conhaero! It is not just a matter of you opening a vein for me. You are not my
gewalt
, so the only time when feeding is simple is when I kill someone. If not, there is . . . there is a bond formed.”

Byre sat back on his heels. Everywhere in Conhaero there were pacts, geasa and bonds, but nothing between Vaerli and Phaerkorn. The Blood Witches were killers. Everyone feared them. Was it a wise move to align himself with them as his own long-lost sister had done?

His sister—the one everyone knew as Talyn the Hunter—had sent Pelanor to protect him, and Byre had to believe that it meant something.

Holding out his slightly trembling hand to the Witch, he smiled as reassuringly as possible. “There is already a bond, Pelanor. Talyn saw to that, and I trust her. I trust you.”

“You trust me?” She slid across the rocky floor toward the Vaerli. Her eyes were now exclusively gold, the tip of her tongue pressed against those sharp canine teeth. She reminded him of a child being offered a boiled sweet by a stranger; all cautious anticipation but also strangely ready for flight.

Byre forced a smile onto his face. “I know you want to live through this as much as I do, Pelanor, and to get through it we will need each other.”

The Blood Witch ran her tongue over her upper lip and considered for a moment.

“You,” she whispered, kneeling before him, “are quite remarkable, Byreniko of the Vaerli, and a much better person than your sister.” The Witch’s fingers rubbed lightly against the stubble of his goatee beard, tracing the line of his jaw.

Knowing she was playing with him, Byre caught her fingers in a vise-like grip. Her changeable eyes flared wide in shock; Phaerkorn were not used to anyone else having faster reflexes or being stronger than they were.

“Just go ahead and feed,” Byre said with a hiss, giving her hand a sharp squeeze to emphasize his own strength. “No need to play games with me.”

Her gaze narrowed for an instant, and then she moved. Byre couldn’t help a small grunt of surprise as she launched herself forward. He’d been expecting her to latch onto his neck, but thinking of it, that would have killed him, most likely. One of the Caisah’s torturers had tested the limits of the Vaerli healing gift, but she had not been trying to kill him. Pelanor might be young, but she knew the ways to feed. The places where it was best.

All these thoughts sped through his mind as she ripped the top two buttons off of his shirt in her haste to take up his offer. Byre steeled himself, but after what he’d suffered in the Rutilian Guards’ fortress he knew he could withstand any pain.

Certainly there was a little; a sting just below his collarbone as she drew her teeth across his skin there. Then there was a drowsy enjoyment, and a thrust of pleasure down his spine as her tongue lapped delicately at the wound. Byre drew in his breath shakily as his body mixed signals of delight with the frisson of pain. The long slip of her tongue over his skin was delicious, and though he tried to keep his jaw closed a sliver of a groan escaped him. She made no move that indicated she had heard him.

Pelanor drank as delicately as a cat licking up cream, and Byre felt something unfolding within him; something more profound than just the desire of the flesh. A sound like the roar of a storm entered his head, as if from a long way off a woman was howling in rage and despair. His body felt as though it were falling away from him, spinning into nothingness with only the feeling of his blood entering Pelanor holding him awake. Then he felt the plunge of something metallic go through him, sharp, sudden and deadly.

When Byre finally did find his way back to his body it was to Pelanor’s lips and sharp teeth against his, breathing into him and kissing him at the same time. He tasted the iron of his own blood, but he could also feel his own strength flowing through her. The spiral of desire and need for blood was heady, and Byre could feel himself drowning in it.

With a groan he pushed her away and struggled upright. She stayed where she was, legs folded, looking up at him, wiping the line of scarlet slowly from the corner of her mouth. For an uncomfortable moment they stared across at each other in silence as she licked the remains from her fingers.

Byre cleared his throat. “Is that what you wanted all along, Pelanor? More Vaerli blood?”

She sighed. “You offered, Byre. Your sister gave hers willingly to seal our deal, but her blood is not as powerful as yours.” Pelanor got to her feet, walked to him, pressed against his chest and traced the bottom of his lip. “You are nearly Vaerli as they once were, full of power and Gifts.” Leaning back she fixed him with a smug look. “Tasting you is like tasting the past, and I like it very much.”

Whatever smart words Byre could have summoned died away when he became aware of a figure in the flames behind the Witch. The Kindred was part of the fire: an alien shape, tall with a great curved head, but otherwise formless as a statue before the carver set to work. Byre had only seen it because in the moving fires it was utterly still, a black shadow in so much brightness.

As far as he knew they had been alone since they arrived, but now he wondered if he’d been mistaken all that time. What had he and Pelanor revealed to them while they were trapped in the circle of fire?

Catching his suddenly alert pose, the Blood Witch turned around to see what he was looking at, and then backed away. It pleased the Vaerli to see the witch cowed so quickly; she was not so young as to not be awed by the Kindred. Pushing her behind him, Byre tried to keep his own bravery intact, but it was hard.

The Kindred were the original spirits of the land, the masters of the chaos that had been its natural state before the arrival of the other races. His own people’s contract with them and the Gifts they had given in return dated back many thousands of years. Still, the Vaerli did not truly know the Kindred. Time and the elements were their home, and they had not been seen above ground since the curse had been laid on the Vaerli by the Caisah. Byre had come here to recover that ancient pact and the Seven Gifts, as his father and all his race wanted.

He was not foolish enough to imagine that it wouldn’t be bought with great sacrifice. As the Kindred’s towering form moved beyond the flames, within feet of the Vaerli and the Blood Witch, Byre recalled the tales of Ellyria. His long-ago ancestor’s suffering at the hands of the Kindred had been what secured the Pact in the first place. He imagined that the oncoming Kindred was about to deliver the same to him.

Up close, the Kindred was not completely solid. The rocky floor could be seen through it. But it did give off a tremendous heat, almost like staring into a blast furnace. The etheric form it wore was one Byre had seen before, but he knew it could just as easily construct another from the earth all around them.

You are ready
. The voice came from no body, but was rather inserted into the skulls of those it wished to communicate with. The sensation was not unpleasant, but Byre caught Pelanor out of the corner of one eye, shaking her head as if it pained her.

“Is it time for the testing?” he asked, wondering at how strong his voice managed to sound when inside he was quaking.

Your test is not to be the same as Ellyria’s.
The Kindred flickered and wavered, bending to winds Byre could not detect.
There can be no fresh pact-making for the Gifts.

“But that is why I came.” Byre took a step forward, thinking of all he had been through and his own father’s sacrifice.

The flames around them grew suddenly furious and hot, so that his skin began to sizzle.

“Careful.” Pelanor grabbed hold of his arm, her long nails dragging sharply into his skin. “You may not burn, but I think I could.”

Despite being angry with her for the interruption, Byre did not want to see her go up like a candle. The Kindred’s eyes now flickered with blue fire.
You came here because the after-time and the before-time brought you here.

Pelanor’s eyebrows rose in surprise. The way the Kindred lived was almost as much a mystery to Byre as any Blood Witch was. His own people, if they had known any more, had never had the chance to impart it to him. He was only aware that the Kindred did not exist in time in the same way as any other creature in Conhaero. Even the Vaerli had to abide by the hours and minutes, but the Kindred were far more than that.

When he looked up the blazing creature, almost indiscernible against the flames, Byre knew he was in grave danger. His throat was dry, but he managed to croak out, “What would you have me do?”

Cast yourself upon the tides of time.
The fire arched and spun, and then flowed aside leaving a gap just big enough for two to pass through; the end was in darkness.
Live as one of the Kindred and see what you may learn.

“And the Blood Witch?” Byre croaked.

The Kindred’s eyes of flame raked over Pelanor’s small form.
She is part of you, so she may travel at your side, but make sure she does not stray too far from your side. We cannot protect her.

So there was only the darkness now for both of them—that and the uncertainty of time.

“Deeper and deeper,” Pelanor murmured. “How much farther can there be to go down?” Her voice was full of both fear and desire. She certainly had the spirit of an explorer. Together they moved forward, though this time he would not hold her hand.

As they went past the barrier of flame, the sensation of heat abruptly left them for another less familiar, less identifiable feeling. Byre felt his skin shudder to a cool touch that stabbed through to the bone like thousands of long needles. The sensation passed through his whole body in waves, and by the way Pelanor shook her head he realized that she was laboring under the same peculiarity.

This discomfort was merely the appetizer. Whatever was beyond the flames was stronger than Vaerli or Phaerkorn, and they had stepped right into it. Minds were knocked sideways, and all that Pelanor and Byre were became totally irrelevant. In the tides of before-time, all that they were washed away, long forgotten.

The Rutilians were moving down the bleak valley, looking carefully around them, ready for an ambush. Equo, crouched behind the outcrop of rock in the ridge above, felt the sweat begin to bead on his forehead. The summer sun was so strong up here that he almost wanted to be down in the canyon, out of the shade—almost.

Glancing to his right, he caught Varlesh’s eye. The man jerked his head up in acknowledgement and raised the square of glass upward to the sky. Sending the flash of brilliance into the clouds was his task, while Equo did the same but across the canyon.

That was all it took. Baraca’s troops, concealed under canvases with a light covering of the red soil of the area on top, emerged among the crevices in the cliffs and poured down in the valley, as well. While his soldiers were well concealed, the commander was not. Spurning any camouflage, Baraca himself leapt across to a teetering outcrop with the agility of a teenager. It was impressive and a little disturbing. He was a great burly man—or had been before the power of the Void had entered him. Now he was a scion. Seeing him standing there, gesturing to his followers, Equo could understand a little of why they were all so fanatical in their devotion.

The eye kept drifting to him, but not because he was particularly handsome. Instead it was as if the air bent around him; it hung around his shoulders like a cloak. Equo was only glad that the eye patch remained in place; no one who had seen beyond it wanted to see it again. The raw magic of the Void between Worlds had taken up residence in there and changed him forever.

Baraca had once been a friend to Equo, Si and Varlesh; an old companion that was now leading the rebels against the Caisah. It was the first major uprising in mortal memory. The trio of men, however, remembered the previous one.

Perhaps that was what caused the knot of dread in Equo’s stomach. The tyrant had put down more rebellions in his immortal reign over Conhaero than any of them could count. His methods had not become any more diplomatic with time. This one appeared to be beginning well for the rebels, but so too had many of the others. Equo did not have much optimism left to spare on this endeavor.

When the howls came from above them in the clouds, Equo felt his spirits lift. The Swoop dropped from the sky like vengeance personified. Hawks, eagles, buzzards and falcons, birds of beak and talon, moved together in a formation that no natural predator would have contemplated. They shot over the heads of the descending rebels and split neatly into two sections; one peeled off north while the other descended to the rear, where as yet the Rutilian guard had not noticed anything different.