“Follow him, damn it!” I said, shoving Ujura toward Ian before I turned to grab Nate’s arm. I couldn’t reach Balain, or I’d have pushed him too, just for the hell of it. “You stick with me,” I said to Nate. “And don’t look up.”
“Trust me, that won’t be a problem,” Nate said quickly, not even questioning the faint shimmer around us as I cloaked us with invisibility.
Finally, the Alqani councilman and the ex-chief of the Annukhai managed to pull the sticks out of their asses and move. And we all ran for it.
Chapter 27
Our group constituted the last ones down the ladder, and we descended into awkward, total silence as the entire village stared at Ujura and Balain. They pressed back against the walls, trying to get as far away from the elders as possible.
A ridiculously adorable growl broke the silence as a ball of white fur tore away from the pack and barreled straight toward the simpering councilman. The little bear pounced clumsily and sunk her tiny, sharp teeth into his ankle.
“Nylah, no!” Ian gasped. The crackling glare he shot at Ujura said he’d kill the Alqani if he so much as twitched toward the cub.
Ujura didn’t even breathe.
Nylah wrenched her teeth free and scrambled over to Ian. Once she planted her paws on his thighs, and he reached down to scoop her up, Ujura gushed out a breath and bent down to rub his ankle, wincing.
“You are a fierce one, aren’t you, qali’zahr?” Ian crooned. “But you have no need to fight. You are safe with me.”
The little bear snuffled — and started to glow. There was a collective gasp as the glow faded away from the little girl, who threw her arms around Ian’s neck and buried her face in his chest. “Bala,” she whispered, snuggling as close as she could.
Malak and Pahna came toward us, both of them pointedly ignoring the elders. Tears sparkled in Pahna’s eyes as she lifted a wavering smile. “She has bonded with you, Gahiji-an,” she said. “She’s never felt safe enough to transform in front of everyone.”
“I remember when this one was born.”
The uneven words came from Ujura. When he spoke, Pahna whirled on him and extended a trembling finger. “You have no right to even speak of her!” she shouted. “Where were you, any of you, when she lay half-frozen and defenseless in the snow? While each of your newborn children faced the same brutal exposure, and some did not live long enough to be found!”
Ujura held his ground, though he was visibly shaken by his daughter’s onslaught. “We all thought your patrols were still checking the birthing hut,” he said slowly. “We thought that you were doing well, all of you, without us. Meriwa assured us —”
“Meriwa assured you,” the young Alqani spat. “That’s no excuse. Meriwa lies! Did you ever check with your own eyes? Did you even care?” Pahna choked out. “You never even tried to question her. And you,” she seethed, turning on Balain. “When you failed to come back all those years ago, and Malak went to find you —”
“Pahna, don’t,” Malak said stiffly.
“It’s time he answered for this, don’t you think? Now that he’s no longer ray’is.” She glared at the older Annukhai. “You couldn’t even be bothered to tell him yourself that you didn’t care about us anymore, that we were on our own. You had him dismissed, like an unwanted dog.”
Genuine shock infused Balain’s features. “What are you talking about? Malak never came to the Alqani village,” he said. “Today was the first time he was there since the barrier went up.”
“I did go, Uncle.” Malak looked almost as surprised as him. “You were supposed to return every fifty years. I thought … well, at first I thought you’d died.” A flare of anger lit his eyes. “I went to the gates, and the guard told me you’d sent word that you were not to be disturbed, and you didn’t want to see me. When I refused to leave without speaking to you …” He swallowed once. “Let’s just say that when he was through with me, I had to crawl back to the village. So yes. After that, I never returned.”
Balain went from stunned to furious in about three seconds flat. “Which guard was this?” he growled. “I sent word with no one.”
“The one called Naiji,” Malak said. “He was there today, as well.”
I suddenly had a damned good idea who they were talking about. He’d been one of Meriwa’s stooges, the one that doused Ian’s wounds with the bucket of salt.
“Why, that —” Balain halted the statement with effort, and slowly hung his head. “I did not come, because Meriwa forbid me,” he said thickly. “She told me she’d received word from the village that you did not need me, and that it was best to respect your wishes and allow you to survive on your own.” He raised his eyes with reluctance. “For whatever it may be worth, I did not believe her. But she’s made it clear that it is not an Annukhai’s place to question her decisions. That is why we believed you children were better off here, free from Meriwa’s tyranny.”
“It is true,” Ujura said. “Though I am ashamed to admit it, we have allowed Meriwa to treat the few Annukhai among us as less than equals … as we ourselves had come to view them. We continued to blame your clan for releasing the Wihtiko, and to punish those who remained to receive blame.” He drew himself straighter and spoke with more force. “But no longer. This pointless feud ends now.”
“And you believe we should forgive you for making such statements, when you have never followed through?” Pahna said, though most of the fire had gone out of her.
“No. If you never forgave me, I would not blame you.” Ujura started to reach out to his daughter, but then changed his mind and lowered his arm. “But my words are not empty this time, aiba,” he said with a sad smile, and then looked to Ian. “Rayan. Is this the vessel you mentioned?” He nodded toward Nate. “The one who carries the blood of Khanaq?”
“He is,” Ian said quietly over Nylah’s shoulder. She’d fallen asleep in his arms.
Nate coughed deliberately. “You know, I’m starting to understand you people better,” he said in halting djinn. “I don’t think I like being a vessel for someone else’s blood.”
Ujura blinked, and a laugh escaped him. The tension broke as a few of the others joined in, including Pahna. “Very well,” he said. “What shall I call you?”
“Nate is fine.”
“Nate, then.” Ujura offered a respectful nod. “When it is safe to emerge, we will bring Nate to the Alqani village,” he said. “The age barrier will be taken down, tonight. And if Meriwa refuses to do this, I will slit her miserable, scheming throat myself, because we do not need her magic for this. Only her blood.”
That drew cheers from a lot of the kids, who were probably in favor of slitting Meriwa’s throat regardless of what happened to the barrier. And considering the way she’d been acting this whole time, I worried that Ujura might actually have to put his money where his mouth was.
But the way he looked at his daughter suggested he was more than willing to do it.
Chapter 28
Once the storm cleared, there was still plenty of daylight left. The Wihtiko hadn’t stayed as long as it did yesterday. I only hoped that didn’t mean its cycle was still getting shorter, and it would return again in a few hours or something.
Seven of us walked out through the new wall we'd made to begin the hour-long walk to the Alqani village. Ian and me, Balain and Ujura, Malak, Nate, and Toklai. Pahna had wanted to stay behind and help watch over the children, who were still unsettled by the monster coming two days in a row. And Toklai insisted that he had to come with us so he could protect Nate personally.
No one was more surprised than Toklai when Malak agreed with him.
We’d already talked about how to handle this confrontation on the way over. It turned out the barrier didn’t just prevent the young ones from going through — it also physically ejected anyone on the wrong side of it who didn’t meet the age requirements, which explained the whole ‘birthing hut’ thing in the field. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if anyo
ne gave birth inside the barrier.
It also explained my rough entry into this place. I’d actually been spit out into the storm. Nate informed me that I probably would’ve been fine if I’d charged the bracelet with power before entering the storm. That little bit of trivia arrived about two days and a dislocated shoulder too late to be helpful.
The bracelet would only allow one person at a time inside, but there were three of us who were less than three hundred years old. So Malak and Toklai would wait outside the wall with Nate, while the rest of us went in to confront Meriwa. Toklai seemed more than happy to sit with his adopted human, excitedly pointing out things here and there on the landscape as Nate listened to him chatter away.
There were no guards at the gate when we approached the long black wall. I hoped that was a good sign. We stopped just before the filmy entrance, and Balain turned to his nephews. “I must say this now, because Meriwa may well have me executed for attempting to defy her,” he said, and held a hand up when Malak tried to speak. “Please, let me finish.”
The young djinn nodded reluctantly.
“Thank you.” Balain closed his eyes, gathering strength before he continued. “I am not the fierce warrior I have allowed everyone to believe,” he said. “It is true that I alone survived the attack on the Wihtiko, but valor had nothing to do with it. I survived through cowardice. I hid from the beast, while the others fought … and died.” He let out a shuddering breath and managed to look Malak in the eye. “My brother, your father, was the true warrior. He is the one who injured the creature, and all these years, I have carried the token of his bravery and passed it off as my own.”
Both Malak and Toklai stared at him, wide-eyed and silent.
“This should be yours,” Balain said, and pulled something from his tunic — a single curved and blackened talon about three inches long, strung on a leather cord. He lifted the cord over his head and held out the necklace. “Take it, please.”
But Malak shook his head. “I carry my father’s spear into battle, and wear his mask,” he said. “This trophy belongs to Toklai.”
Toklai drew a sudden breath. “You want me to have it?”
“I do,” Malak said. “You are just as brave as he was — and just as headstrong.”
Balain smiled as he extended his arm to Toklai. “It seems that you and your brother have become men, after all,” he said.
“Thank you,” Toklai whispered, taking the pendant as though it were made of glass. He slipped it over his head and beamed a smile, but it faltered as he looked at Balain. “I don’t want Meriwa to execute you, Uncle,” he said in a small voice. “Stay with us. Malak and I will protect you.”
Balain made a thick sound, deep in his throat. “I must face her now, or I never will,” he said. “Know this. No matter what happens, the two of you have given me the courage I lacked before. If I die, it will not be without a fight.”
“We won’t let her kill anyone,” I said. “And that’s a promise.”
Toklai tore his eyes from the claw he wore to blink up at his uncle and give him a reassuring nod.
We left them by the gate, and the four of us walked into the Alqani village. At first it seemed too quiet, almost empty, but as we got closer to the igloos some of them started drifting outside. Most hung back and stared at us, but a few approached with caution. Soon there was a small crowd surrounding us as we made our way toward the lodge.
“Is it true?” one of them said. “The Wihtiko is awake?”
“Yes, it is true. We have seen the beast ourselves,” Ujura said without breaking stride.
A few gasps and muttered words circulated through the crowd. “What will we do?”
“The creature is too strong.”
“I hear they plan to remove the border spell.”
“What about the children?”
“The Annukhai are to blame for this. We should make an example of that one!”
Ujura stopped so suddenly that Balain walked into him, and Ian and I barely avoided a similar collision. “Who said that?” he called, turning in a slow circle to scan the crowd.
No one confessed.
“We are all to blame,” Ujura said loudly. “If not through our actions, then through our complacency. And which is worse? The warriors who failed to accomplish their task, but in doing so revealed the fault of the original effort … or the scholars who stood back and waited for their failure, in order to cast blame and protect themselves at the expense of others?” He turned again, looking hard at the other elders. “We had this right before,” he said. “Warrior and scholar side by side, learning from one another, strengthening the collective. But we stopped trying somewhere along the way, and our children have paid a terrible price for our so-called peace.”
“And what do you propose we do about this?” a familiar sneering voice said. The crowd parted, and Meriwa made her way to the fore.
Ujura stared at her unblinking. “The barrier must come down, Meriwa,” he said. “Cooperation is not possible with such a division between our clans.”
“I am aware of that,” she said, and then scoffed at his incredulous look. “Must you appear so surprised? Whatever else you may think of me, I am committed to the welfare of my people. Even I cannot deny that the Wihtiko is a danger to us all.” She sighed, and added, “Though I do not see the wisdom in exposing this village to the creature’s assaults, I will admit that it is … not fair.”
I managed not to roll my eyes. She was conceding in the most backhanded, I’m-still-smarter-than-you way possible, acting just like the children she couldn’t stand. But at least she was conceding.
“Gahiji-an,” she said, and there was a flicker of fear in her eyes when she addressed him despite her haughty tone. “Have you completed your end of the bargain?”
“I have, madam.” His use of a title surprised me, since she hadn’t bothered with one, but then I realized he was mocking her. Challenging her. “Nohtaikhel, the last scion of Khanaq, awaits outside your gates. And he has determined a way to destroy the Wihtiko.”
Several shocked breaths followed the announcement, and even Meriwa looked taken aback. She recovered swiftly and busied herself smoothing the sleeves of her already-perfect robes for a moment before she bothered responding. “Well, then, why did you not bring him to me, if you are so keen to dismantle the barrier?”
When she finally looked at Ian, he stared her down until she flinched. “Because, madam, your barrier prohibits him from entering your village without the totem,” he said in a voice cold enough to shatter steel. “After the kind welcome I received yesterday at your behest, I found it prudent for my champion to accompany me instead, in case you had discovered any more rituals you’d neglected to inflict on me.”
Meriwa’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “The shah-jae ceremony —”
“Has been completed,” Ian said, making it clear that it was over but not forgotten, or forgiven. “Now, if you would care to show me the respect I have earned, I will send for Nohtaikhel so you can uphold your end of the bargain. Unless you would prefer to demonstrate that your leadership competencies exceed mine, in a manner of my champion’s choosing.”
“Yes, of course,” she stammered, shooting me a panicked glance. “My apologies, rayan. If you would be so kind as to deliver the scion to the lodge, the council will await you there to perform the barrier cleansing spell.”
Ian nodded once. “It will be done.”
Meriwa hurried off toward the lodge. After a moment, Ujura excused himself to join her and the crowd gradually dispersed, leaving me, Ian, and Balain. “I don’t know what you were worried about, Ian,” I said when everyone had left. “You make one hell of a prince.”
He let out an agitated breath. “All this strained royal politeness is exhausting. I would much rather have challenged her to combat and be done with it.”
“Well I’m proud of your restraint.”
He snorted. “At last, I have lived up to your lofty expectations.”
> “Yeah, something like that,” I grinned.
Balain cleared his throat cautiously. “Excuse me, rayan,” he said. “I know you have not asked, but it would be my honor to accompany your champion to the gates, and to escort the scion to the lodge.”
“Hm? Oh, yes. Of course,” Ian said with a bare glance at the other djinn. “Donatti, perhaps you would speak with Malak to learn the extent of the weaponry they possess in his village. We must arm as many as possible, both to protect the children and to fight the creature.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said, noticing the troubled look on Balain’s face. “Are you going to work out when all of this is going down with them, once they’ve handled the barrier?”
He sighed. “I suppose I must. Though I cannot say that I look forward to more of these … negotiations.” His lip curled in disgust. “Go on, then,” he said. “You will likely have to power the totem so that Nate can pass the barrier, if he is expected to participate in this spell.”
“Yeah, I figured that. Be careful in there, okay?”
“As if I have a choice among these preening politicians,” he said with a smirk.
Ian walked away without addressing Balain again. The old Annukhai frowned in his wake, and then started for the gate, obviously expecting me to follow. So I shrugged and went after him.
After a few minutes of silence, Balain said, “Gahiji-an must despise me.”
“Huh?” I said. “Why would you think that?”
“He can barely stand to look at me, and he is dismissive when I speak,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I suppose it is because I am a coward. If I were him, I would despise me as well.” He sighed at the ground. “Perhaps I was not respectful enough. I did not bow to him, after all.”
It took me a minute, but I finally figured out what he was getting at. “Look, the last thing Ian wants anyone to do is treat him like royalty,” I said. “Except for Meriwa, because that’s the only way she’ll listen.”
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