Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (17 page)

Ryo’s brows knitted together.

“But we’re still learning to be in the same room together. We’re collecting more and more people, but we’re all strangers to one another. And they’re my responsibility.”

He took in a deep breath.

“I allowed my tribe to be killed once, before my eyes and under my nose. I won’t allow that to happen again. Tokarz was a trap. Ino Nami will use him again and again, but understand, he is nothing more than bait. If we kill him, it will not alter her plans, it will not shake her power.”

“We would be playing directly into her hand.”

I nodded. “She could destroy us. Again.”

Ryo’s dark gaze raked the room, his hands fisting and relaxing.

“I won’t let that happen again.”

“Then what do we do, Synn? I can’t run every time she advances.”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “I’m not as smart as Ino Nami. I’m nowhere near as cunning.”

“Ah.” Dawning lit his face. “The reason you keep Nix around.”

“One of them.” I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Though to be honest, it was Neira’s idea.”

“Why is it, brother, that all the women in your life are smarter than you are?”

I shook my head, my eyebrows raised. “I wish I knew.” I rubbed my bottom lip. “Whatever we decide to do, Ryo, we must be together on this. Ino Nami is too strong to pit alone. We need the full backing of the League, but we need to bring the League back together.”

“Neira is the leader of the League, not you.”

“And she hides in the wilderness that has kept her people safe for centurns.” I licked my lips. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Ryo’s eyebrows jumped, his expression grim.

“Pray, Ryo.”

He looked at me, startled.

“Pray to the great Librarian, pray to a god, pray to whatever might be out there. But pray that Oki wakes from whatever Ino Nami did to her.”

Ryo raised his chin, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Because she taught Oki, unlike the rest of us. If we have any hope of defeating her—” I walked toward the door, thumping my brother on the arm on my way by. “—Oki is our best hope of doing so.”

Lake Chatan: Neira

“M
ILA HANSKA
.”
A
BLONDE WOMAN
with her bow slung over her back walked up to Neira, a welcoming smile on her face.

Neira offered a smile in return, but sighed at the name. Long knives. She’d more than earned that name, but it wasn’t the one she enjoyed wearing. “Skah, what brings you?”

“Always business.” She trailed her fingertips across Neira’s leather covered shoulders, skirting the long pine beside them.

Leaning into the gesture, Neira looked over her shoulder to meet the other woman’s gaze squarely. “I lack the leisure for play.”

Skah stepped back, folding the branch of a violet burble bush out of her way. “You should not have taken the mantle of leader of that cursed league. We have more pressing matters here at home.”

“Agreed.” To be honest, Neira wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been thinking. She should never have entered the games in the first place. But she had wanted her tribe’s name known. She’d wanted to be seen, to be counted.

She’d wanted to enlist the help of others should the Han get too close. And he had been. Every week, another advancement. Every month, they’d nearly lost. Nearly.

If her father were still alive to see her, she feared he would be disappointed

Thinking such thoughts only did well if they invoked action. Currently, action was not needed. “Do you bring me news,
cola
?”

“Of course.” Skah walked to a clump of tall, bushy yellow zion flowers and plucked one. She popped the head off and stuck the stem in her mouth to capture the milky juice. “Synn is on his way back. And, apparently, he’s in trouble. Again.”

Neira grunted as she continued to work on freeing the bulb cluster of the echacea bush.

“Does that boy do anything besides find trouble?”

The cluster was bigger than she’d anticipated, so Neira took up her spade again and worked to free more soil away from it. “In his world, he is a great leader.”

Skah snorted. “Then they are a weak people.”

Neira couldn’t disagree with that.

“
Akicit!
” a child’s voice cried. “
Akicit!
”

Neira scrambled to her feet, freeing her long knives from her sheaths. She scanned the immediate area for Mika.

He stampeded through the forest loud enough to herald his arrival, but the sounds ricocheted across the small valley. She heard a splash and spun, scaling down the hillside as quietly as possible.

Mika ran from the creek and scrambled up the hill on the other side on hands and knees. “
Akicit!”

“I’m here, you twit!” she called in a hushed tone. She stepped out from behind a lilan bush, the bright pink, fragrant flowers long gone.

He ran to her, his pants patched together from several hides, his chest bare, his long hair tied in two unruly brown braids. “
Akicit,
the Han. He is attacking.”

Skah skittered to a halt beside him. “Where?”

“Tunnel Mountain.”

Neira glanced at Skah for a brief moment, sheathing her blades. “Gather our warriors to Enhnapi. As soon as Synn docks, we leave for Tunnel Mountain.”

“But this storm,” Mika said, his voice rising in pitch.

“I know a way. Bring Enhnapi to Lake Chatan. Go, Skah, now.”

Skah nodded curtly and ran lithely through the forest, disappearing before she’d made a few feet.

“What about me?” Mika asked, craning his neck to look up at Neira.

She cuffed his head and brought him in for a one-armed hug, then released him. “You, little brother, go back to camp. They will be preparing to retreat to the caves to wait out this storm. Go with them. Be safe. Do as your grandfather tells you.”

His shoulders sagged and he rolled his head on his neck. “But I can do so much more!”

“For now, little brother,” she said, setting her hands on his shoulders and turning him back the way he came, “I need you to prepare for the storm.”

He rolled his eyes and stomped off several feet, then broke into a run.

The Han had discovered Tunnel Mountain. How had he managed that?

Releasing a string of curses, Neira ran toward Lake Chatan. The “how” could be discovered later, but not much later. He was getting dangerously close.

It was time Synn proved his worth. Or released her from the bonds of his precious league.

I
FOUND MYSELF OUTSIDE
A
IYANNA’S
bedroom door. I closed my eyes with a sigh and opened them again. How many evenings had I spent in her room? How often had I sought her comfort?

“Synn,” she called from down the hall. Aiyanna walked toward me, her dark, wavy hair cascading down her back. She smiled and maneuvered around me, pushing the thin, metal door open. “Come in.”

Returning her smile, I closed the door behind me. “Did you walk Enhnapi at all?”

“Definitely.” She threw a pink pillow on the floor and sank onto it. “Every time we come into port.”

“You’re not much of an airman.” I ducked my head, sitting on a red pillow opposite her. It was our own joke. She didn’t like being cooped up on the ship for long periods of time, and I gave her a hard time about it. As far as jokes went, it was stupid, but it was the thing we shared.

“You’re worrying again.” Aiyanna’s soft voice penetrated my thoughts.

I shot her a ghost of a smile. “What would I have to worry about?”

She tipped her head to the side, her expression frank and accepting at the same time.

With her, I could be honest. She’d give me her honest opinion. We’d have an honest discussion, and at the end, I’d have a better plan. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“That makes two of us.”

I released a dry snort to acknowledge her admission. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor, her expression carefully blank.

Of all the people who had stood by me through my grief and anger, she’d survived the longest. Was my surprise due to the fact she wasn’t a tribesman and so I thought of her as weak? Or was it the fact that she was a priestess of a religious order I didn’t understand?

We had time. We had a moment to breathe, to ask questions we never seemed to have time for. Before I lost the courage or someone interrupted us for an emergency, I blurted, “What is Tarot to you?”

Her smile widened as she straightened her back, then slumped slightly forward again. “Of all the things you want to discuss, you want to ask me about my religion?”

I folded my leg and perched my elbow on my knee. “Yes.”

“Okay.” She got up and walked toward the round table in the far corner, sinking onto the dark red pillows edged in black. “I don’t even know where to start.”

I joined her. Before I sat, I pulled the string that raised the slotted, sea flax curtains. There was nothing to see. The docks were quiet. The
letharan
veil was down and we were under the lake, waiting out the storm. I sat on a pillow and leaned against the frame of the small window. “Why don’t you tell me how you started with Tarot?”

“I was born to it.” She took in a deep breath and fingered the bowl of fruit in the center of the table. “You really want to discuss this?”

I nodded.

“Fine. My mother had fled her Family to have me. The priestesses took her in, fed her, clothed her, then helped with her with the birthing, and let her go.”

“Do you know who she is?”

She nodded, her gaze dropping. “Ino Hazar.”

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head.

“She’s a major advisor for the Ino.”

“Oh.” That was unexpected.

She raised her eyebrows. “Yes.”

“You don’t look Ino.”

“I know. Have you met Ino Hazar? She is not Ino. She married in from another family.”

“Oh.” Would she be safe from the blood purge? “Do you think she would have evacuated with everyone else?”

“Sought refuge?” Aiyanna shook her head. “Hazar is pure blood. She’s simply Umira instead of Ino. Nami would not execute her.”

That sounded good, but I wondered how much love my mother had for the Umira tribe. She hadn’t been fond of Haji.