Wolf's-own: Weregild (46 page)

"I brought this for you.” Shig's voice was very soft this time—no scorn, no disdain Joori could detect.

Joori turned again to see Shig holding out a broken arrow, its fletching snow-white, straight and intact. Strange, because he knew damned well where it had come from. He'd watched Shig carefully maneuver the quiver from Yori's body as he'd just as carefully maneuvered the cloak from Caidi's.

Not absolution, this gesture, and Joori supposed he was a little relieved that he knew it. He didn't think he could stand it, and it wasn't really hers to give.

And only now did he note that Shig had her sister's bow slung over her own back.

"It was Umeia's garden,” Shig said, swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “On the roof,” she clarified. “Yori... there were pots knocked over, and....” A pause, and she shook her head, then looked down at the arrow in her hand. “Malick always teased Umeia about it. Her garden. Said it was a good thing she never had children because she'd forget them every autumn, and they'd blow away in the wintertime. Yori tripped... she
never
trips, she's always so... so
graceful
, but the pots, they must've... she was trying to—"

"Stop,” Joori said, and it was too thick, too hoarse, so he cleared his throat. He paced over to Shig slowly, gently took the arrow from her hand. Shig just let it go, but her hand curled into a tight fist as it fell back to her side. Joori wanted more than anything to reach out, lay a hand to her shoulder, but he didn't have that right. He didn't know what to say, everything he said anymore turned out terribly wrong, and he thought Shig might actually kill him if he said he was sorry, even though she, more than anyone else, would know how much he meant it. “I could've loved her,” came out his mouth before he even realized he was going to speak at all, but he couldn't regret having said it, even if Shig didn't want to hear it from him. “I think I did love her. If I could turn it back, trade, I'd do it in a second. For both of them. For all of them. But all I can do is try and be someone she would have loved back."

And that was it, all he had to say, and it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough. He clenched the slender arrow in his hand, his fingers lightly skimming the jagged ends where it had broken in the middle, tracing the feathery splines of the fletching, careful not to spoil their pristine set.

"It's not meant as a weapon,” Shig murmured, reached out and set the tip of her finger to the arrow's fractured shaft, pressing until the splinters broke the skin. Her gaze lifted slowly, locked onto Joori's. “It's meant as remembrance. It's meant as... a talisman.” Somber, she lifted her hand to her mouth and licked the blood from her finger. “C'mon,” she said, and turned to leave. “Everyone's ready. It's time to move out. Malick doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Joori couldn't help the dour snort. “I'll bet,” he said as he turned back to the bed to retrieve his tunic and jacket. He laid the arrow on the coverlet more carefully than he needed to while he dressed again. Checking himself over, feeling like a bit of a pretender with all the weapons strapped over him—like he was trying to be Jacin, and maybe in a way he was—he slid the arrow into his belt along with the knives; the axe hung solidly against his hip, but somehow, the arrow that weighed next to nothing felt heavier.

"He wants to save your brother."

Joori shut his eyes, bowed his head, and sucked in a long breath before he could make himself turn back to Shig. “He wanted to save Caidi too,” he said quietly. No recrimination, no blame, because it wasn't Malick's fault. But it was still the truth, and even if Malick loved Jacin more than himself, more than anyone or anything, it still wasn't a guarantee. Every one of them could lose everything they had today. And for all his apparent magic, Malick couldn't just wave his hands and make it so they wouldn't.

"I'm not trying to reassure you,” Shig said, her tone less cautious, more stern. “I'm trying to tell you how it is, how it's going to be. He doesn't only want to save Fen's life—he wants to save his mind. He wants to save
Jacin
.” She paused when Joori flinched, then opened her hand, as if in apology. “To save Jacin, he needs to save you, he needs to save Morin, he needs to save your mother's soul. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Joori wished he could say “yes” because it seemed so important to her. But he couldn't. “No,” he said, thick with regret.

Shig didn't seem like it upset her. Her mouth curved up gently, almost a smile but not quite. “He won't be looking out for himself. He's immortal, but he's not invulnerable. And he risks far more than any of us.” Her head tilted to the side. “Your brother thinks he could take it if Malick gave up his soul for him. What do you think about that?"

It almost made Joori groan. Jacin could barely take having damned Asai's soul, and Asai had done more damage to Jacin's sanity than the Ancestors. And Malick had told Jacin that he loved him, was launching an assault where he wasn't supposed to go for him.

No, Jacin wouldn't be able to take it. Even if he walked away from Yakuli's with Joori on one side and Morin on the other, their mother between them, sacrificing Malick's soul would haunt him, just like the ghost he'd conjured of Asai was doing now.

Bloody hell.
Now
Joori understood what Shig was trying to tell him.

"You want
me
to watch Malick's back?” Because, really—why not just cut Malick's heart out now and have done with it?

"Whatever else you are or are not, you're a key, set in Malick's hand. Keep close. Fen can look after himself."

"No,” Joori said, too breathy with the sudden new tightness in his chest. “No, he really can't."

Shig snorted this time, a real snort with real amusement inside it. She patted his cheek. “When he's got a knife in his hand? Yeah, he really can.” She jerked her head over her shoulder, waved at the door. “Let's go. They're waiting."

Abomination. Nothing.

Perhaps, Father. Then again, you couldn't save anyone, either. So, what does that make you?

He lost time as he drove. He didn't know if the horse simply followed the road or if he'd actually steered it while his mind buzzed and fuzzed in some gray limbo that wasn't real thought but not really
not
-thought, either. He ignored the malicious whisperings of his own personal ghosts, but found himself strangely relaxed when Caidi rode beside him, silent and smiling on the box, small fingers making designs in the raindrops puddling on the puckered leather of the box's seat. He thought maybe he wept, because the water on his face felt hot, but he was smiling, too, so he didn't think about it too much.

"We're here, Jacin-rei.” It sounded strange, that name in her small, high voice, but her hazel eyes were kind, full of love, for
him
, so that made it all right. He'd already lost her, so loving her couldn't hurt any more than it already did.

Jacin turned his glance outward, noting the walls that rose up through the surrounding pines, the towers set to either side of the tall, sturdy gates. Torches were set at strategic intervals—enough to give the guards light by which to see, but not enough for a potential enemy to get a line on them in the dark. Jacin could hear the faint spitting of the rain hitting the flames, see the vague shadows of the men walking sentry, carefully avoiding the flickering pools of light the torches threw outward. One of the men had paused, stock-still and alert. Jacin could almost feel the hard gaze squinting in the dark, watching him.

More shadows wound all around, too insubstantial to be mortal, and too animate to be actual shadows. Maijin, perhaps? More of Asai's cronies come to stop him? Or just more of Yakuli's stolen magic, forewarned by Asai's mother? It didn't matter—none of them moved toward him, none of them seemed to be advancing, trying to block his way, so he ignored them. They were watching, surely, but not yet challenging.

The rain had turned into cherry blossom petals, fluttering down to cover his lap, coat his skin. A thick layer weighted Caidi's gold curls like a veil, and she stuck her hand out to catch some, like one would catch snowflakes.

"What do they mean, Jacin?” she asked him, and her eyes weren't wide-open and ingenuous, but knowing and expectant.

Jacin peeled off his glove and stuck his hand out, as well. The slight flash of Malick's ring in the dark distracted him a little before he turned his hand palm-up, watched the petals fall into it like hundreds of silent, sweet-smelling auguries. A warrior dead in battle, each one of them, and he was holding their spirits in his hand. Perhaps Joori would one day hold Jacin's spirit just so, make a wish on an errant petal, and blow it into the wind. Release his haunted soul from its hopeless sentry of earthly planes.

Was Jacin a warrior? He'd like to think so.

"Death."

Caidi giggled, high-pitched and so engaging he had to close his eyes and catch his breath. “Transience,” she corrected sweetly.

Jacin opened his eyes, blinking away the petals that had stuck to his lashes. The smallest of smiles crooked at the corner of his mouth. “D'you even know what that word means?"

Caidi's smile didn't go away, but it changed, slid into something too old for her heart-shaped little face. “The Ghost won't survive the night,” she said, reached out her small hand and laid it over the petals in Jacin's palm, as if to comfort him, but Jacin didn't need comforting—it would be a relief. “Perhaps we'll go to Wolf together with Mother. Perhaps we'll say goodbye over the flames of the pyre until the next time we meet.” She squeezed his hand, laid a kiss to his cheek, and he was surprised by how warm it was. He'd always thought death turned one cold, but
he
was the cold one, and it seemed somehow right. “It all depends on who rises from Fen Jacin-rei's ashes,” Caidi said into his ear, her breath hot against his cheek. “What do you fight for, lordless paladin? How many souls would you damn to have your vengeance?"

Jacin smiled a little and turned his face so he could bury his nose in gold curls and their mantle of cherry blossom petals. “All of them,” he said, his voice a whisper inside the soft patter of the rain. “For you, for her—damn them all."

She giggled again, rubbed her warm nose into the crook of his neck, and said, “Sure, Fen,” just like Shig. “Back to Zero, love,” she told him in their mother's voice. “A paladin can be his own lord, you know.” And then she was gone, his cheek cold, and his hand empty. Not even a single cherry blossom clung to his fingers, but he could smell them, sweet and fresh against the rain.

"The Ghost won't survive the night,” he breathed as he ran his thumb over the tips of his fingers, Caidi's touch still tingling through the petals that weren't there.

He thought of Joori, his love and his anger, and Jacin regretted that he hadn't even thought to take his brother in a last embrace before he'd left the Girou. He thought of Morin, his quiet contempt that wasn't really contemptuous, a remnant of their father that Morin had somehow managed to rise above in ways Jacin couldn't even fathom, had managed to love around it where their father had been afraid to try.

He thought of Malick, who was indeed well-intentioned and merciless, and more than dangerous, in ways Jacin never would have thought to consider before. Who professed to love a Ghost, and who'd handed him silence in exchange for justice. Who bargained away his own soul in exchange for Jacin's vengeance.

His hand curled into a fist, and he shook his wet hair out of his eyes, then sucked in a long breath. With a shift of his shoulders, he tightened his jaw and levered himself to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a dim flash of gold in the dark and turned to smile once again at Caidi—

A gasp of dismay choked him, and he fell back clumsily onto the cushioned seat of the carriage.

"Um,” said Morin softly as he dipped his head and peered up cautiously from beneath lank fringe, the toe of his shoe making idle patterns in the mud. “Hello, Jacin-rei.” He shrugged, looked away with a self-conscious shrug. “Who are you talking to?"

"Who's there?” came from the gate, harsh and challenging. “Approach and be seen."

Jacin turned to peer in the direction of the voice, noted the wide shape of a man striding swiftly toward them, noted the shadows pooling lazily between Jacin himself and the gate... and then he turned back to stare blankly at his brother. Ridiculous with a broadsword almost as long as his leg sheathed at his hip, one of Jacin's own knives clutched in his hand, and a hard set to his hazel eyes that made Jacin's stomach bottom out and go cold. Too small in the dark, too vulnerable, too... mortal.

"Who's
there
?” the guard barked again, more hostile this time, and he just kept coming toward them.

Jacin watched him come, looked back at Morin. Watched the shadows swarm into firmer substance, but they still didn't take form.

"I....” was all Jacin got out, because what the hell was he supposed to say?
I've come to kill your lord
? They weren't supposed to touch the Untouchable, weren't supposed to stop him, but these were Yakuli's men, and if they knew what their lord was doing—and really, how could they not?—it wasn't as though they actually obeyed the laws in the first place.

Jacin let whatever he'd meant to say trail off, just watched as another guard broke off from the rest and ventured forward, something Jacin thought looked like a cudgel in the dark held out from his body; it turned out to be a torch, and the man lit it, making the horse puff a nervous protest. It took a second for Jacin's eyes to adjust, then another second for the guard to take in the braid and step back instinctively. His look was measuring, thoughtful, then he craned his neck a little, looked behind Jacin... fixed his gaze on Morin.

"Oh,” Jacin breathed. He peered back at Morin, who was dragging the long sword from its sheath in a clumsy stop-and-start ‘til he finally cleared it from the stiff leather. “
Shit
."

Malick had been unable to keep the smile from his face since before he'd left the Girou. He stood now with his little “army” on the small rise above the drainage culvert across the road from Yakuli's gates, veiled securely and watching. Maijin and
Temshiel
both had gathered, a picket between Fen and Yakuli—perhaps called by the gods, but Malick rather thought not. It wouldn't matter, in the end. None of them could touch Fen, and the guards who could would be no match for him, even injured as he was. Fen on a mission was a force all his own.