Blood Warrior

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Tallis thought he was prepared for what he would see at Clannarah. Not the case. Not by a long shot.

What had once been a stately, centuries-old castle was pitted and crumbling, as if hewn of coral, not Old Red Sandstone from the Highlands. Modern amenities that had brought it into the last century—paved driveways, satellite dishes, and external lighting—were in woeful disrepair. Only one external light remained, over the portcullis they never raised. That dim beacon was unable to hold the dark at bay. Night haunted the place with demon memories of what had once been his home.

He stood slack-jawed and heartsick when they were within two hundred yards of the looming three-story castle. Old ramparts were crooked, rotting teeth. The portcullis offered a malicious grin. The grounds were sickly and abandoned. Where once splendorous grass had grown in blinding shades of green, the land was now infested with weeds and what appeared to be the creeping menace of mint vine. The topiary shrubs had reshaped themselves into warped, melted versions of the wolves and bears they’d once been. It was as if acid had rained down on the castle, stripping its skin and grandeur before leaving it to the elements—which, in the Highlands, were not much kinder.

Kavya stood beside him. She took his hand and said nothing.

“Let’s go, then,” he said roughly. “I’m cold.”

He trudged up the cracked asphalt, with every step heavier than the last. He’d done this.

Rill led the way around the back to where the servants used to enter. He assumed no servants remained. He wouldn’t have thought anyone still resided in the crippled old relic, but his sister did. It was shameful. Tallis’s stomach was a tight ball. He held Kavya’s hand like the lifeline it was.

He watched Rill fiddle with the rusted lock. If her key didn’t work, Tallis would need to resort to using his lock pick kit to break into his childhood home.

“Is it just you?”

She made a noise of satisfaction when the lock clicked open. “No. We’re all still here, plus one new. Honnas claimed a wife.”

Tallis shook his head to clear the booming dissonance between his ears, but that wasn’t going anywhere—not when he was choked by regrets that tasted of bile.

Just past a mudroom was the kitchen where he’d thrown compost scraps at his sisters. It was a shell of a kitchen now. Every cabinet and surface remained intact, but had aged with twenty years of hard use. His siblings seemed to have made the best of the situation, with what looked to be refinished wood and new hardware on the cabinets. The stove was old, and perhaps it didn’t work because a microwave sat atop the burners. A rattling sound came from the fridge. The faucet dripped one, two, three patterns into a sink scarred with rust from the untreated, mineral-rich water.

“This can’t be happening,” he whispered to himself.

But of course it was. What had he expected? A shiny paradise, when he’d abandoned his family to the aftermath of his crime?

“Through here,” Rill said.

She guided them through more dilapidated rooms. What was left of the grand furniture had been covered in sheets, as the servants of generations past would have draped before the family decamped to London during the harsh Highland winters.

Tallis and his family were creatures of the modern world. They’d never left according to the seasons. Radiators and electricity were boons his ancestors couldn’t have imagined. The ghostly, white-draped furniture only added to his sense of having traveled back in time, to a place beyond his memories. A place in time where everyone who’d lived in this place of heritage and pride was long dead. The castle was a tomb.

They emerged into the main parlor, which had been remade decades earlier into a regular living room. It could’ve been part of any large house. Couches and recliners. Coffee tables and a television that looked ready for a pop culture museum.

“Feena?” Rill called. “Where are you, girl?”

“You call me girl one more time and I’ll claw your hair out, you old crone.”

Rill was the eldest, with Feena only two years younger. Best friends and worst enemies for more than seventy years. Because the natural lifespan of Dragon Kings was nearly two hundred years, they should’ve been in the prime of early middle age. Instead they appeared as careworn as human women of the same years. Where was their vitality? They should’ve been radiant, with little more visible hardship than Kavya wore on her lovely face.

A damning mantra had taken up in Tallis’s head and wouldn’t stop. I did this.

Kavya leaned near. “I won’t argue the point, but I want you to stop thinking that. Please? Until we know the facts, at least?”

“Only if you stop prodding.”

“If you stop shouting,” she said with a pacifying smile.

Rill smirked at her sister’s barb, then tipped her head toward Tallis. “Come on, then. We have visitors, you mouthy thing. Find some manners.”

Only then did Feena turn. Her eyes widened to comical proportions. Her lips parted on a strangled sound of surprise. “No. You can’t be . . . Tallis?”

She didn’t wait for a reply before attacking him with a giant hug to match Rill’s. She cried, smacked his back, asked a thousand questions he couldn’t begin to answer. He only held on, taking in as much of the moment as possible. His sister in his arms. It was a dream come true set in the middle of a nightmare.

In the meantime, Rill must have rounded up the rest of the castle’s residents, because the living room filled with people. He wouldn’t have thought anyone lived in the shadowy mausoleum on a hill, but he was getting a lot of things wrong of late.

He wiped his face with his hands and found his touchstone. Kavya stood to one side wearing her unfamiliar clothing, knuckles in alignment, eyes darting across the chaotic assembly. But then he was standing before his older brother, Honnas. They embraced with fierce affection and hearty backslaps. Another brother, Serre, kept his distance, but Tallis was too overcome to reach out to his youngest, obviously bitter sibling.

One of their number was lost forever, but what remained of his family stood in the same room.

Unbelievable.

Honnas brought forward a petite redheaded Pendray he introduced as his wife. Tallis missed her name in the flurry of conversation. His four siblings and one sister-in-law inhabited a run-down castle—with no children to liven the dreary rooms and halls.

Kavya moved to stand beside him, composed in the way that said she was holding on to her calm by practiced means—for him. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

Thinking . . .

Could she read his siblings’ minds? That would help him understand something of the strange barrier between him and Kavya. Was it just him, just his family, or an inability to read any Pendray?

“This is Kavya,” he said with a roughened voice. The lump in his throat wasn’t going anywhere. “She’s Northern Indranan, and we’ve come a long way to get here. I had to use the inlay from one of my seaxes to make the journey.”

That would speak volumes to his family. No one sold their inlays unless the situation was desperate. He had been that desperate.

“Why have you come back?” Serre asked. Ten years Tallis’s junior, he was the only one of the siblings to appear more wary than welcoming. His gift had only just been revealed when Tallis accepted his exile.

Accepted my exile.

What a farce. He’d run, pure and simple. He’d done murder for a higher purpose, but he’d run from the blood he was responsible for having spilled on a church altar.

“I’m here because of Kavya. She’s an Indranan triplet, and her brother has already killed her sister. He’s after Kavya now, and there’s no telling what creature he’d become if he takes her life, too. I’ve come back to retrieve our family’s Dragon-forged sword and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Murmurs of obvious distress slunk across the room, led by Serre’s harsh voice. Tallis sat on the nearest chair. The muscles in his legs were stiff, as if he’d run the entire way from Jaipur. Kavya stood beside him like a protective sentinel, rather than the woman he was professing to protect. It was all backwards.

“And you bring her here?” Serre glared. His back was straight and his eyes full of violence. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

“Serre,” came Rill’s authoritative tone. “We’ve heard rumor and what we know to be outright falsehoods. Twenty years is a long time to weather other people’s opinions of a loved one and not be tainted by that negativity. But you’ll behave with civility toward your brother. Presenting his side is his right. It’s what we owe one of our own. Besides, you know how things have changed.”

Tallis looked up. The chandelier had been stripped of its antique crystal teardrops. Had they dismantled it? For money?

“I can see how things have changed,” he said with lead in his chest. “I’ve made life for you unbearable.”

“No, brother.” Feena smiled warmly. “You’ve changed it for the better.”

—

Kavya stood by Tallis as he and his siblings shared stories. So many stories. She’d known the Scottish and Norse reputation for storytelling but now realized how much of the tradition must’ve come down from the Pendray. This clan had lorded over hearty people who trudged through rough, ragged lives without regret or apology. There was no caste system as in India. There was no elevated sense of self-importance as in continental Europe, where the Tigony had done so much to make Greek and Roman civilization the envy of all history.

Tallis told their tale first, because his brothers and sisters had insisted. They weren’t saying a word until Tallis related the journey that had led him and Kavya to Scotland. She was impressed all over again by the strange events that meant she was standing in the parlor of a decrepit hilltop castle. She also noticed what he left out: them. The “us” of their travels was limited to their run-in with Pashkah, their travails, their weeks-long struggle to reach the Edinburgh Airport. They’d become lovers along the way, but that wasn’t a subplot. Not even a hint.

That didn’t stop curious sets of blue eyes from skirting between her and Tallis. Rill had seen them holding hands, and maybe Opheena had, too.

As Tallis added details about Pashkah’s intentions and madness, Kavya prepared herself for the worst. These Pendray would kick her out. They would kick Tallis out.

What then?

She was exhausted, and so very tired of living in fear. The smiles Tallis had pointed out upon their arrival in Edinburgh had been a temporary respite. She was still a hunted woman. Tallis would not stop searching for the person who’d directed his life for so long, warping him into the man she knew. He’d fought back, retaining a certain sense of honor among his cynicism and fatalistic approach to life, but he’d lost something, too. She knew it. He’d lost his innocence and his faith. What did he believe in now? What would remain of him if his need for revenge was ever slaked?

Each question took on more and more importance when filtered through her deep, abiding affection. She loved him. But she wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d want to stay with her. Tallis of Pendray would keep on moving. He was only in his ancestral home because her life had become entangled with his goals. He would leave his family and certainly leave her once he solved the mysteries of his mind.

He would walk away. Would she watch him go, or would she beg?

She blinked back tears that must have been exacerbated by fatigue. She wanted to lie down. Only, Tallis’s siblings hadn’t explained the changes that had taken place since his departure. She needed to know, too. She needed to know the aftermath, so she could better understand how to comfort him. He was already taking so much blame on himself. She saw it in every mournful glance he stole when looking around the living room.

Comfort him?

She may as well have been a little girl with fairy-tale wishes. Families like this were not for the her kind and never would be. Kavya gave up on envying that happiness.

“He’ll come for you,” said Tallis’s older brother, Honnas. “Won’t he?”

Kavya met his eyes. The man loved his wife’s hands, their grace and slender perfection. He regretted never having been able to conceive a son, who would’ve had a stubborn chin and a stubborn nature. He was afraid of lightning—the sky was being ripped in two—but he’d never told a soul.

She could read all of their minds. One at a time. Same as always.

Just not Tallis’s.

“Yes,” she said after a deep breath. “He won’t stop. We were born with our gift split into thirds. When it comes to the powers given to us by the Dragon, I’m the weakest in this room. A third of an Indranan. He wants to be whole. He won’t stop until that happens, just like he won’t stop until he stokes the embers of civil war back into an inferno.”

“To what end?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced at Tallis, knowing his theory on the matter—his dream specter and its foul wishes. “It’s possible he wants to end the civil war by bringing all Indranan out of hiding. They’d wage open war on their siblings, from all corners of our territory. Our population would be halved, but everyone who remained would be a twice-cursed telepath. Powerful. Influential. Driven slowly mad by two minds shoved into one.”

“That would be . . .” Feena trailed off. She shook her head. “They . . . you . . . No, your people would become a threat to the balance between the Five Clans. How could any of us trust the Council’s decisions if telepaths were able to control their thoughts, even the thoughts of the Giva?”

“He’s the Usurper,” said Serre sharply. “Our people didn’t help choose him, and neither did Clan Garnis. He’s the leader of the Five Clans by choice of only three—the Sath, the Indranan, and his own Tigony. That’s not a true leader.”

Honnas sat forward on his chair. His wife, so tiny compared to Tallis’s sisters, had short auburn hair that showed off her pixie ears. She was always annoyed when her husband snored, but she loved nothing more than to submit to his bites on her nape. She’d done so only moments before Tallis’s return. That meant she would still be able to feel the sting deep inside her skin.

Kavya shivered and tightened her thighs. That was the problem with being among people whose emotions were so unguarded. She was subject to all the good, bad, shameful, proud, petty, and erotic. Only now did she have the experience to truly understand the latter.

“Serre,” Honnas said, with a warning in his voice. “It’s not the Giva’s fault the Pendray were so divided that we didn’t send our own kind to the Chasm to hear the Dragon’s choice. We were nearly as divided as the Indranan. It’s amazing we didn’t shatter into a hundred little factions, and scatter to the four winds like the Garnis, lost forever.”

“Now it’s different.” Feena seemed the most eager of the bunch. She appeared older than her years, and the silver tips of her hair weren’t as brilliant, but she carried herself with the regal bearing of a queen and the artlessness of a child. She loved lilacs and chocolate chips straight from the bag. “The Pendray are stronger than ever. That priest . . .” She shuddered. “Dragon be, what he’d been doing to our people. Creating division. Stoking petty disagreements. Abusing those who sought to give him their trust—unspeakable things.”

Tallis frowned. “What did he want?”

“The best we can tell,” Feena continued, “is money. His home was full to the rafters with priceless artifacts from Pendray families. He created arguments, then helped smooth them over. Grateful people gave him gifts. Then he became more prominent. Pendray didn’t rely on themselves or even basic civility, but on his guidance. That’s when the real fractures began—those who believed he was some sort of prophet, and those who saw him as a charlatan.” She smiled with the whole of her face. “Tallis, you did an amazing thing by exposing him in death.”

“No, I cleaved his head from his body and I ran.” He craned his neck to indicate what appeared to be one of the only inhabitable rooms in the castle. “I left you all to this.”

“And that was a hard time for us.” Rill’s smile was beatific, as if forgiving Tallis of every failing he’d ever heaped on himself. Kavya could only hope he took that offer of forgiveness. “Afterward, an investigation revealed that the priest was corrupt.”

Kavya chose that moment to join Tallis on the narrow settee where he held himself as rigidly as a fence post buried in frozen ground. She didn’t care if his siblings knew what . . . emotion had developed between them. He needed her, and she needed to hold his hand when he did.

“Then why do you still live this way?” he asked.

“Because the findings were kept secret.” Serre’s bitterness was unmistakable. Kavya flinched back from his mind, which was filled with hurt and a sense of having watched a treasured idol laid low. “The Leadership thought it better to unite everyone around their hatred of you, and it worked.”

“Serre, it’s been worth the sacrifice,” Rill said. “We could’ve revealed what we know, but then Tallis’s exile would’ve been for nothing.”

Serre kept his head ducked low and to one side. He nodded, then met Tallis’s gaze head-on. Kavya was surprised to find that a sheen of moisture brightened the young man’s blue eyes—eyes so much like his brother’s, the one he’d thought lost forever. His anger made sense now. It wasn’t the sacrifices of wealth or standing, but that Tallis’s deed had meant Serre grew up having thought two siblings were lost forever.

“It’s been too long, Tallis,” he said roughly.

Tallis made Kavya proud. First he kissed the back of her hand, proclaiming their affection to all of his siblings. Then when he stood. He walked to where Serre sat, back tense and shoulders hunched. Extending his hand, Tallis waited with equal tension—waiting for Serre to welcome him home, too. And maybe to forgive him.

The younger man’s tentative handshake turned fierce as soon as their palms met. Tallis pulled him up and into a ferocious masculine embrace. They were potent in strength, and equally potent in their shared affection. “Yes, brother. It’s been too long. And I’ll never be gone that long again.”

Kavya swallowed back tears, as the rest nodded their approval. By chance she caught Rill’s eye.

“It’s our right and privilege to do what we can for the Pendray,” the woman said. “Everything we do is to protect our clan, and particularly our family.” Rill wasn’t so unabashed in her acceptance of Kavya as she had been with Tallis, but she offered a small, promising smile. “No matter who makes the threat.”