Wolf's-own: Koan (6 page)

"He is....” Malick paused, tried to do that thing Fen did, where he looked like he was ripping out his heart to give you an answer, when really he was giving you a very blatant nonanswer that you didn't recognize as nothing at all until after he'd coerced you into fucking him unconscious. And then it was too late. “Fen is unique. He has his own ways of dealing with things. I just want to let him. He needs time."

"For what, Kamen? To grieve his own? To undo what the Ancestors did to him?” She paused, but she still didn't look at Malick. “To forget his first love?"

Don't kill her, don't kill her, don't kill her.

Easier said than done. Malick's hands ached to wrap around someone's throat, and since Asai wasn't an option, Imara would do. He restrained himself, said, “All of it,” and that was all.

Imara just kept staring at the water, watching the mottles of the bright-colored sakou slither and flash as they flittered just below the surface. “What are you hiding, Kamen Wolf's-own?"

Malick didn't flinch or move, didn't even shift his glance. He kept his gaze fixed on Imara's profile and breathed evenly. He couldn't afford to give anything away, not to Imara. She was old, she was smart, and she was ruthless when she needed to be. If she thought Fen was “fragile,” as Dakimo had wondered, she might very well try to take him from Malick. And it wasn't only Malick's own wants and desires that recoiled at the thought. Fen needed Malick, whether Fen knew it or not. And Asai's persistent “ghost” was only a part of it.

"Just keep your nose out of it, Imara,” Malick warned. “He's mine until one of us is dead, or until he chooses otherwise. Don't test me on this."

Imara sighed. “Ah, but testing you is so very... educational.” She stepped back from the pond, snagged his arm again and started steering them for the temple. “You can't put it off any longer, Kamen. It's your job. You may have until the week's turning, and then the matter will be taken from your hands. He will begin at the temples. If you'd like to maintain your hold on him, I suggest you ensure his cooperation."

"He's not ready."

"
Make
him ready."

"I can't
make
him ready, damn it, there's more to—"

"Then make him
think
he's ready. Tell him what you must, give him what you must, but get him to the temples, and make sure he ends up in Wolf's."

"I'm not pushing him to—"

"Push, wheedle, fuck him into compliance, since you think you're so bloody good at it, just do—"

"—make a choice like that, not now, not Fen, I can't—"

"
Can't
. You're
Temshiel
, Kamen—a
Temshiel
of Wolf in Wolf's own Cycle. Are you telling me you're not as good at getting someone to do what you want as Asai was?"

Cheap fucking shot. Malick stopped at the temple's bottom step, anger flooding his chest with hot resentment and indignation. He hated being pushed, and Imara knew all his sore spots. He was surprised she hadn't thrown Skel at him too. But Malick would be damned if he was going be pushed into pushing Fen—not by Dakimo, not by Emika, and certainly not by Imara.

Damn it, she
owed
Malick. He deserved better than this.
Fen
deserved better than this.

"He's borderline suicidal, Imara. If I push him too hard before he's ready, he might—"

"Then you'll just have to make sure he doesn't.” Implacable. So bloody ruthless Malick could have strangled her.

"Imara....” He tried entreaty this time. Because nothing else seemed to be working. “I know what I'm doing. Just leave him alone for a while. I'm taking care of this. He'll be what's expected of him, but he needs—"

"If you knew everything you think you know,” Imara cut in, gaze abruptly somber, voice softer, “you would indeed be a creature to be feared by even the gods themselves.” She tugged on Malick's arm. “Come along, Kamen, you know you have to. Wolf's not through with him. Wolf's not through with any of you."

Bloody fucking
hell
. She had to be talking about Morin, what Wolf had planned for him. Which was likely going to be harder for Fen to take than the whole Incendiary thing, and for which Fen would probably end up outright killing Malick, unless everything happened in exactly the order Malick intended. Incendiary first; Morin... sometime after that. A long time after that, probably. It all depended on Fen.

Imara was watching him carefully, though Malick was sure nothing was showing on his face. Still, she smirked and leaned into him, pressing her small breast up against him like lover. “If you make me,” she whispered, all sly and seductive, “I'll just go directly to his brother and start there. I doubt ‘your’ Incendiary will thank you for it, but it might be fun to watch."

That was it. Malick was done with this conversation. If he stayed here any longer, he really was going to kill her on the temple steps. “Fuck off, Imara,” he grated. With a growl, he shoved Imara away and stalked off in the other direction. “If I need your damned interference, I'll jostle your web. Until then, just stay the hell away from anyone named Fen. Don't make me kill you."

He didn't even look back to see if she was listening. Snarling, Malick barreled through the temple's gate and headed back to the inn.

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The absolute nothing of the suns, Jacin thought, really couldn't be worse than existing in the penury of life without meaning.
Couldn't
be. Not that he'd be finding out anytime soon. They all still watched him to make sure he didn't drown himself in the washbasin or go at his wrists with a rice paddle or something. They hadn't left him alone the whole voyage here, and he supposed he was only alone now because they thought Malick was watching him. He could tell them they needn't bother, he was just a little too cowardly for that, but they wouldn't believe him, so he didn't. Dying in battle, for a purpose, that was one thing, but... well, he'd been told living was his sacrifice, and the gods had already fucked him over, so he didn't want to chance being reborn into a life even worse than the one he had. He had just enough courage to try to start again, but not enough to do it as someone else.

Now, if he could just get someone to show him
how
to start again...

You need your beishin to see to you, Jacin-rei. You always have done.

Perhaps, but Jacin didn't say so. If he answered, Beishin would only get more insistent, so Jacin tried to ignore him. He took a drink instead.

The liquor left a pleasant tingle in the back of his throat, warm and rough, but it didn't dull like he would have wished, which rather pissed him off. Not enough to stop drinking it to spite himself, but still. He watched the ember at the tip of his smoke flare and spark a little as he dragged on it, held the breath in his lungs as he drew it away and gave it tiny little tug-jerks. Circles, but not perfect. He looked every time, though, just to check. The rings flittered and drifted in the chill whorls through the cracks in the panes as he watched them skim toward the ceiling; he let them expand and ripple outward into almost nothing before gusting the smoke out his mouth, obliterating the imperfection. Shig could blow smoke rings, pink lips puckered in a supple O-shape and a crack of her jaw. Jacin tried, but he just got vaguely circular clouds and blobs, and then he got annoyed, so he didn't try anymore. At least not in front of Shig.

They were moving on—all of them—starting again, and all Jacin could do was watch them and wonder why he couldn't seem to. It had been almost three months, and yet all it took was one careless moment of allowing remembrance, and body-memory kicked in and set him tense, adrenaline swamped him and shortened his breath, pounded through his heart, and then he was
there
, watching himself do it all over again.

Betrayal and failure and fear and more betrayal and grasping at treacherous hope and death all around him—

Your fault, little Ghost

His teeth clamped tight and he shut his eyes, forcing encroaching memory away. He held his breath and waited for his heart to stop pounding in his throat. Physical pain was one thing, he could live with that, seek it, even, those bright little sparks of controlled sensation that focused his mind and told him he was real,
they
were the ghosts.
This
, though, this... pain of the mind, of the heart, of the soul... he had no idea what to do with it. And no one seemed to want to tell him. Not even Malick.

He pushed the last of the smoke through his nostrils as he took another sip of the liquor, flicked the ash onto the saucer that had been under the teabowl, and shoved his shoulders more firmly into the mattress. The teabowl had held tea when the inn's maid had brought it. Jacin was sick of tea. There'd been a mostly full bottle of something dark and strong-smelling sitting on the washstand, so he'd dumped the tea in the basin and replaced it with... whatever this stuff was. He accepted the faint buzz as a good sign.

Your emotions make you weak and foolish, little Ghost
, Asai told him.
And the
Temshiel
knows it. Why do you suppose he's so afraid to tell you what you are? What you've always been? Great things await you, my gentle mercenary, but you have not the greatness in you to reach them. Your
Temshiel
knows it. I can help you rise above what you are. I can help you truly become Fate's hand.

Jacin just sneered and took another drink, said, “Fuck you, Beishin,” to the ceiling and set the smoke at an angle between his lips.

You were so much more to me than that
, Beishin offered. His voice sounded sad, but Jacin remembered that tone very clearly, and he knew the eyes that went with it were watchful and calculating, looking for weakness, even if he couldn't see them.
I would have given you everything. Your sister did not have to die, Jacin-rei. That was not my doing, but yours. You have refused to be what you are, you refuse it still, you refuse perfection. Can you not see the failure you have allowed yourself to become?

He shouldn't have answered, shouldn't have acknowledged, he'd opened the floodgate and now he had to deal with the deluge. “No, I see.” Jacin shoved the smoke out through his teeth and shut his eyes. “I didn't kill you quick enough."

Beishin laughed, a warm, kind thing that
still
, even after everything, curled a sick knot in Jacin's gut that spiked his chest with regret. He clenched his teeth so hard he bit off the end of the smoke. With a curse, he took it from his mouth and spat the loose paper and leaf into the saucer. He stubbed the smoke out, hauled himself up, and lit another.

Perhaps, little Ghost
, Beishin put in,
you should ask your
Temshiel
what you are
. A soft chuckle, mockery slinking about its edges.
See if he will tell you. Then you can know what you really are to the gods. What you are to treacherous Wolf. What you are to his own.
Beishin
tsked
. Jacin could almost see the disappointment in dark eyes, the slow, sorrowful shake of the head.
He doesn't love you. Why do you go on lying to yourself, Jacin-rei? Why do you go on letting
them
lie to you?

Jacin tightened his jaw and shut his eyes again. “Because I can't care enough not to."

And he didn't
want
to know, damn it. Why couldn't Beishin see that, if he thought he saw so much? And why couldn't he just shut the fuck up about it?

You can't care enough about anything. It's why all of your trying amounts to nothing more than a lake of blood on the dirty cobbles of an alley behind a whorehouse.

Which was true, except that it wasn't really, and it made sense, except that it didn't, but Jacin was more or less used to that.

You need your beishin to show you what you want, little Ghost. Only I can love the unlovable. Your
Temshiel
pretends at it, all the while hiding from you what you are, keeping perfection from your grasp, because it suits his god, because he wishes to keep for himself what—

"Why do you listen to them, Jacin?"

Jacin didn't jump. He was used to Caidi showing up abruptly. He even guiltily hoped for it sometimes. Caidi always chased Beishin away when she came.

"They're not real, you know."

Her voice was quiet, kind. Jacin kept waiting for it to turn accusing, but it hadn't yet.

"Neither are you,” he told her.

"How d'you know I'm not?"

Jacin flicked ash into the saucer, thought about trying a few more smoke rings, but what was the point? He lifted the bowl in an ironic toast to Caidi, sitting primly on the windowsill, just staring at him, sunlight sparking through the panes and glinting off her hair. Jacin looked away and took a drink. Sometimes he liked to sit and stare at her for hours, and sometimes he didn't want to look at all.

"Because if you were real,” he answered evenly, “you'd know how you died. And you wouldn't be here."

"I know how I died."

Jacin sighed and emptied the bowl, waiting until the burn at the back of his throat ebbed into pleasant warmth and the fire in his gullet tamped to a steady tingle. “You'd know why."

"I know that too."

"Yeah?” Jacin couldn't think of anything else he wanted to say, so he didn't say anything. He could tell her everything—how it all evolved, how he'd failed her so spectacularly, how his need and his sick, impotent maybe-love-maybe-hate had made him too slow and uncertain. How she'd died because he hadn't been able to make himself believe how thoroughly he'd been betrayed until he'd watched her silent descent from the sky. But then she might go away, or start agreeing with Beishin, and Jacin didn't think he could take that.

He set the empty bowl on the mattress beside him and stared at his fingers, running his thumb over the tips. They were losing their calluses, going soft, and somehow, it terrified him, except he didn't know why, so he stopped looking. He set his hand to his torso instead, settled his fingers over the scar from Malick's sword, and gave it a light swipe through his shirt. An almost complete absence of sensation. Scars he knew. Scars were old friends. Stripes of desensitized remembrance that blanked out feeling.