A Time of Dying (Araneae Nation) (17 page)

Proof was in short supply. Answers were too. I wondered if Vaughn would lie to his clan for their peace of mind, or if he expected them each to bear the same burden of knowledge as he did.

Would he believe me? No. Murdoch and Lleu? I wasn’t sure. They had standing. They were respected. When they spoke of what they had seen, I wanted to believe Vaughn would hear them.

I hoped the spark of doubt making him entrust Murdoch with discovering where their lost clansmen had gone stoked a fire that consumed Vaughn with the same desperation gripping me.

“Here we are.” Lleu ushered me through an arched door taller than him by half.

As we walked, the floor gave way to carved seating set below floor level. Ahead of us, three blocky chairs awaited their attendants. For a few moments, we were alone. I used them to gather my wits. When three elderly males filed in from a doorway opposite the one Lleu and I entered, I got my first look at the keen minds advising Paladin Vaughn, and the sight of one made me grim.

Pearce, I think his name was. My scalp prickled in remembrance of his rough handling. My nose wrinkled. I imagined I could smell his breath from here. His smile was too fond and merry.

After the three were seated, Vaughn arrived with Mana at his side. They parted ways on the elders’ dais and went to claim seats inset into the walls, one to either side of the elders’ seating. I barely recognized Mana, so dark were the circles under her eyes. Vaughn appeared bleak as well.

On their heels came Murdoch. Isolde strode beside him with a wrapped parcel under an arm.

They joined Lleu and me, and every eye in the house focused on the four of us.

“Murdoch.” Vaughn’s voice carried. “The floor is yours.”

He nodded to Vaughn. The elders shifted in their seats, tired and bored before he began.

“Some weeks ago Paladin Vaughn set two tasks before me. I believe tonight both have been completed. I was to discover the whereabouts of the females gone missing from the garden, and I was to track down the males who vanished from their posts.” He glanced at me. “This I know. The plague is not the simple illness we once believed it was, nor is it the manipulation of such an illness by an ambitious clan seeking to improve its lot. Or if it is, they’re unlike any I’ve known.”

“If it’s not a sickness and not a ploy, then what is it?” a beak-nosed elder asked.

“Owain’s got a point.” The male who made my lip curl added, “You’re making no sense.”

“Pearce is right.” The third said to Vaughn, “You woke us for this prattling nonsense?”

“Perhaps you would care to clarify?” Vaughn suggested.

“Clarify this.” Isolde stepped boldly forth and ripped the cover from her treasure.

The elders squinted in confused disbelief. Neither Vaughn nor Mana appeared perplexed.

“Did you borrow that from Beltania?” he asked his mother.

She fanned the wing for full effect. “Not unless Beltania was transplanted into our garden.”

Mana stared hard at the wing. The turn of her thoughts was easy to surmise.

“It’s not the same,” she assured her husband. “The wing found in Beltania had more black at its edges.” She studied it for a moment longer. “I think, if memory serves, the two are opposites.”

“There’s another?” Pearce startled.

She nodded. “At least one more we know of.”

“Why were we not made aware of this?” Owain snarled.

“My aunt, Maven Sikyakookyang, has sent her husband, Paladin Chinedu, to visit with most of the southland clans. He brings with him the wing and word of the plague as we know it. If we had not stopped in Beltania first, we would not have known the plague had come to Cathis. That is the reason my uncle has not paid the Mimetidae a visit. That and the fact he consulted with the Lady Isolde when she journeyed home from Erania and spent the night at my former clan home. I trust you do understand the futility of sending a healthy paladin into a city besieged by plague.”

Admiration swelled my chest. Here I thought Mana at a disadvantage among this mercenary clan, but she had shown us in her subtle phrasing that the new Mimetidae maven did have teeth.

“You knew of this?” the third elder accused Isolde. “You were maven—”

“And I am maven no longer.” Her eyes took a wicked gleam. “This very council saw to that. Now my secrets are my own to share as I like—or not. In this matter, I chose
not
.”

Bold as ever, Isolde met her detractors head-on. I wondered if I was the only one to see the pain beneath her boasting. Whatever she had done to cause this council to remove her from power, it ate at her still.

“Is what your mother says true?” He put the same question to Vaughn.

“It is, Hywel. I knew. I doubt there’s a southland paladin or maven who doesn’t know.” The paladin rose. “The concerns of other clans were brushed aside in my haste to save my own. I did know of the wing found in Beltania. I saw it myself. With the Araneidae funding an investigation into the plague and its causes, I saw little need for us to become involved. Once the plague came here, it was a matter of survival. Our dead still lie in the field. Our mourning period has scarcely yet begun. So no, I did not see fit to invest our resources in chasing leads the Araneidae can more effectively pursue, nor did I see any benefit in burdening our already pained clan with the news.”

“You made many assumptions,” Hywel scolded.

“As paladin, that is my duty, to gather facts and then decide what is in the best interest of my clan.” He strolled until he stood before the elders. “If you’re implying I have failed this clan…”

“Take no offense where none was meant,” Pearce cautioned. “Enough casting blame. I want to know what dragged me from a warm bed and away from an even warmer female. If Vaughn and Isolde both knew about the wing, then it’s old news. So, tell us. What’s new? What’s happened?”

Vaughn leaned his hip against the arm of Pearce’s chair and folded his arms over his chest. “You heard him, Murdoch.” Vaughn stared at each of us in turn. “What happened tonight?”

Murdoch stepped forward, separating himself from the rest of us. “I took Kaidi to the field.”

“Without my permission,” Vaughn noted. “Why did she ask to go this time?”

“She heard an odd sound and wanted to investigate.”

“That seemed a wise course of action to you?” Vaughn’s lips tightened.

Jaw flexing, Murdoch nodded. “It did at the time.”

“Let me see if I understand.” Vaughn stared at me. “A female—who is betrothed to a fellow paladin—lures you into the night on the pretense of investigating an ‘odd sound’ you’ve made no mention of hearing yourself, and you never once considered how that might look to the gossips?”

Murdoch’s neck flushed red. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You’re fortunate Lleu decided to join you, or it would have appeared to be exactly that.” He lowered his voice. “Kaidi has made no secret there is no love lost between her paladin and her. It is also no secret that females wed to males whom they do not love will often seek love in others.” That he directed at Isolde. “It does not excuse their actions, and I won’t condone such behavior.”

Turning his back on us, he faced the elders and inclined his head as if in dismissal.

No, no, no.
My fingernails bit into my palms.

I inhaled once then stepped to Murdoch’s side. “He found your missing clansmen.”

My declaration was met with a tensing of Vaughn’s shoulders as if I had hurled an object of great weight into him. Perhaps I had. I knew myself the burden of guilt experienced after a loved one passed. It ground down on your soul until sorrow mired you in a rut of their death’s making.

“Murdoch, stay where you are,” he said, voice hard as steel. “Everyone else, get out.”

A slow shake of Lleu’s head warned me to keep my mouth shut. I did, for Murdoch’s sake.

Shamed to my bones, I did as Vaughn commanded. I left Murdoch to face his paladin.

Alone in Murdoch’s room, I paced as he often did. Hands clasped at the small of my back, I walked until my calves burned from the exercise. Lleu had left with Bram, who arrived after our interrogation began and chose to remain at our backs, unnoticed except by the paladin and elders.

Outside the door an unfamiliar guard stood watch. I was grateful. Lleu’s reputation had been dealt a blow, as had Murdoch’s. For the rest of my time here, I would speak to no one. When the tailor came, I would nod and let him dress me fit for a maven. Afterward, I would climb in a bed smelling of Murdoch and try opening my eyes to what his peers saw. Was his affection, which I found subtle, so obvious to everyone else? Murdoch said once he read me well. I began to think the others did too. I frothed at the mouth when speaking of Hishima. Did I walk too near or stare too long at Murdoch? It was idle fascination. It must be. He was so different from males I knew.

When at last my legs gave out, I slumped in Murdoch’s chair and leaned over his desk. With my chin in my palm, I shut my eyes and fought the sleep that would bring me closer to Hishima.

A
tap, tap, tapping
set my teeth on edge. I glared at the door through blurred vision, ready to snap at the guard to hold his foot still, when I heard the annoying sound coming from behind me.

Hand in my pocket, clutching Bram’s knife, I approached the tapestry covering the window.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Fisting the material, I ripped it aside and swallowed a scream. “Are you out of your mind?”

Dangling from a rope outside the window, knuckles poised over the shutters, hung Murdoch.

“Possibly,” he admitted, gripping the ledge and crawling through the window into the room.

I slapped his shoulder. “Why not use the door?”

He caught my wrist. “Did you fail to notice the guard standing there?”

“He’s one of yours. He would have admitted you. That—out there—was madness.”

“Careful how you bandy that word about.” His boots hit stone. “I stole the idea from you.”

My hairline stung with the force of my embarrassment. “I had no choice.”

“Nor did I.” He leaned against the wall, still holding on to me.

“You’re their captain.” I tugged against him. “If you told them to move, they would move.”

His hand slid down to lace with mine. “The paladin has forbidden me to see you.”

“Yet here you are.” I held very still.

“Yet here I am.” He reached for me, brought me closer. “You drive me insane, Kaidi.”

I braced a hand on his chest. “I’m not sure if you mean that as a compliment or not.”

“Neither am I.” He smiled.

Tightness in my chest made breathing difficult. I told myself it was fear for Murdoch’s rope trick that made my heart drum so fiercely.

“What did you discuss after I left?” It was a much safer topic.

“The finding of our clansmen,” he said dryly.

“Well?” I popped him on his arm. “What did the paladin say?”

“He made me swear to keep what we saw quiet. No doubt Lleu will get such a visit as well. The paladin dismissed the council with his apologies, but they saw the wing and they will talk. It does him no good to forbid information in a time when people are starved for hope and answers.”

Daring to rest my head on his shoulder, I agreed. “Open secrets can’t be closed.”

“If Hishima agrees to an alliance, our clan’s trained warriors will be depleted for a time. It’s a risk the paladin is willing to take because our reputation serves us as well as blades ever have.”

“Let me guess. It’s more important to secure his allies than to secure his own people.”

“He believes the plague has done its damage and gone. He won’t spare guards to confront a threat he doesn’t believe in at a time when his resources are better used elsewhere. He swore he would pass along word to his brother, Rhys. If Paladin Chinedu visits, Vaughn said I’m welcome to speak to him as well, but I am not to talk of such matters here, now, with my own clansmen.”

The potential Vaughn had represented to me shriveled. “He is a fool for not believing you.”

“Believe what? A story he’s certain Lleu concocted to protect me from myself?” He snorted. “The paladin wanted proof, as we knew he would, and I had nothing to offer him but my word.”

“It should have been enough.”

He rolled his shoulder beneath my cheek. “It might have been, once.”

“Before me, you mean.” I lifted my head to see what truths his eyes revealed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” His face was grave, his arms tight around the cause of his troubles.

He tightened them further still. “Don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry.” I had no right to be.

“Kaidi.” He cupped my face in his hands. “I need your help.”

“You do?” I sounded skeptical.

“I must have proof.” His eyes were earnest. “I am sworn to Vaughn, but in this he is wrong. My vows were to protect my clan at all costs, and his displeasure is a price I will pay with flesh.”

“
No.
” I choked on the implication.