Kamen would not allow Lex to tend to Umeia's body, and Xari could feel how it rankled, how it hurt, and she pulled that into herself, as well, ignored Husao's curled lip when he looked at her and understood what she was doing. She didn't look away—it was what she was. Banpair, she saw it in his eyes, and she merely shrugged. He took his strength from his god; she had no such luxury. Not yet. And it was kinder to bleed off—feed off—misery than take away from any joy mortals could grasp. At least in Xari's opinion. There were maijin who sucked away any emotion they could gather, obsessed by it, who harmed or maimed or even seduced only to incite such passion, and then slurped it like addicts.
Xari took what she needed, and only when she needed. A true banpair, after all, could not hope to be claimed by any god. And a godless maijin needed the strength and power to do the deeds required for that divine acceptance. Xari did not intend to remain godless, and she trusted no promises. She would earn her place once again—with Dragon, if she would take her; with Wolf, if she wouldn't—and standing by and watching her son destroyed was simply not enough. The Obelisk had taken Xari's intended penance out of her hands, her own fear had stalled her feet when she'd had a brief flicker of a chance to redeem herself through her son's death, but she'd foreseen her own in the doing, and had hesitated. And the Catalyst had not waited for her to catch up. Kamen had warned her, and still, she hadn't been quick enough. There were no choices left to her now, only one moment left to seize. She would have to find her redemption through the salvation of one who had no intention of being saved.
"There is more to do,” she told Husao, her voice flat but calm.
Husao merely looked at her, sighed. “Kamen will—"
"Kamen sees naught but his Catalyst,” Xari snapped. “Kamen lets it blind him and too many will fall with him.” She shook her head. “You have your vengeance, Husao, and you have your god. You've none left to please, no redemption for which to beg. The Untouchable is Kamen's redemption. Asai was to be mine. Kamen will understand."
Husao merely shook his head, giving Xari a sad smile that looked entirely too authentic to be real. “No, Xari, he will not,” he said, but he stood, held out his hand.
Xari took it and allowed him to lead her up the stairs and to the Catalyst.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Eight
What comes after?
Someone had asked him that. He could hear the echo of Malick's voice inside it, so maybe it had been him. Jacin hadn't really thought about it before, hadn't had an answer then, but he knew now what had been at the back of his mind, tucked away inside some twisted bit of hope he still had hidden in there: Kill Asai, fix his mother, bring his father back to life and make him love him, stop the screeching in his head so he didn't totter on a perpetual knife-edge of insanity, stop the hurt, stop the pain.... The list went on, foolish and deluded, but it had been there, and it was there still, even though he knew none of it was possible.
There was nothing to do but start picking up the pieces of his shattered reality, fit the ragged edges into shapes that didn't make him scream. Keep Malick's ring on his finger because it was already too late, he'd missed... something. Beishin was dead, Caidi was dead, Yori was dead, and the Ancestors might have told him how to save them, but he hadn't been listening. Or maybe they wouldn't have told him at all, maybe they would have merely kept shrieking their agony at him, because what difference did it all make to them? It didn't matter, he hadn't been listening, couldn't bring himself to listen now. He needed the silence, needed to think, wake up the bits of his mind that had gone to sleep inside the Ancestors’ nightmares and use them to save what he had left.
He kept the ring on his finger. Clung to the bits of himself that still felt like sanity.
"What now, Jacin?” Joori asked him softly, his fingers slowly plaiting. It felt nice, it felt like home somehow, so Jacin just let him keep doing it, even though Joori'd had to start over twice for the shaking and the pattering drops of grief that kept rippling at the false calm of his surfaces.
Jacin turned his head to his brother but didn't actually look at him. “Now, we go on,” was all he said. Because it was all he knew.
Joori was silent for a long moment, braiding more carefully than he really needed to, stretching the process into curling silence, and Jacin didn't mind, so he didn't say anything. Joori's hands were still shaking, Jacin could feel the tremors, and his voice quavered a little when he sighed and started, “Malick... I mean Kamen... damn it.” That last was soft and heartfelt, and Jacin felt a small tug as Joori unwove a few inches of the braid then started again. “Did he ever tell you how he... how he was made, or...?” Another pause. Jacin could almost see Joori's tightened jaw and fierce glare in his mind, but he still didn't turn to look. “I mean... Jacin, what do you know about him?"
Jacin's mouth turned up at one corner, bitter irony, and he shut his eyes, leaning his head back against the top of the chair's cushion.
"He's Temshiel,” he said, almost a whisper, because he couldn't seem to manage anything above. “He was made—turned; whatever they call it—by Wolf in the last Cycle before the Binding Wars. He's apparently young for Temshiel, and he thinks he's more jaded than he is, and he had the brass to strike a bargain with Wolf to bring Umeia along with him."
Jacin paused, almost smiled, because it was actually sort of amusing to imagine—Malick, still mortal, offered immortality and power by a god, and still having the audacity to level conditions, because it probably never occurred to him that he shouldn't. Vanity, apparently, did wonders for a person's expectations.
"He fought on the side of the Adan,” Joori put in quietly.
Jacin merely shrugged. “He's Temshiel,” was all he said, because it wasn't something he could hold against Malick like perhaps Joori did, because Jacin understood it. War was an ugly thing, impersonal, waged by the minions of jealous gods who seized on the too-personal fears of mortals to sway them to one side or the other. Malick was no different from that Adan doujoun who'd wanted to help Jacin the night he left the camp, and couldn't, bound by the laws and the reprimands of his superior. If you were someone's dog, you did what they told you. Simple.
"He's scary,” Joori ventured.
"Hm.” Jacin opened his eyes to look up at the ceiling, the gray light of the waning day casting goblin shadows through the rain on the window. “He's always felt like a cool, calm wind to me,” he whispered, a little surprised, because he hadn't realized before how true it was, but it still felt strange to think it. He put it away, because he couldn't trust his own perceptions anymore. He never could, really, but now he kept seeing Beishin's eyes, hearing his voice, and he couldn't trust Beishin, so he couldn't trust himself. “He says he loves me."
Joori's hands paused, and he drew in a sharp breath. “And...?"
"And.” Jacin shut his eyes again, Beishin's shark's smile curling behind them. “People lie. But sometimes the lies they tell are telling in themselves."
"But you trust him anyway."
A shrug. “I suppose."
"With your life?"
Jacin held back a snort, because Joori wouldn't understand. What difference does it make? he almost asked, but Joori wouldn't understand that, either, and Jacin couldn't muster the strength for an argument. “I suppose,” he said again.
I had hoped that you might trust me enough, dare I think... love me enough, to keep your faith, your belief.
Jacin's mouth tightened, and he clamped his eyes shut harder.
Shut up, Beishin.
"Mm,” Joori hummed, and his hands on Jacin's hair went a little rougher. “Not much reassurance, I think, when you don't give a shit if you live or die."
It was bitter, and it made Jacin sigh. He opened his eyes, sat forward, and tugged the half-woven braid from Joori's hands. “I can finish."
Joori was silent again, brooding, before he gently took back the braid from Jacin. Jacin let him. “I'm sorry,” Joori said quietly. “I don't mean to... I only....
” Jacin chanced a look upward, saw tears thicken Joori's gaze, and so looked away again. “She's already gone, Jacin. We've sacrificed Caidi to avenging her, and she's still gone. I don't want... I can't lose any more. Neither can you, and you know it."
It wound in Jacin's chest, tightened. How was it that Joori could hurt him like this, when Jacin knew he only ever tried not to?
"I've heard the voices of mad spirits for what feels like thousands of years,” Jacin told his brother, the hoarseness of his voice making it only just audible over the soft patter of rain on the window and roof. “Desperate agony, terrible knowledge, and the excruciating inability to do anything with it, to even understand the knowing, just having it inside you, gnawing at you, and you can never quite catch it, force it into sensible shapes. It's maddening. It's unbearable.” Joori had stopped braiding again, likely horrified, but there could be no mercy in this. “I won't leave her soul to that,” Jacin went on, ruthless, because it was true, and because love was a weapon, and Joori wielded it with too-sharp precision. Jacin didn't want it anymore; it made him weak, it distracted him, it made his heart a soft, dangerous thing, and the howling loss inside him for Caidi only drove that home in ways that could crush him if he let them. He couldn't let them. “I won't allow another to leave her to it, not if I can stop it happening.” The heavy rasp of Jacin's voice scraped his throat, making his eyes tear and blur. “If you can leave the woman who bore you to that fate, you're no brother of mine."
And yet you could doom the man who taught you, who cared for you, who lov—
Shut up, shut up, you didn't, you don't.
Joori went rigid, shocked, and Jacin almost went on, almost drove the knife in deeper, because if he couldn't cut the love out of his own chest, maybe he could cut it from Joori's, kill the weakness inside himself by proxy.
Would you be the doom of your brother? Would you fail your mother?
Shutupshutupshutup—
But Joori only snorted, something bitter and disbelieving. “And you'd sacrifice us for it?"
Your emotions make you weak and foolish, little Ghost. A lesson was necessary.
I'm trying very hard to learn it, Beishin.
"If I had to.” Cold and even, and why was his chest hurting even more than his leg? Why was his throat locked up so tight, making his already hoarse voice into something like gravel screeing down into the depths of perdition?
"Malick said you wouldn't."
"Malick was wrong."
"Yeah?” Joori shifted back behind the chair again, resumed weaving Jacin's hair into its hated braid. “You're a liar, Jacin,” he said, though it wasn't harsh or accusing. “And the lies you tell are telling in themselves. Five minutes ago, you were begging me to live, and now you're trying to cut me out, cut Morin out, cut your own heart out like you cut out—"
"Believe what you—"
"Oh, don't worry,” Joori said easily. Jacin could hear the smile in his voice, and it was cold and calculating. It made him want to scream. “You'll get what you want out of me,” Joori went on. “I'll live because you've asked it of me, I'll make sure Morin lives because you've asked it of me, and because I know what it would do to you if you had to watch us die too. I'll live and I'll make sure Morin lives because I owe it to Caidi for what I did to her—"
"Joori, it wasn't your—"
"I owe it to Yori too, I even owe it to Umeia."
"You don't owe—"
"We'll live, even though it's profoundly unfair that I don't get to make the same demand of you.” He set both hands to Jacin's shoulders, leaned down, and laid a kiss to the crown of his head. “And you can go and save Mother,” he whispered into Jacin's hair, “knowing that there will be no more bodies for you to prepare, no more pyres to light."
Save him, Joori could be even more ruthless, could out-cruel Jacin without even batting an eye.
"Malick wasn't supposed to love you, was he, Jacin-rei?"
The name—rei—from Joori's mouth shocked Jacin, stilled him, when he might have pulled away, fled, because this was altogether too close to... something. Something terrifying, something he couldn't look at, couldn't hear, not when his mind was working, when he could understand.
"Temshiel don't know how, do they, and you thought you were safe. He was supposed to use you and leave you, and instead he handed you his heart, offered you his soul, and now you have to figure out what to do with it. Because love isn't a safe thing for you, is it... Ghost?"
It was soft, right next to Jacin's ear, warm breath and sonorous accusation. It was only vaguely that Jacin felt the hot splash of tears hit his neck and realized Joori was weeping inside the words that came through a smile Jacin couldn't see.
"Love only means you'll have to watch someone else die. You were down to two and now you're back up to three, and you can't take it, I know you can't take it, and it's all right.” Joori's arms wrapped about Jacin's shoulders from behind, locked his back into the cushions of the chair, and only now did Jacin realize he'd stopped breathing and thin tears were flowing down his cheeks. His heart was battering beneath Joori's palm where it rested over Jacin's breastbone. “You can stop loving us for a while if you need to, Jacin. I won't fight you anymore."
Abruptly, Joori let go, came around to the front of the chair, and leaned in, setting his hands to both sides of Jacin's head, eyes both soft and intense. “Be the Ghost,” he said, fierce and from between clenched teeth. “Give Fen Jacin-rei all the pain and power, because he's the only one who can bring my brother back to me. Because if we have to be alive, then so do you."
It knocked the breath from Jacin, echoes ramming around the empty spaces in his head, feeding off each other and gathering resonance, until it all wound together, deafened him, numbed him. And then, with a calm, soft kiss to his brow, Joori straightened, brushed a tangle of fringe out of Jacin's eyes, and started braiding again.
Jacin didn't know what to say, so he said nothing at all.
* * * *
Xari had been correct—Husao had gotten his vengeance, had gotten it without risk, had skirted the shifting lines of true interference, and could stand before his god with no need for defense. But for the matter of the amulets bearing his son's Blood, he could walk away, be done with it all, and make no enemies. Xari might be godless, but she was still formidable, and would do whatever she must to change her status. She'd been prepared to kill Asai herself, a hopeful offering to Dragon in reparation for her silence when she'd understood what her son and Skel had been plotting so long ago. She'd hesitated, and the Catalyst had beaten her to her redemption.
And Kamen.... No one wanted to make an enemy of Kamen. Even those Temshiel who'd been drawn by the swell of power in the city, the aura of conflict, were hovering the edges, staying close but not venturing into Kamen's sight yet. Husao could feel them, biding and watching, and wondered if any of them would be foolish enough or think themselves strong enough to take a stand against Kamen when his intentions became clear. Because it was not difficult to see that Wolf's aim was very different from that of the other gods, and where Wolf pointed, Kamen led. Even when he didn't think he did. Wolf too obviously intended to save his children, and as far as Husao could tell, none of the other gods had yet ventured to gainsay him openly—or at least, none of them had deigned to guide their Temshiel to do so.
To be expected, he supposed. It was Wolf's Cycle, his power at its apex, and Kamen was its conduit, the bloody fist at the end of Wolf's long arm. And none, thus far, not even Kamen, had broken the laws of the gods. Raven and Dragon risked, at the very least, bending them, if they moved against Wolf now. It would be interesting to see if Kamen could manage to achieve his god's goals without crossing the sometimes blurry lines of the others', but Husao thought that if anyone could maneuver around it all, it would be Kamen. Reason enough for Xari to throw her lot in with Wolf's-own, in Husao's considered opinion, but Xari did not trust easily, and had witnessed too often the machinations and duplicity of the gods and their servants to count on Kame
n's promise of entreaty to Wolf.
The gods offered no guarantees.
And as the harsh judgment of Husao's own son had proven, intention meant nothing; only action mattered. Skel had intended to set the Balance back on its fulcrum, empower the Adan to remove the Jin entirely, take magic from mortals who never should have had it. What he'd actually done had sent him to the suns. The laws were not theirs to break. Even in his darkest grief, Husao had known that, had known what his son's fate would be, even though Skel's intent had been to restore order and edict, and bring glory to his god. In the end, it hadn't mattered. Even had Skel achieved what he'd wanted, single-handedly set the Balance, it would not have mattered; not when he'd broken the laws to achieve it. Not even the gods themselves broke the laws they'd made.
Xari would not be judged by her intention to aid Kamen by destroying her own son. She would be judged only by what she accomplished before the end of the Cycle, and so far, that had been little. She had not taken the brief instant of opportunity. Her chances of being forgiven and reclaimed by Dragon were better than her chances of being accepted by Wolf, and pleasing Dragon by ridding the world of the Jin abomination would secure her endorsement.
Husao had no such dilemma. Dragon had not directed her Temshiel to take a side, and so he didn't. He'd gotten mostly what he'd wanted. He backed neither Jin nor Adan, and though Xari and he shared a god, they had only very briefly shared goals. They were not allies, not unless Dragon told them to be, and Husao had one last promise to keep, one last task to arrange, if he could, about which he had told Xari nothing. He kept it that way now. If honoring the Mage's promise got him that last thing he needed, he would keep it.
He led Xari up the flights of stairs to the attic floor, following the throb of the earth at the bottom of his spine. The Paradox had allowed his power to unfurl itself, had allowed Kamen to take it and treble it, use it. Husao didn't know how the earth-bound had managed to keep it suffocated all this time, but he didn't think it would willingly go back down to wherever the boy had shoved it before. He was pulsing out power like a beacon, ripe for the hunters, were it not for Kamen's veil. Ripe for a ground-shaking disaster, as well, if provoked. The boy had no real control.
Wolf's-own: Weregild Page 31
