Petrodor: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 2 (74 page)

“There's an old vertyn tree,” Sasha murmured sadly. “It grew at the back of our house on the hillside. I climbed it many times when I was younger, and later, Andreyis climbed it with me. It always amazed me that I could be so high, and yet the mountains were so much higher. It made me think about the scale of things, and about the Goeren-yai saying, that one could never trust a human judgment of size and power, and how all the greatest warriors of history were as nothing compared to the mountains. I dream of that tree sometimes.”

“Dahlren died when I had just thirteen summers,” Errollyn continued. He looked sad and thoughtful. Sasha took the hand in her hair and entwined her fingers with his. “That was terrible. We lived mostly alone, there was just a little village down from the shoulder of the hill where we had our small farm. I had help with the
va'eth aln
, the funeral rites, but not much else. I insisted on staying on after that, on my own…I was stubborn, you would say. I continued my own learnings, as Dahlren had done. I think it changed me. I sometimes wonder what my life might have been like had I taken a different uman. But I am who I am, and wonderings will achieve nothing.”

“Dahlren was
du'janah
,” Sasha said sombrely. “Wasn't she?” Errollyn looked surprised. “That's why you were sent to be her uma.”

Errollyn slid off her with a sigh, to Sasha's regret. She worried that she'd said the wrong thing. But Errollyn lay close, a hand propping his head. “She was
du'janah
,” Errollyn confirmed. “It was discussed, between my parents and various elders.” His brilliant eyes darkened. “I wished they'd just leave me alone. My elder sister had taken an uman who was a master of woodcraft. I wanted to learn woodcrafts too, but it was insisted that I should take a
du’janah
uman. Dahlren was unsuitable, and too old, and unfriendly and fit to die on me before I could complete
useen
, but that did not matter to them.”

Sasha put a hand on his chest. He was nearly hairless below the neck. It seemed a natural condition of serrin. “Did you love her? Dahlren, I mean.”

Errollyn smiled faintly. “I grew to. I helped with small tasks that her fingers found difficult, or her arms lacked the strength for. And I did love her lore, and grew to love the forests and hills more deeply than anything. I took Dahlren's small affections where I could.”

Sasha smiled. “You learn to recognise them after a while, don't you?”

Errollyn raised an eyebrow. “You with Kessligh?” Sasha nodded, with no small exasperation. Errollyn shook his head. “No, Kessligh is a veritable eruption of love and joy compared to Dahlren. She could spend days, and not speak a word to me. But I learned to love her anyway. Love is not always a good thing. It hurt all the more on the winter morning when I woke and found that the previous night's chill had taken her life. I blamed myself for years, but it was so fast, and she'd insisted her cough had been nothing.”

Sasha ran a hand through his hair. Her heart ached to hold him, and she knew that he probably would not mind…but she was Lenay, and one did not embrace or comfort a man in pain. Not if one valued his dignity, and his honour.

“I met some of her family at the
va'eth aln
,” Errollyn continued. “They insisted she'd left them, and had not been cast out as Dahlren sometimes told me. They were all baffled by her. They said it was an unfortunate thing to be
du'janah.
After a short while of conversation, I think I began to understand why she left.”

“Errollyn,” Sasha said softly. “Tell me. What is a
du'janah
? Precisely, in your own words.”

Errollyn gazed at her. Exasperation built to a faint wince. “I…I don't know, Sasha, it's so difficult to explain to a human…”

Sasha straddled him. Pushed him onto his back, and lay on his chest, nose to nose. She kissed him gently, and pressed herself to him, a pleasant warmth of skin on skin. And was pleased to feel him harden once more against her. She propped herself on her elbows. “Look,” she told him, “I can't
get any closer than this. If you can't tell me now, then you probably can't tell anyone.
Sel ath'avthor shalma'ta mai, el'ath dael baer'il shoen
.” “And if it cannot be said in words, it probably doesn't exist.”

Errollyn made a wry smile. “You can get closer,” he suggested.

Sasha kissed him again. “I can?”

“You can.”

“Ah.” Sasha reached down and slid him inside her once more. She was a little sore, but she didn't care at all. “Now tell me,” she breathed on his lips. Errollyn ran his hands up her bare sides, over her back, making every rib glow, and every small hair tingle.

“To be
du'janah
,” Errollyn said simply, “is to be without
vel'ennar
.”

Sasha stopped making love to him and gave him a very blunt stare. “If that's all you've got for me, I'm kicking you out of this bed.”

Errollyn grinned then laughed. Kissed her deeply. Sasha resisted a little, waiting warily for an answer. Errollyn considered her, sharp-eyed and penetrating. “Have I told you how beautiful you are?”

“Several times.”

“You have an amazing shape.” His hands found her hips. “Serrin women tend to be slimmer. But these hips are extraordinary. And your eyes, so dark and exotic…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Sasha said impatiently. “I know, dark features are so exotic to serrin. Big deal. Give me an answer or you're lying on the floor.”

Amusement flashed in his eyes. “You try to be tough, but you're just putty in my hands.”

“Oh yeah?”

Errollyn's arms came about her, and he moved firmly against her, up between her thighs. He kissed her, a hand coming up into her hair, and suddenly she was struggling for breath.

“Errollyn…” she managed, barely freeing herself. “Look, stop it, I'm serious!”

“You don't look serious,” he whispered to her, not stopping at all. “You look excited.”

“Oh spirits…no, look, just…” He rolled her over, effortlessly, half pinning one arm. He weighed so much more than she and, at this range, his power was daunting. She ought to have been alarmed, she knew. She disliked being helpless. And yet, for all her warning instincts, she'd never been so desperately pleased to be overpowered in all her life.

She cried out as Errollyn made love to her. Her heart thudded madly against her ribs, and she could no longer breathe but gasp. Right when she felt herself on the early road to her third climax of the day, Errollyn paused.

“To be serrin is to be one, Sasha,” he murmured, gazing into her eyes. “To be one like this.” He moved against her. Sasha retained barely enough dignity to feel embarrassed that her only reply was a half-muffled squeal against her bitten lip. “This is the
vel'ennar
. It is the oneness. We do not know each other's thoughts, and we cannot read each other's minds, but it is close. When King Leyvaan invaded, serrin from everywhere came immediately. They did not wait for a message, they simply knew something was wrong. They
felt
it, Sasha, as you feel me.”

Oh dear spirits, she certainly did. She kept her mouth shut, not trusting herself with words.

“To feel the
vel'ennar
is to never feel alone. It is to never feel insecure in company. It is to never hate those who think differently. That is why we don't kill each other, Sasha—or not for a thousand years, at least. That is why we are collective, as humans are not. That is what makes us different from you.”

“Except that you…” Sasha managed, with a struggle for composure. “You don't have it?”

“No.” His eyes gleamed, though whether it was from anger, or arousal, Sasha could not say. “I am the throwback. I am what serrin were, a thousand years and more ago, back when we
did
still kill each other. Sometimes I think they fear me. The entire, collective philosophy of the serrinim rests on the assumption of
vel'ennar.
They depend on it, especially in this conflict with humans. They look to our differences, and cling to them. They see the likes of me as threatening the balance. So they send me out into the wilds, like they sent poor Dahlren, before they made her so bitter that she abandoned them entirely to seek a solitary life and death in the foothills.

“That's what made me so mad, Sasha. I grew to love Dahlren, but I feared that this wretched, bitter person would be me, given enough time. I want to feel the
vel'ennar
, I've always wanted it, as badly as I want you now, so badly it hurts. But I could not. Other children would exchange smiles at the unspoken humour, and I wanted to know what the joke was. Others would form bonds, the nature of which always baffled me. They knew I was different, and they were kind, but their kindness smothered, as though they thought I suffered from some terrible, incurable disease, when, as far as I knew, I was perfectly healthy.

“In time, I learned to turn it to a strength. I debated the philosophies in councils in ways that few had ever heard before. All judged that my differences gave me a unique insight and I became valuable to them. I joined the
talmaad
and was posted here to Petrodor. But Rhillian, for all her kind words, never respected my insights, nor understood them. And if she cannot understand one of her own kind, how can she possibly understand humanity?
Vel'ennar
is a blindness, Sasha. It makes serrin safe from themselves. But it is the sword that humans shall use to strike off serrin heads.”

Sasha put a hand on his cheek and smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said. “But Errollyn…tell me what you
feel.
What does it feel like? I want…I want to get inside you. I want to know who you are.” Even as the words left her lips, she knew that she was falling in love. It wasn't wise, she knew, but like the passionate lust that drove them to such craziness beneath this blanket, there was nothing she could do about it.

Errollyn kissed her, long and lingering. “Right now,” he said softly, “I feel only you. And in truth, I prefer it that way.”

Rhillian leaned upon the ship's railing and watched the small boat struggle against the wind and swell. Two men worked the oars, and a smaller figure waited in the bow. That would be Adele. Adele was good at sneaking. Like Aisha, she'd been running messages at the time of the attacks. It was the main reason she was still alive.

The wind blew the smoke from Dockside's pyres back onto the slope, wreathing the city in the ashes of the dead. An orange sun set upon the ridge, shrouded in black. Yethel would have thought it a magnificent image, and sought his easel and paints. But Yethel was dead. Feshaan. Ylith. Reshard. Terel. All her friends. Her
talmaad
. Her responsibility. Rhillian wanted to cry, but the tears would not come. Her heart had broken. Crying now would break her soul. She had to be strong. The storm was coming.

Adele climbed over the railing and made her way along the rolling deck. Several of the human staff watched blankly from where they sat about the mast. They had come from properties in Angel Bay, the only places to have survivors. Some had nothing left, and departed their home with the only family they'd ever known. Adele's blue–black braids tossed in the wind, her lean face worn with lines that had not been there a few days ago.

“Neither Patachi Maerler nor his people would see me,” she said tautly as she reached Rhillian's side. “It's over. Patachi Steiner will take command of the Torovan army and march on Saalshen.”

“I believe the human word is ‘cowardice,’” said Kiel, in Torovan. He had appeared out of nowhere, but Rhillian barely blinked. She was accustomed to that. Kiel's calf was heavily bandaged, but he walked well enough, and held his balance on the rolling deck.

“Cowardice,” Rhillian corrected in Lenay, gazing at the smoke-wreathed
hills. “It sounds better in Lenay.” With all its inflections of honour and blood. It suited her mood. Sasha would know what she meant.

“Patachi Maerler feels he has nothing more to gain, and everything to lose,” said Adele. “With the priesthood standing so clearly against Saalshen, he cannot side with us any longer. Not if he wishes to avoid displeasing the archbishop. The balance has shifted.”

“This archbishop's days are numbered,” Rhillian murmured. “One way or the other, he has overestimated his power and has become a liability, for everyone. For the priesthood most of all. But the new archbishop, when he comes, will not be able to undo what has been done. His favour now rests with Patachi Steiner, and the coming war shall make Patachi Steiner even more powerful than before. Or so he hopes.”

“So it's over,” said Adele, with what sounded something like regret, and a lot like relief. “Do we sail?”

“Soon,” said Rhillian, faintly. “Very soon.”

“We cannot just run away,” Kiel said firmly. “We cannot let any human see Saalshen so easily defeated.”

“Soon also, my friend,” Rhillian assured him. She took a deep breath. “Very soon.”

“We must stand firm,” Kiel insisted. “There is a storm coming.”

“No,” Rhillian said softly. “The storm has arrived. And it is us.”