Wolf's-own: Weregild (56 page)

"Is he dead?” Morin asked, his voice over-loud to be heard over the probable ringing in his own ears, but the tone was dull, detached. Like a boy who'd known all along he was meant to lose something, and was determined to accept it like a man when he finally did. Poor lad; just when he'd allowed his surly veneer to retreat behind the true one—

Another little aftershock fluttered beneath their feet, and more fountains of fire belched up from Subie's ruins. Shig fetched up beside Samin, looking unhurt but strangely confused, her expression flat and unreadable. Samin wondered if Morin knew he was clinging to Samin's arm hard enough to leave marks, but nothing in the world would move him to ask it out loud.

"He is not dead,” Husao answered, when neither Joori nor Malick turned to do it.

"Soon,” Fen said in a hoarse whisper, eyes half-shut and dull, blue-lidded and dark-rung. He gusted a snort that loosed a tiny spray of blood from his mouth, then smiled, all bleary and wistful. “Caidi said...."

Samin didn't find out what Caidi said, because Fen closed his eyes and passed out.

"Tatsu,” Malick growled, “don't fucking argue with me, I want—"

"I cannot touch the Untouchable,” the man Malick had called Tatsu cut in, blithely ignoring Malick's command not to argue.

Malick held out his bloody hand toward Tatsu, his eyes blazing, the muscles in his jaw ticcing and twitching. “Then give me—"

"
No
,” Tatsu snapped, and took a step back, out of Malick's immediate reach. “You know what you ask, Kamen, and you know what it would mean to a
Temshiel
not of Wolf. Threaten all you like, but I will not—"

"You will,” Shig interjected softly. “You can.” She laughed a little, though it was sad, maybe a little lost, and she leaned in closer to Samin, like she was afraid she might fall down. Samin looped his arm around her waist. “They're gone,” Shig told Malick, shaking her colorful head like even she didn't understand what she was saying. “It's all... it's gone quiet."

Malick stared at her, piercing at first, and then his gaze twisted with sympathy Samin wasn't quite sure he understood. “It worked, then.” Malick wheezed a small, dazed laugh, then slowly shifted his glance back over to Joori, who was just staring down at his brother, crying softly. “It worked,” Malick repeated. With a sigh, he leaned over, picked up one of Fen's knives from the ground beside him—one of the ones he'd bought the day he and Samin had gone to the Stallion—then caught Joori's eye. Made sure Joori watched as Malick took Fen's braid in his hand, slid his fingers along it, deliberate and tender, then gripped it in his fist and sliced it off just above Fen's shoulder. A collective gasp went up from all around, but Malick ignored it, gave Joori a grim smile, then turned back once again to Tatsu. “The Ancestors have gone home,” he said evenly. “He's not Untouchable anymore.” His eyes hardened, his mouth went tight, and he jerked his head down toward Fen. “Now
fix
him!"

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"You have to wake up now,” Caidi whispered, warm, sweet breath in his ear, but he was falling and it felt like flying, it was silent and it felt like rapture, not a sound, not even
thwip-thwip-thwip.

Jacin didn't want to wake up, so he didn't.

The sirens cranked, the wail reaching even as far outside the city as Lord Yakuli's estate. It took several hours for the Kiwa Shuua to hit, the lethal waves that crawled as high as the sky and rolled over the coast with deadly force. And if it wreaked even more havoc on a city already in near-chaos, at least it went a little way toward putting out some of the fires that had sprung up from falling ash.

The little grover's hut on the coast was pounded into driftwood and swept away as though it had never been.

The waves extended their destructive reach through Ada's Iron District, stretched their tendrils all through the Industrial Quarter and inched in toward the Judicial District, edging up the bottom steps of the Statehouse itself before they finally receded, taking ships anchored in the harbor out to sea with them. It would be weeks before a final count could be tallied in the wake of Subie's decisive fit of supreme wrath. Days of night before the ash and smoke cleared enough to allow the suns to burn through.

Retribution from the gods
—the assumption ran rampant. Mortals tended toward Divine explanations when there wasn't another. In this case, they weren't entirely wrong, though the distinction would remain indistinct to most for a while yet.

Judges Canti and Girosui were well aware of that distinction. They had arrived at Yakuli's gates with a sizable company of the Doujou in time for the first tremors and witnessed the anarchy and resultant destruction. They followed in the aftermath with grave faces as the
Temshiel
Husao guided them through the surviving barracks and explained to them what they'd already suspected but could never prove. Neither of the men was able to keep their composure entirely. Girosui's cheeks were pale and wet when he emerged from the last barracks and called an order for the search for and arrest of Yakuli and his men, though all but those who'd been killed or injured too gravely to escape had already scattered.

"I have promised the Untouchable that Yakuli would twitch at the end of his blade,” the
Temshiel
told the judges, and though neither man could vouchsafe the promise, they both left pondering the possible advantages to an Untouchable testifying before the Courts, exposing the corruption of their fellows in public testimony. Justice's blade, so to speak. If the Untouchable survived, and if he remained as sane as the
Temshiel
claimed him....

The judges left Yakuli's estate already in deep discussion, planning their approach and debating details, with no doubt between them that what they did next would change worlds. The
Temshiel
Sora and the maijin Xari accompanied them. It would not do for the last two uncorrupted Court officials to fall to the treachery of the corrupt, just as the wheels of true justice began to turn. The fruition of the years-long conspiracy of Canti and Girosui to break the back of the Court was within their reach, and they were determined to see Ada once more a state in which they could take pride. With no magic to fear, the Adan could no longer justify the imprisonment of the Jin, and once the Court was exposed for the den of snakes Canti and Girosui had known it to be for too many years, perhaps they could begin the process of restoring honor and morality to Ada.

The end, they decided as they mobilized the Doujou and began the search for Yakuli, should begin in the Courts, from which the dishonor had taken seed and its rotted, twisted roots had spread.

The end should begin with the Untouchable.

"It's time to open your eyes now, Jacin."

Caidi's voice was soft, cajoling. Almost wheedling. It made him smile.

He smelled cherry blossoms, felt them on his skin, feather-light on his closed eyelids.

"C'mon, Jacin,
pleeeeeeeease
?"

If she'd been anyone else, it would have been annoying, the whiny tone grating. But she was Caidi, so it was neither.

Jacin flickered open his eyes, blinked again as the layer of cherry blossom petals scattered and flittered off his lashes. He was blanketed in them, thick as a fresh fall of snow, warm and soft. He breathed in, sucking their light scent down deep into his lungs.

"Transience,” Caidi told him, and she giggled.

Jacin turned to her, gave her a smile. “Death,” he corrected.

Hazel eyes sparked mischief. “You're so morbid."

She shook her head, long, gold curls whorling around her open, smiling face as she leaned over him, almost nose to nose. She dropped a light kiss to his brow, and a swarm of moths flurried from the sea of petals, rising up through the branches of the cherry trees. Jacin watched them, squinting against the soft sunlight quivering through leaf and blossom, until he lost them in the patches of sky he could see through the thick puffs of the treetops and falling petals.

He hadn't heard a single, frantic beat of wings.

"It's so quiet here,” he breathed.

The fluted peal of Caidi's laughter was like bells. She sat back, hair and cloak dusted with petals. “It has nothing to do with ‘here',” she told him. “Wolf called the Ancestors home, and Joori and Malick set them free. You don't have to listen to them anymore.” She stroked his cheek, her small fingers just as soft as the petals against his skin. “You did well, Jacin. Wolf is pleased. You've earned his favor. Even salvation will be in your grasp, if you choose to reach for it.” Her hand pulled away, and she sat back, her smile sympathetic. “But not yet. You can't stay here."

"No?” There was no alarm; only curiosity. “Where, then?"

Caidi pursed her bow lips. “You have to go back,” she told him gently.

Now
there was alarm. Jacin sat up, petals scattering everywhere. “But you said—"

"The Ghost will not survive the night.” She shrugged guiltily, even blushed a little. “The Ghost is gone. Jacin-rei is gone. There is only Fen Jacin now."

It wasn't silent anymore. His head was pounding with the thumping drumbeat of his own heart.

"I don't want it,” was all he could wheeze out on a thin thread of breath.

Caidi's eyes were glistening now, her smile trembling. She launched herself at him, wrapping her small arms around his neck. Jacin shut his eyes tight, breathed her in. “You can't stay,” she whispered. “You have to open your eyes now."

Jacin only shook his head and held Caidi in a grip that was likely strangling the breath out of her, but he couldn't help it. “I can't—"

"
Yes
,” she told him, her tone gentle but firm. “You can. When have you ever failed at anything?” Brutal for its sweetness. She turned her face into his neck, whispered, “No laws, Jacin. The one whose face hovers over yours when you wake from your death-sleep—that will be the one."

"I don't want—"

"We're all made for sacrifice.” She kissed him, then pulled back. Jacin resisted, clung, but she wrested away just enough that she could lay her brow to his. “Since when have any of us had a choice?” Her hand gripped his shoulder, shook, and her voice deepened, a harsh note of command. “You have to wake up now."

"
No
.” Weak protest, but it did no good. Already, the light was thickening, going smoky, and it was getting harder and harder to catch the sweetness of the cherry blossoms.

Caidi pulled away entirely, tears on her full cheeks, and she leaned in, kissed away Jacin's. When she drew back from him again, Jacin could see the shapes of the trees through her, and his throat clenched, his chest hurt.

"I'm tired,” he said, not even ashamed that his tone was edged in desperation. “I can't... I want....” It lost itself before he finished, because when had it ever mattered what he wanted? He tightened his jaw to make it stop quivering. “Where is Mother?"

Because Mother had always loved him, even though she wasn't supposed to, had touched her Untouchable son, dried his tears, because he was Wolf's but he was her own, and she'd held to him even through her husband's condemnation, her own madness. Mother would let him stay. He'd weep and let her wipe away his shame, and she'd let him stay.

"Mother isn't here,” Caidi told him gently. “She awaits the fire."

She was fading, and it made the tears come harder, the anger rise. “So do you!” he rasped.

"But I have to go now too,” she answered. “You only needed me for a little while. You don't need me anymore."

"Yes, I do!” he cried, tried to snatch at her, but it was like trying to catch water. “Caidi, please—"

"The Ghost is gone. Back to Zero. You have to start again, Jacin."

He didn't want to start again. He wanted an
end
.

"I'm so tired, Caidi.” Weeping. Sniveling like a child. He didn't know what to say, how to make her stay, how to make her let
him
stay, except, “
Please
. Don't go."

But Caidi only smiled at him, that bright Caidi-grin as she faded to almost nothing, shook him again and snapped, “Damn it, Fen,
wake
the fuck
up
!"

Jacin's eyes flew open, squinting against sunlight that wasn't there, lashes thick and clumped with tears. Pain stitched itself to the corners of his awareness, but it wasn't sharp and focused like a knifepoint; more dull and dissipated, a low ache that throbbed beneath his skin, wound itself into muscle and sinew, just enough to let him know it was there. The ceiling was familiar, but not quite, rough beams and whorls of plaster that he almost recognized, but wouldn't, because he didn't want to. He breathed in, trying to catch the scent of cherry blossoms, but all he smelled was sage and pine soap and light, musky sex.

His vision was smudgy, at best, but still, almost reluctantly, he blinked at the blur, focused on smoky-brown hair and a handsome face hovering just above him, tea-colored eyes watching, narrowed in worry. “About fucking time,” Malick breathed. He gave Jacin a grin that held not even the slightest hint of snark or a gleam of disingenuous pretense. Relieved.
Glad
.

That will be the one
, Caidi's voice whispered.

No. It was supposed to be Joori, maybe Morin, or... anyone else.

Instead it was Malick. It was
always
Malick—dragging him back, making him stay, telling him he was things he knew he wasn't, almost making him believe them, when he
knew
it would only rip him up later.

"Oh,” Jacin breathed, shut his eyes and tried not to start bawling again, “it's you."

The days passed in clear spots between long periods of fugue. There was no great ball of emotion in the middle of his chest threatening to shatter. There was silence, deafening, and there were his brothers, hovering close, almost clinging, and there was a pyre that was almost too big for the Shrine's altar, but it was somehow fitting that they all burned together.

It had been Morin who had found their mother, and it had been Morin who had ended her torture, though Jacin thought the torture had only just begun for Morin. Jacin took their word for it that the tight-wound mass of linen held his mother's body, and that Joori had painted the prayers on her brow and Caidi's before they'd been lovingly and securely wrapped for the fire. He didn't demand that they be unwrapped so he could see them one last time, so that he could see for himself that the prayers were flawless with no errors to prevent their acceptance and eventual rebirth. He didn't want to have to see his mother the way Morin and Joori had seen her, didn't want to see her naked scalp, shorn of the golden cascade she'd bequeathed to her daughter, and would now be just as gone as hers was. He didn't want to have to see the ragged smile-that-wasn't-a-smile torn into her smooth throat.