Blood Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  When she lifted her face to the crowd, she unclasped her hands and lowered them straight to her sides. The silk of her sari was more luxurious than any she’d ever owned. She gently toyed with the flowing fabric. “Now,” she said, “our day must continue as it has. With purpose. Join me in the noon benediction.”

  She was no cult leader, but she understood the importance of ritual. The rituals she’d fashioned were an amalgam of practices from all Five Clans. Words from each language. Praise to each version of the Dragon. Affirmation of each special gift. Although the origin of her work had focused on peace among the Indranan, she’d since expanded her purpose to include all of the Dragon Kings. They needed each other. She was convinced.

  Thus the words she spoke in daily blessing were meant to appeal to as many as possible, just as her appearance was. Once again, Kavya’s brain—her entire body—ached from the effort. And once again, she persevered.

  “Eat, my friends. Peace be with you.”

  She turned to the rear of the altar and descended. She was alone. No one followed her. Even her bodyguards maintained a respectful distance on the other side of a natural archway. She basked in the privilege of lowering her mental shields and releasing the crowd from the spell of her mind. There was no need for anonymous luminosity when she was alone.

  Yet she was so very alone.

  How could she be otherwise?

  Pashkah would find her someday. Her triplet would kill her or she would kill him. Relying on even the most devoted follower was a risk she rarely took. That meant hiding her real self. She had long since abandoned the innocent child named Kavya of the Northern Indranan. The little girl she’d been was a photograph faded to gray.

  “Very pretty words.”

  Her head jerked up by reflex. An Indranan so lost in thought was a telepath stripped naked of defenses. For a slip of a moment, she couldn’t remember how to hide. The danger of her mistake shot flame through her bones.

  Had he been Pashkah . . .

  Instead the man was a stranger. Not exactly slim, but not overly brawny, he straddled the solid middle ground where muscle and skill hid beneath an unassuming exterior. He was paler than members of her clan, although he retained the golden shimmer of the Dragon Kings. And as a Dragon King, that meant exceptional male beauty. Dark hair was tipped with glinting silver—not the gray of an old man, but a gleam like the shine of mica flecks. His hair didn’t reach his collar, but it was long at his crown and stood in disarray.

  He wore lightweight layered sweaters, cargo pants, heavy black boots, and an open leather coat lined with wool. No ceremonial robes. Just the clothes of a human. The straight, narrow swords that crossed in an X at his back, however, were the weapons of a Pendray. He radiated wildness, from that mass of careless hair to the way his relaxed, almost negligent stance proclaimed him a killer.

  Her gift would confirm what made her senses prickle and cringe. In self-defense, she reached out to learn his identity and his intentions.

  And to her profound shock, she couldn’t read his mind. Not a single thought.

  “Who are you?”

  He walked toward her with swagger, leading with his shoulders. His scabbards moved with a hiss of leather over leather. Bright blue eyes narrowed. “You’ll find out before I’m through with you.”

  —

  The Sun was a fraud.

  Worse, she was a vile manipulator.

  As an upward surge of violence scribbled red across his vision, Tallis of Pendray could’ve been staring at the interior of a slaughterhouse. Droning pulses of cruelty beat a counterpoint to the rhythm of his heart. He wanted to loose his fury.

  He needed to stay in control.

  Otherwise he would never be able to discredit the Sun and thwart the commands she had thrust into his mind for two decades.

  Always dripping in gold. Always riding away on the back of the Dragon.

  A berserker rage would ruin months of preparation—sensible, rational preparation. Finding her hadn’t been easy. Everyone knew of the Sun Cult, but its ever-changing location had taken him almost a year to pinpoint. It was bad enough that the gift of Tallis’s clan, the Pendray, was the mindless fury of a berserker. Because the Sun had deluded him for so long, he’d come to prize rationality. He would not be a pawn to his blood-born impulses or a puppet to a charismatic charlatan.

  Yet . . . she was real.

  Some part of him had always feared he was well and truly mad. What if he’d been acting on a delusion so clear and all-consuming that he needed a scapegoat? How convenient to blame bloodied hands on a woman conjured by a guilty, disturbed conscience, then top off his mental self-defense with delusions of the Dragon. He put away his doubts and laid the gory blame where it belonged—there on an altar of stacked rocks the color of bronze.

  His only regret was that, truth be told, the Sun’s professed ambition was noble and worth his sacrifices. Her appearances were rare enough to be treasured, but constant enough to reinforce her design for the future of the Dragon Kings. And Tallis’s role in it.

  However, the violence he’d guided to the home of his niece, Nynn, had sapped his optimism. Whether the Sun’s plan to unify the clans would protect the Dragon Kings from extinction was no longer his concern. After what he’d endured, what he’d done, what he’d become for her—he deserved to embrace a personal grudge.

  “You cannot threaten me,” she said, head tilted at an assessing angle. “And you cannot harm me.”

  “I did, and I can.”

  Tallis leapt forward—the fluid, trustworthy movement of a body honed for fighting. One of his seaxes was easy to retrieve. He grabbed the woman’s hair, twisted fistfuls in his free hand, and held a razor’s edge of steel to her throat.

  Her eyes bulged. She froze.

  “That’s right,” Tallis said. “Very still.”

  “It’s not Dragon-forged.” Her voice was a near-silent rasp.

  “Correct.” A Dragon King could only be killed by rare swords forged in the Chasm where the Great Dragon had lived and died, high in the Himalayas. “But killing you would make you a martyr. Not my intention.”

  Her appearance as she’d addressed the crowd had struck Tallis like a blow to the jaw. A faint, otherworldly shimmer had surrounded her as would the wavy heat of a mirage. Hair that should’ve been deep brown, flowing in animated waves down her back, had been a bland, neutral shade in a style that sat primly on her shoulders. Her mud-colored eyes had been wrong, too. Nothing distinctive except for that inviting shimmer, urging people to believe the false front she presented.

  Now he was near enough to see each lash. Wide irises as rich as amber. Lush hair as luscious as chocolate. Realizing the full extent of how well she could deceive others, including Tallis, was overwhelming.

  At least her figure matched his visions. He held her resilient, athletic body close to his. A gold silk sari wrapped around womanly curves he’d seen in the nude.

  He restrained a frustrated growl.

  The Sun still hadn’t moved, but her lips tilted into a ghostly smile. Nothing about her seemed false, yet he could feel the potential for deception like a slick of oil on his fingertips. His only chance was to keep her distracted. With the ability to focus on only one mind at a time, his threat of violence might keep her from assuming too many of the false impressions she gleaned from other individuals.

  “This way,” he said, yanking her hair. The blade nicked a line of red across her delicate neck.

  Delicate? No. It was just a neck.

  She deserved no adjectives. He could trust no adjectives.

  “I don’t know what I’ve done to anger you,” she said with surprising calm. Only her near-frantic respiration gave away her fear. “But we can discuss it. We can make amends.”

  “No, we can’t. Now, this blade is going back in its scabbard. You’re going to walk with me.”

  She actually laughed, although the action pressed her neck more firmly against his seax. Her laughter was truncated by a gasp as
another streak of red appeared. “How do you expect to accomplish that?”

  “You have an announcement this evening.”

  “I do.” She still breathed without rhythm. “It’s important. More important than you can imagine.”

  “You have done my imagining for too long.”

  “I’ve never seen you before!”

  “Save it. You want to make that announcement, right? Can’t have these people disappointed.”

  A gleam of moisture coated brown eyes that matched the rocky landscape of her homeland. “That’s right.”

  “Then we’re walking. Calmly. I hold no grudge against anyone else, but I will do harm if you cause them to interfere.”

  “They would demolish you in a second. We’re the Indranan. Telepathy can be a nasty weapon. You’d live the rest of your life with your body intact and your mind flipped inside out.”

  Tallis pulled her hair and brought their faces together, close enough to share the same chilly air. “How much chaos could I cause before that happened? The precious Sun in danger. A hundred Dragon Kings running scared. Your cult destroyed.”

  The woman grasped his forearm with both hands. Her nails dug into his flesh. “You have no right. Why would you plan violence, here of all places? These people live in peace and they believe in me.”

  “And in time they’ll learn the truth.” Tallis held her neck in his palm as he sheathed his blade. “Just like I did.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  What’s to stop me from screaming with my mouth and shouting with my mind?”

  Grinning tightly, Tallis shook his head. “You would’ve done both already. And even on your lying face, I can see it—you can’t read my thoughts. Frustrating, goddess?”

  “I’m not a goddess. My name is Kavya.”

  He raised his brows. “Very pretty.”

  Her jaw tightened. “No. I can’t read your mind. Who are you?”

  “Tallis. Search that piecemeal soul of yours. You’ll know me.”

  “They warned me,” she said, almost to herself. “I didn’t listen. How long have you been tracking me?”

  He was pleased his gamble had paid off. Everyone had heard of the Sun Cult, but its leader was elusive. Cult bodyguards had felt his presence as he’d neared his objective. They’d reached out with tap-tap touches into his mind. Curious, then angered. Repeatedly they’d warned her of a coming danger. She’d reached out with her own gift—and sensed nothing. He’d been reluctant to depend on her telepathic blind spot, but recognizing it had been the genesis of his plan.

  There behind the altar, he slowly released her neck. There was no explanation for why he trailed the soft, fine strands of her hair down over one shoulder.

  She shivered.

  No, there was an explanation. He’d been seduced by this woman for twenty years. That he’d want to admire her, to touch her—

  He cut off his thought as surely as he would’ve cut her out of his mind, had he been able.

  While he’d waited for her to finish her infuriating speech about peace and hope, Tallis had witnessed a living lie—a slippery eel pretending to be Everywoman. Now he had her attention. The disguise she drew from the impressions of a hundred minds began to slip.

  Or simply . . . change. He couldn’t tell.

  A man who lived rough in the world learned to trust his instincts, yet his had been corrupted by the Sun’s voice in his sleeping mind. She bled into every aspect of his life, like placing a magnet next to a compass. His true north was long gone.

  For a Pendray that was especially infuriating. As creatures of the elements, his clan had inspired a pantheon of deities among hearty Celts, Picts, Norse, and Saxons. To remain so uncertain of the natural world would be even worse than losing his berserker rage.

  This woman deceived everyone who looked upon her face. Who could trust her words if she presented whatever facade a person wanted to see?

  “I’ll go with you,” she said at last. “Peacefully.”

  “Good.”

  He slid his fingers down her golden sari and clasped her hand, then mocked her with a smile. “We’re just taking a walk.”

  “Where?”

  “My tent.”

  She jerked her arm, but Tallis wouldn’t let go. “You’re sick. No one . . . No one—”

  “Takes you to his tent? I’m not surprised. You play in dreamscapes instead.” He adjusted his hold so that their bodies pressed side to side. “Come.”

  Tallis dragged her through the stone archway that led away from the rear of the altar. They emerged into plain sight. Several dozen followers stood nearby.

  “They may wonder why you’re walking so close to a Pendray,” he said near her ear. “But they trust you. Everyone you’ve touched with that witch’s mind has come to trust you. So keep walking.”

  He tightened his hold on the low curve of her hip. She flinched and tried to draw away. “Let me go. I’ve come willingly this far.”

  Tallis ignored her entreaty. Too much bitterness needed to be purged from his blood. “I wonder how many wish they could hold you this closely. Do you lie awake counting the minds you’ve warped? Enjoy becoming their fantasy?”

  “I’ve never done anything of the kind,” she hissed. “I am a peaceful woman. I keep my thoughts to myself.”

  “Being one of the Heartless must be useful when you use people the way you do.”

  “Clan-based hatred is revolting. Don’t tell me you subscribe to those old prejudices.”

  “I subscribe to bare facts. A deceiving witch leading gullible worshipers is a threat to every Dragon King.”

  The sun—the real sun—was arcing westward. The valley would be dark long before nightfall. The steep angles of the Pir Panjal determined when the rays no longer reached the earth. Tallis strained every sense, trustworthy or not, and steadily guided his captive to his tent.

  Then he shoved her between parted canvas folds. She fell to her knees as he pushed in behind her. “Much better, goddess.”

  “Kavya.”

  “Fine. Hold still, Kavya.”

  She gasped as he searched for weapons concealed within layers of gold silk. Wiggling away from each touch, she was wide-eyed and edgy. She jerked as if his hands were hot irons. Tallis grabbed a rope from his knapsack and bound her wrists and ankles. She struggled against the hemp, but every movement tightened the sharp grip.

  He rolled her onto her side. “Being helpless at the will of a more powerful force is a scary thing. I never liked it. You?”

  Kavya looked away and blinked a sheen of moisture from her eyes. “You could at least tell me what you want! I can help you. Obviously you don’t want to be here.”

  “We’re staying put,” he said. “Days will come and go. Your followers will know what I’ve learned—that you’ve deceived them. Wasted their hopes.” He traced a finger along her cheek, down to where blood had dried on her neck. “You’ll witness one disappointed face at a time, until no one will ever again worship a woman named the Sun.”

  He retreated a few feet and crossed his legs. Kavya had stopped moving after her initial struggle. Self-preservation? Scheming? Probably both. A woman didn’t rise up from dirt-strewn slums to command an army without possessing canny skills.

  The Sun was no idiot.

  She wasn’t the goddess of his dreams. Neither was she the plain, almost anonymous orator.

  Instead she was able to gather ready-made inspiration straight from her followers’ minds. En masse. How did she do that? What if she had the power to affect other Dragon Kings the way she’d manipulated him? Her influence could be catastrophic. Not even the Honorable Giva, the leader of the Five Clans, could compete with such a rival.

  No Indranan should have that much power. No one should.

  So he stared. And she did. As the hours passed, they played poker with their gazes.

  “You might as well sleep.” His voice was rough, especially since his last words to her had been filled with such bile. He was going
to hate her for a very long time. “You would have rested before your announcement.”

  Light blazed in her brown eyes, as if mountains could glow. “No, I would’ve been walking among my people, making sure the agreement I’ve helped broker remains secure. You have no idea what’s at stake today.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said flippantly.

  She pushed her feet against the hard ground, found purchase, and struggled to sit up. The hemp rope creaked. The effort to appear strong for pride’s sake must have cost her body. Kneeling on her heels, with her hair a mess around her heart-shaped face, she raised her chin. Tallis was perturbed by his unconscious reaction, because that subtle movement chastened him without a word.

  Why did he keep underestimating her? Maybe he remained susceptible to her ways—not to her telepathy, but to her natural charisma. He couldn’t find a strong line between the two, which was disturbing as hell.

  “You are a bigot and a troublemaker,” she said with a voice made of bells and iron. “Some petty slight has brought this injustice on me. You’re going to ruin everything.”

  Her expression hardened. Nothing overt. Eyes that had been passive took on a cold distance. Her mouth was shaped by voluptuous lips that pressed into a fixed line. Her hair was noticeably longer now—dark, with caramel streaks that highlighted its thick richness. Even her cheekbones seemed higher and more exotic. The anonymous image she’d presented on the altar was completely gone. Tallis’s memory of it lingered like having looked at the sun before closing his eyes, still seeing the image behind his eyelids.

  “Your slights have not been petty,” he grated out.

  “How do you know I haven’t been contacting my people for the last few hours, telling them to lie in wait for you?”

  “I’ll take that chance. I’ve been taking it.” He grinned, which actually made her flinch. The Pendray weren’t very guarded with their expressions, and he’d lived in the human world for years. He liked the freedom of making his feelings known without language. That also meant being able to surprise Dragon Kings, who never expected such animation from their own kind. “You’ve been too distracted. At best, you’ve been successful and I’ll find out soon enough. But I think you suffer from the illusion you’ve created. How many would know your genuine call of distress?”