Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) (13 page)

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Authors: Holly Lisle

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BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
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Kait considered that.
When she said nothing, Jayti added, “It’s eating him inside. As long as he believes he has a chance to have you, he won’t think of anything else. He talks about finding a way to throw Ry overboard when no one is around, or of running him through with a sword and claiming it was an accident. He’s . . . obsessed.”
Kait knew what he said was true. When she looked in Ian’s eyes, she saw a feverish brightness not that different from what she saw in Jayti’s, and a fixity of gaze she’d seen in the steady stares of hunting wolves evaluating their prey.
“Telling him I don’t love him won’t change the way he feels.”
“It won’t. But if he knows he has no hope, it might keep him from doing something that will get him killed.”
She sighed.
Jayti said, “He’s my friend. He lost everything else that mattered to him—his ship, his crew, his treasure. He doesn’t know it, but he’s lost you as well. If he dies trying to win you, and you could prevent it by telling him now that he has no hope . . .” Jayti looked away and fell silent. Kait, not knowing what to say, said nothing.
The dying man finally looked at her again. “If he dies because you let him think he still might win you, my ghost will haunt every instant of the rest of your life. I swear it on Brethwan’s eternal soul.”
The hair on Kait’s arms stood on end, and a shiver crawled down her spine. She looked into those eyes, so near death, and wondered if he could already see the Veil before him. “I’ll tell him,” she whispered.
“Swear it.”
“I swear it.”
On my word as a Galweigh,
she almost said, but stopped. “On my own soul,” she said, “I swear I’ll tell him.”

 

Chapter
13
K
ait stood on the deck of the
Wind Treasure,
staring out at the endless ocean. The ship rocked with the waves, its sails for the moment furled. Sunlight illuminated everything with a haze of gold; the water sparkled, the brass fittings gleamed, the soapstoned deck shone like polished ivory. The crew wore their best clothing and stood in lines along the port and starboard sides of the foredeck, and one of them played a soft drumroll.
Loelas, the
Wind Treasure
’s parnissa, led the small procession that stepped out of the aft cabins. Hasmal and Ian and four of Ry’s men followed, the black-shrouded form carried between them. She watched Ian closely without turning her head. She would have to talk with him soon. The weight of her oath bore down on her, and she felt Jayti’s ghost watching her.
“The gods are smiling on his spirit, to give him such a fine day for a funeral,” Ry said. He stood to her right, dressed in his Sabir green and silver, with his black boots polished until they mirrored the sun and his sword unsheathed and raised before him in a salute.
Kait held her own sword in the same attitude. For this occasion, she’d finally put on some of the clothing that Ry had brought along for her. She wore a heavy cream silk tunic that reached to her knees, embroidered in blackstitch at each hem and layered over a black silk underblouse; a wide black braided leather sash as soft as a summer breeze that held the folds of the outer tunic precisely in place; a narrow black silk skirt; embroidered cream silk leg wrappings; and soft split-suede shoes. The clothing was as fine as any she had ever worn, and she wore it to honor Jayti. When the funeral was over, she would rid herself of it and go back to coarse sailors’ breeches, tunics, and deck shoes. Wearing those was a barrier between her and Ry, however thin. She needed every layer of separation she could get.
She kept her gaze fixed on the funeral procession and under her breath murmured, “Fine as the day is, I think he’d rather be alive for it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ry turn toward her for just an instant, annoyance clearly marked on his face. She almost smiled at having goaded him into a social error. But the smile would be as inappropriate as his gesture of inattentiveness had been. She kept her eyes forward, her face blank, and her sword steady in front of her.
The procession came to a halt in the center of the foredeck, and the parnissa turned and knelt, and unfolded a deep green cloth, its edges weighted with lead, across the white boards. The men carrying Jayti’s body lowered it carefully to the center of the cloth.
The parnissa stood, and one of the cabin boys hurried to his side, carrying the censer and the lamp. Loelas took the censer and crossed it over the body five times. “Jayti of Pappas, called Cousin Fox, you have left the realm of the living this day to traverse the Veil. I commend your spirit to Lodan, she who rules both Love and Loss, and to Brethwan her consort, he who rules Pain and Pleasure, Health and Illness, Life and Death. Release your last hold on the flesh, follow through the Veil, and find peace and new life.”
He would not, she thought. Not until she had kept her promise.
He handed the censer back to the cabin boy and took the lamp. He crossed it five times over the corpse, and when he had finished, rested it on the cloth above the head. “Jayti of Pappas, called Cousin Fox, you have left the realm of the living this day, and your flesh lies empty. It has served for your good, but now must nourish all those who follow. As you served the sea in life, so you will serve the sea in death. I commend your flesh to Joshan, she who rules Silence and Loneliness and Solitude, for the sea is vast and lonely, and all return at last to its embrace. May she light your flesh through the darkness to its best service, that a human body will await your spirit on its return.”
Loelas picked up the lamp and handed it to the cabin boy. He stepped back, and Hasmal and Ian knelt and folded the green cloth over Jayti’s shrouded body, tying the ties sewn along the back when they’d finished.
The parnissa turned and looked at the men and Kait gathered on the deck and said, “This same passage each of us will one day take. Contemplate your mortality, and thank the gods for each moment of each station, living neither in the past nor the future, for the moment of
now
is the only moment you will ever have. Contemplate the value of your life in its service to gods and humankind, and serve now in whatever form you would, knowing that you cannot serve tomorrow. Hold Jayti, our fallen brother, in your heart and thoughts, and find a lesson in his death, for in this final way you can assist him in serving his fellow humans, and finding his humanity in another life.”
The parnissa nodded, and the six men picked up the corpse again and carried it to the starboard side of the foredeck, walking between Kait and Ry. Kait and Ry turned to present their swords as the body moved past them and finished their quarter turns facing each other, swords forming an arch.
“You came from the sea; return to the sea,” Loelas said.
The men dropped Jayti’s body over the side. The body splashed, throwing sparkling beads of water into the air, and the green lead-weighted shroud pulled it down; out of the corner of her eye Kait could see the way that the sunlight illuminated the stream of bubbles that trailed like silver coins behind it.
Ian wouldn’t look at her. He strode past her off the foredeck, followed by the crew, the parnissa, and the captain, and finally Hasmal.
As the last man save Ry walked off the foredeck, Kait gave Ry a cold nod and resheathed her sword. She had done her duty to the deceased, honoring his spirit with Family steel since he had died fighting with her. Ry slid his sword back into its scabbard, too, though still not bothering to explain why he chose to pay tribute to the dead man in that formal way, and rested a hand on her shoulder as she turned to go to their shared cabin.
“Wait,” he said.
She turned back to him, tensing at his touch. He had kept his distance in the cabin, and after a few attempts to speak to her, had accepted her silence. The heat of his hand through the soft silk seemed to brand her.
“I don’t want to talk to you now.”
“I know,” he said, his voice calm and reasonable. “I can see that you would choose to never speak to me, never look at me, and never touch me, in spite of what you really want.”
“What I really want? I’d love to know what you think you know about that.” She glared at him, wanting to hate him, despising herself for wanting him. The wind ruffled his hair, and the sun burnished the dark gold strands until they matched the heavy gold hoops in his ears. His pale blue eyes with their black-ringed irises seemed to pull her toward him, as if they exuded their own gravity. He was fiercely beautiful, as a wolf in his prime or a stooping falcon was beautiful—the air of barely leashed ferocity about him only made him more compelling to her.
She held her magical shields tight around herself as Hasmal had taught her and willed herself to hate him, to see him as the destroyer of her parents, her siblings, and her Family, and the enemy of everything she believed in.
He watched her closely for a long, silent moment. Then he shook his head. “We have a long way to go, and a lot to accomplish. If you won’t follow your heart—and your dreams—at least talk to me when we’re alone. I’ve done nothing to deserve the unending silence.”
She wanted to believe him. Gods all forgive her, she did. “You had nothing to do with the slaughter of the Galweighs.”
“No.” He sighed. “I went into your House with my men, but that was to rescue you. I believed you would be there. I knew the attack was planned, but I had no part in the planning.”
“And it was sheer coincidence that you and I crossed paths at the Theramisday party in Halles?”
“Of course not.” He shrugged. “I was my Family’s messenger to Paraglese Dokteerak.”
“Then you
were
involved in my Family’s destruction.”
“I was the
messenger
. I served the Sabirs as they directed me. I was of minor importance—the son of the head Wolf, in training for bigger things, but still too young and inexperienced to be anything but a go-between.”
Kait arched an eyebrow. “Messengers are never chosen for their lack of experience.”
Guilt flashed across Ry’s face, quick as a bolt of lightning. She could have imagined that she saw it there, it vanished so rapidly. But it hadn’t been her imagination.
Ry held out his hands palm up—a gesture both placating and confessional. “You’re right, and we both know it. Kait, I can’t claim to be completely blameless. I had no more love for the Galweighs than you had for the Sabirs. You and I spent much of our lives learning to work against each other. But that changed when we met.” He paused and leaned against the rail and studied her. The sun hit him full in the face, making him squint. “At least it changed for me.”
She thought, It all changed for me, too. But she didn’t say that. She couldn’t.
He waited a long time for her to respond, and when he finally realized that she wouldn’t no matter how long he waited, he nodded again. “Well enough. Your feelings for the Sabirs haven’t changed. But consider this: I’ve been cut off from the Sabirs. If I return home now, with things unchanged between me and my Family, my mother will declare me
barzanne
. That sentence will rest on my head because I chose to come after you instead of staying with my Family and taking my father’s place as head of the Wolves when he died. No matter what I once was, I am not a Sabir any longer.” He turned his face away from her, either wearying of the sun in his eyes or wanting the small measure of privacy that turning away afforded him. “I won’t beg you to find room for me in your heart, Kait. Begging isn’t in me. If that’s the only way you could accept me, then you aren’t the woman I think you are. I
will
appeal to your reason. Consider what a team the two of us could make. Both Family, both magic-trained . . . both Karnee. Imagine what we could do together.”
Kait had done nothing but that since she’d come aboard the ship.
“I dream of you,” she said quietly.
He turned back to her, looking at her sharply. “And I, you.”
“We’re dancing,” she added.
He flushed. Nodded. “In the air.”
“In the darkness.”
Naked.
Neither of them said that word, but that was only because they didn’t have to. The image from those nightly dreams hung between the two of them, as real and vivid as life. Kait felt the heat in her cheeks and the racing of her pulse. She smelled Ry’s excitement, sensed his arousal, felt her own breath coming faster.
“I don’t think they’re dreams,” Ry said. His voice dropped to a rough murmur. “I think our souls give us what our bodies will not.”
Kait felt herself moving toward something irrevocable. She took a step back from him, needing physical distance and some reassurance that she was still in control of herself. “Why did you come after me?” she asked him. “If you had duty to your Family, if you knew you would be declared
barzanne,
why did you not stay and carry out your duty?”
His hands balled into quick fists, the knuckles whitening before he took a breath and stared out at the sea. He was forcing himself to relax. Pushing back the hunger that had been there an instant before. So control did not come easy to him, either. She had wondered about that, lying in the darkness every night staring up at the cabin ceiling, listening to him breathe. After a moment, when neither his stance nor his scent betrayed anything of his emotions, he said, “I have no good answer. Not for you, not for myself. I can tell you only that from the moment that you and I crossed paths, something about you compelled me. Or maybe it was something about
us
.” He shrugged. “Until then, I always believed I could control everything about myself.” She caught a glimpse of the rueful curve of his smile at the corner of his mouth.

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