Mortal Ties (15 page)

But what she saw on his face didn’t look like dread of an ugly duty. It looked more
like bewilderment.

She was missing something.

“You suspected Laban all along, didn’t you?” he asked abruptly.

“If money was the motive, yeah. They fit.”

“But Vochi’s the one who cares about money.”

“No, Vochi understands money.” How to put it? “Subordinate clans have to re-up every
time they have a new Rho, right? And Vochi’s Rhos have been doing that for hundreds
of years. Same decision, over and over. They must like things the way they are. Why
would they risk losing that? They’ve
got
money. They know what it can do and what it
can’t. While Laban…” She shook her head. “They’ve been subordinate to Nokolai for
less than three decades. Not long in your eyes, maybe, but plenty long enough to see
that having money has helped Nokolai. That money can mean strength. They may not understand
finance, but they understand strength. They had a lot more motivation than Vochi.”

Carl emerged from the kitchen. He was wearing pajama bottoms. It was the first time
Lily had had any inkling there was a lupi anywhere who owned pajama bottoms. “Eat,”
he said with his customary brevity, and handed Rule a plate with two thick sandwiches.
He looked at Lily. “Need anything?”

“Ah—no. No, I’m good.” She hadn’t Changed twice the way Rule had. Lupi needed fuel
after Changing. She should have thought of that…but so should Rule.

Carl headed back toward the kitchen. His room was off it. Isen passed him, bearing
thick pottery mugs.

Lily frowned at him. “What’s going to happen to the Laban Rho?”

“Undetermined.” He handed her one fragrant mug. “Until I speak with Leo, I won’t make
that decision. Though I know part of it. He will attend Brenda’s
seco
.”

That was fair. Leo ought to witness the consequences of his actions. “That won’t be
all, though.”

“No.” Isen set another mug on the floor by Rule, who was working his way through the
sandwiches—not as if he wanted or even tasted them, but as a chore he needed to finish
quickly. Isen took his own coffee to the armchair set at right angles to the couch.
“I can require his death, of course. That would be simplest and possibly best.”

“You seldom settle for simple.”

“I won’t discuss this with you, Lily.”

His voice was as pleasant as it was implacable. She believed him. She sipped coffee
and thought. After a short silence she said, “Do I get to question Leo?”

Isen’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course you would ask that. I should have expected it.
I am not at my best tonight. Things keep happening that I didn’t anticipate, but should
have.”

Rule set his empty plate on the floor and picked up his mug. “You anticipated better
than I did. So did Lily.” He glanced sideways at her. “You guessed, didn’t you? That’s
why you assured me I wouldn’t have to kill anyone tonight. You knew what Isen was
doing.”

“I hoped I did, and yes, that was part of it.” Women had to be protected. That was
the lupi code. In spite of that, Isen had convinced them—even his son—that this offense
was grave enough and he was angry enough to order death. But maybe only the lupi had
feared this. Brenda hadn’t been afraid for her life, had she? Hank had. He’d confessed
to protect her.

Rule was watching her. “You were going to arrest people, weren’t you? Me?”

“I was thinking more of protective custody. If Isen decided someone needed to be dead,
I’d take her in custody. That was a last resort, though. It would’ve been tricky to
pull off without Isen feeling forced to go all Rho on me.”

“Tricky?” Isen smiled faintly. “That’s one word for it.”

Rule looked at his father. “You expected Lily to do something along those lines, though.
That’s why you kept her nearby—so I’d realize you weren’t going to order an execution
right away. I didn’t get the message, though. I wasn’t…I don’t understand why I didn’t
see it.”

“You were distracted,” Isen said. “That is my fault. I didn’t think about what calling
on the Leidolf Rho in such a situation might do.”

Lily frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You couldn’t have guessed,” Rule said. “I didn’t understand what was happening myself
at first.”

Isen shook his head. “I should have seen the possibility.”

“I still don’t,” Lily said pointedly.

Isen sighed. “Rule has spoken to me about a certain frustration he’s felt about being
Rho to Leidolf. He experienced the mantle, but not the clan.”

She gave Rule a quick glance. “Yeah. He’s mentioned that.” Not the way Isen put it,
but he’d talked about frustration. Rule had been raised Nokolai. That clan had his
heart,
while Leidolf had been his enemy until that mantle was forced on him. As Rho, Rule
meant to do right by Leidolf, but he wanted that more with his head than his heart.
“It bugs him that he doesn’t feel connected to Leidolf the way he thinks he should.”

“Not a problem anymore,” Rule said dryly.

“No, clearly it isn’t.” Isen paused, sipping from his mug. “I didn’t expect you to
hold your heartbeat separate. I should have. You couldn’t allow Leidolf to be mastered
by Nokolai.”

“No.” Rule’s expression turned inward. What he found there wasn’t giving him joy.

Lily looked back and forth between the two men. “I don’t understand.”

Isen rubbed his beard. “Perhaps you didn’t know that a Rho can control his clan’s
heart rate. I was keeping Nokolai’s elevated—a somewhat risky option, but I have the
experience to handle it. This made Nokolai viscerally aware of my anger and created
expectations…they knew something would be required of them. Something drastic. Our
guests would have been aware of the massed heartbeat of Nokolai, increasing their
sense of isolation and risk.”

“I get it.” Lily nodded. “Brenda didn’t think she was at risk—not physically, anyway.
I had my doubts about that, too, but all the lupi seemed to think you might order
her killed. The heartbeat trick made them believe it.”

Isen nodded and sipped. “Unfortunately, I was genuinely angry. I wasn’t thinking as
clearly as I believed. I didn’t realize Rule could hold his heartbeat separate from
my calling. To do so, he had to
be
Leidolf.”

“Um…that’s a problem?”

Isen tipped his head to look at Rule. “How much of a problem do we have?”

Rule continued to lean forward, looking at the floor, not his father. “I don’t know.
I’m in control, but…not comfortable.”

Lily wanted to shake answers out of one or both of them, but Rule’s distress was too
vivid. He wasn’t avoiding
answering. He was consumed by something going on inside him, something that Isen didn’t
need named. Maybe something that wasn’t Lily’s business…no, not that. If Rule had
a problem, she needed to know. But maybe she wasn’t the one who could help. “This
is a Rho thing?”

Rule turned his head to look at her, straightened slowly, and took her hand. “I’ve
been Leidolf Rho for months now. I’ve gone back and forth between Rho to Leidolf and
Lu Nuncio to Nokolai with no real difficulty. That’s no longer the case.”

“You must have noticed,” Isen said, “that Rhos do not enter the clanhome of another
clan often. If they must visit for some reason, they don’t linger.”

“I thought that was a security thing. Or status. Or both.”

“Certainly those are part of it. But neither the Vochi Rho nor the Laban Rho would
have any security or status concerns about guesting here, at the Clanhome of their
dominant. And yet they aren’t here.” He stopped and looked at her, waiting for her
to work out what he meant.

Isen could be annoying that way. Just like Grandmother. “Friar can’t eavesdrop here,”
she said slowly, “for the same reason the Great Bitch can’t use her super-duper clairvoyance
to watch what’s going on at Clanhome. Friar’s clairaudience Gift comes from
her,
and
her
magic doesn’t work here because clanhomes have some kind of connection to the mantles.”
She considered that a moment. “Is it anything like a sidhe lord’s land-tie?”

He smiled to congratulate her, but it was a weary thing, bereft of his usual mischief.
“I don’t know enough about the land-tie to say for sure, but the differences seem
to outweigh the similarities. Sidhe lords draw power from their land; I don’t. They
are said to sense the lives contained on their lands. I don’t. But Nokolai claims
this land. The mantle is part of that claiming. It reacts to certain kinds of power,
which is how I would know if someone touched by
her
entered Clanhome.” He paused, looked at Rule, and finished softly, “Just as I know
if the Rho of another clan is here.”

“But we’ve been here since October!” Trouble pulled Lily’s shoulder muscles taut,
as if she might need to punch someone. As if that could help. “What changed? Is it
just because Rule used the Leidolf mantle to keep his heartbeat separate?”

“That’s part of it.” Rule said that much, then stopped. He seemed to be hunting words,
so she stayed quiet, giving him room. “You know about the agreement I made with Isen
after the Leidolf mantle was forced on me.”

She nodded. “Here at Clanhome you’re Lu Nuncio to Nokolai, not Rho to Leidolf.”

“I haven’t had a problem holding to that agreement—until now.” His shoulders lifted
in a small shrug. “Now the genie is out of the bottle, and I can’t get it to go back
in.”

“He means,” Isen said softly, “that he can no longer step outside of his role as Rho
to Leidolf. Not because he used the mantle. Because it’s no longer a role.”

A role happened in your head, not your heart, didn’t it? Somehow, tonight Rule became
Leidolf in his heart or his gut or wherever identity is born. Somehow, that meant
he was Rho all the time. She looked at him. “Does that mean that when you were out
on the field and you ducked your head and said you were answering your Rho, you were
only pretending to submit?”

Rule snorted, but he didn’t look amused. “
Pretense
is the wrong word. I can no more pretend to submit than I can pretend to walk. Either
I do it or I don’t. I’m still Nokolai, still Lu Nuncio, so I still submit to my Rho,
but it was…I can no longer stop being Rho.”

“And that’s a problem because of your agreement with Isen.”

“Yes, though agreements can be renegotiated if both parties are willing. The real
problem arises from one of the reasons for that agreement.” He ran both hands through
his hair, then glanced at his father. “I don’t know what it feels like to you, but
I feel as if I’m surrounded by a repeller field.”

“Rather like having something lodged in my teeth that I
can’t, for all sorts of excellent reasons, even try to dislodge.”

Lily took a sip of her coffee, puzzling through what they’d said. “The Nokolai and
Leidolf mantles don’t like each other.”

Isen gave her that tired smile that wasn’t like him. “Nothing so personal, nor is
it proximity that’s the problem. The Nokolai and Leidolf mantles exist in very tight
proximity in Rule, after all. But something about the link between mantle and clanhome
makes it uncomfortable for one Rho to be in another’s demesne. Some believe the Lady
did this on purpose, to discourage clans from settling too near each other, which
would lead to fighting. Others think it’s an accidental byproduct. I lean toward the
latter opinion. Had the Lady meant to discourage fighting in this way, the discomfort
would be more general. As it is, only a Rho experiences it.”

A brief silence fell. Lily sipped her cooling coffee and followed the logic until
she arrived at…“Do we move back into your apartment, or will it take too long to break
the sublease?”

His brows flew up, then drew down in a scowl. “The apartment isn’t safe.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“I’m not going to—” He broke off, looking toward the front of the house.

“Ah, Seabourne is back,” Isen said. “I wonder why?”

Lily didn’t know what they’d heard that she hadn’t, but she was used to that. A moment
later a perfunctory knock landed on the front door. She heard it open. Quick footsteps
pattered down the hall, then Cullen stood in the entry, scowling. He looked directly
at Isen. “I figured it out. I don’t know if you want me to say anything in front of
them.” A graceful wave identified Rule and Lily as “them.”

Isen sighed and took a sip of coffee. “Indeed, I’m far from at my best. I have no
idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know why the second ward didn’t activate.” Cullen paused for a long, significant
moment…then sighed. “I was hoping this was one of your convoluted schemes. I
guess not. There was only one possibility, really. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s
the only thing that does make sense.”

“Which you aren’t yet doing, I’m afraid.”

Cullen walked into the room and plopped down on the hassock near the window. He spoke
directly to Isen. “I told you when I was setting the wards I’d make sure you were
exempt. I can’t lock out my Rho or my Lu Nuncio. Or Cynna, for that matter, and I
didn’t want to be bothered putting the wards up and taking them down every time I
went in and out. So when I created them I built in permissions. You, Rule, Cynna,
and I are permitted to cross without triggering the wards.”

Lily sat up straight. “Wait a minute. Are you saying Rule or Isen stole your thingee?
Or Cynna?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Isen would’ve stopped me if he’d been behind this, and there’s
no way Rule would run a deal behind Isen’s back. The thing is, there’s only two ways
to build permissions into wards. You can set patterns into them that represent the
people who are permitted to cross, but that’s harder than it sounds. Cynna could do
it,” he added. “She’s fantastic at patterns. But it would be a big job, and at the
time she was absorbing so many of the memories of the clan…I didn’t want to bother
her, so I used the second option. I asked Rule and Isen for a bit of their blood.”

“Yes,” Isen said. “I remember.”

“So do I,” Rule said. “But I don’t see what this has to do with the thief, since you’ve
graciously stricken us from your list of suspects.”