Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One

by Dale, Veronica

  “And don’t forget Gwin. He has always suspected, now he knows. For years he comes with offerings to Ele, yess. How often has the foreigner come?”

  “Not once,” Parduka said. “Nor has the mother. She spreads heresy about some other god. At the Rites the foreigner hung back, made the shortest cut, tried brazenly to walk away with the sacred knife.”

  Basa leaned closer. “He is anathema to Ele. You let the evil take root, and now it is full grown.”

  Their voices went on, becoming whispers that wound around each other like braids of smoke, brushing across her cheeks, blaming, urging, becoming fainter and fainter until they were indistinguishable from the simmering of the coals.

  Parduka pulled herself up from her sore knees and stumbled out of the chamber. Why was it left to her, an old woman, to save the village? Why couldn’t Ele choose one of the elders for this hard task? Her head was beginning to clear, and suddenly the answer came to her: Ele had done this very thing. Ele had chosen Rom.

  An inner trembling told her she must eat. She turned to the left and pushed open the door to her cramped and chilly kitchen. A pot of thin chicken broth, dotted with circles of grease, hung from the cook-arm. As she bent to ladle the broth into a bowl, she thought she still heard their whispers, seething in the hearth.

  “I hear you, Mother. I understand, Grandmother. This very night I will meet with Rom.”

  # # #

  That afternoon, Mariat made her way to Tarn’s house, her heart troubled. She hadn’t seen Sheft since he helped bury her mother. Riah stood over steaming tubs at the table, washing shirts. She glanced up as Mariat entered and then went back to her work. “Tarn went to Ferce to buy a rooster,” she said. “He may have to spend the night.”

  “Where’s Sheft?”

  Riah removed a shirt from the rinse water, wrung it out, and placed it on a towel. “I advise you to stay away from him.”

  Mariat stared in disbelief. “Why? Because of village gossip?”

  “I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want him to be hurt. No more hearts must be broken.”

  “Sheft would never break my heart!”

  “Not intentionally perhaps. But eventually. If you stay with him, it will happen. Your mother is gone, and I give you a mother’s advice. Find someone else.” She plunged a second shirt into the wash water.

  “But Ane loved Sheft! And so do I.”

  Riah looked up at that and assayed her for a long moment. “I see. But I know what will happen, Mariat.”

  “No one can see the future,” she protested. “It’s in Rulve’s hands. I think you’re letting foolish gossip worry you far too much. It will soon be forgotten. None of it was true in the first place, and truth always wins out in the end.”

  Riah returned to scrubbing a sleeve between her rough, red knuckles. “Truth is a hard, sharp thing,” she muttered, “with many cutting edges. It isn’t easily grasped.”

  Mariat remembered that her aunt, as well as some of her older visitors, were often anxious and seemed to look for things to worry about. She had also noticed that many mothers feared to lose their only sons and wanted to keep them near throughout their old age. If marriage lay in the future, Riah should have no concern, for it was exactly as the adage had it: she would be gaining a daughter, not losing a son.

  “Thank you for caring about me,” Mariat said gently, “but not long ago a wise woman”—an old wise woman in a green and white tent—“advised me regarding your son. One of the things she said was to have courage and follow my heart. You did this exact thing, Riah, when you came all the way from Ullar-Sent to this foreign land. People in love do such things, no matter what the cost. So don’t worry about my heart. It will be fine.”

  Riah’s shoulders sagged. She wrung out the second shirt and dropped it into the rinse water. “Sheft is in the barn.”

  Mariat walked through the yard, her breath visible in the cold air. The old woman in Ferce had given her other advice regarding Sheft: “Leave whole the heart, or break it.” In other words, accept him the way he was and don’t try to change him. Easy enough to do, since she loved him.

  Or, came the unbidden thought, did the old lady mean something else, not quite so easy?

  It was quiet inside the barn. Sheft was on his knees, tightening the wheel of an old cart. He glanced up, quickly pulled down his rolled-up sleeve, and continued working.

  She settled onto the straw beside him. “You’re going to use this old thing?” The cart had only a single central shaft that hitched it to the horse.

  “For the chickens. During bitter cold spells, when we bring them into the barn.”

  He wasn’t looking at her, and she sensed something was wrong. “The shaft is starting to crack, there in the middle.”

  “My fa—Tarn says leave it alone.”

  Mariat studied the side of his face, the tension in his jaw. “What is it, Sheft?”

  For a moment he didn’t answer, but then sat back on his heels and looked at her. She was caught again by his eyes. They had become beautiful to her, but now they were brimming with so much pain they almost seemed to bleed. A muscle twitched in his throat, and he averted his gaze.

  Something had happened to him. She remembered what she had glimpsed moments ago—a raw red cut on his arm.

  The Rites. With her mother’s death, she had forgotten about them. Her father and brother were not required to attend this year, and they all spent the evening quietly together. But Sheft had been out last night. He had endured something she did not know, and was wounded. Very gently, she put her hand over his arm.

  He stiffened, but did not pull away. He just knelt there, staring at the ground and trembling under her touch.

  He was in need, and she loved him. She drew him close and pushed his pale head into the curve of her neck and shoulder.

  Something in him cracked. His arms came tightly around her, and he shook with emotion.

  “It’s all right, Sheft,” she murmured. “It’s all right, my darling.”

  He didn’t answer. As if he were desperate, he clutched a handful of her hair.

  A chill entered her heart. It was almost as if he were trying to say good-bye.

  Chapter 17. Toltyr

  The next morning, Sheft stood at the sideboard and, at his mother’s behest, scraped at the stubborn, burned-on clumps at the bottom of her cast iron stew pot. The Rite-wound, even after three days, still stung, as if Wask’s deadly mind-summons had somehow affected it. Dredging up ice left him so drained the odious job was taking far too long.

  He should have spoken to Mariat yesterday. He should have told her everything was over between them. But Riah kept calling him for more firewood, more water, with such insistence that Mariat had finally gone home.

  Tarn banged through the door. He’d evidently had to spend the night in Ferce and looked to be in a bad mood. Ignoring Sheft, Tarn hung up his cloak and, sounding slightly hoarse, spoke to Riah. “I had to spend twenty ducats at the inn and an outrageous price for the rooster. Out and out robbery.” He swallowed. “And now I seem to have gotten a sore throat.”

  Sheft didn’t want to deal with Tarn’s bad mood. He wiped his greasy hands on a rag and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Tarn asked harshly.

  “To unharness Padiky.”

  “Leave it. I have to haul mulch to the paper-plants.” He turned back to Riah, who was mending socks on the nodding chair. “On the way through the village I spoke to Dorik. He said Olan had fallen ill just after Ane’s funeral, and now his daughter is sick. His wife as well. He’s afraid it’s the fluenza, and that it will spread. Better make me some tea with wine, Riah. I have too much to do to get sick.”

  She put down her mending and went into the cupboard. “The healers in Ullar-Sent,” she remarked, “would say the drone-flies brought it on.”

  “Well, the cold weather has killed them now.” He took his seat on the bench at the table. “That wasn’t all Dorik had to say.”

&n
bsp; Sheft folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “I’m sure it wasn’t. I’m probably accused of something else now. Arson maybe—that I started our own chicken shed on fire.”

  The man he had known as Father glared up at him. “How typical of you. A man has been found dead, the priestess wants to disband the council, and all you can think of is yourself.”

  The words ripped through Sheft’s foggy head like a knife, followed by a stab of guilt. Another death? Dread curled in his stomach.

  “Who died?” Riah asked. She put a steaming mug of tea in front of Tarn.

  “Greak. He left the Rites, driving too fast. Apparently he veered off the road and a wheel sank into the ditch.”

  It was more than driving too fast, Sheft knew. Panic had been at everyone’s back that night. He sank down on the bench across from Tarn.

  “Temo is saying,” Tarn went on, “that he and his father were down by the hollow, trying to get the wagon out, when their horse started getting restive. It pricked up its ears and kept turning its head to look back the way they had come. Temo couldn’t see around the bend there, but he heard something dragging itself up the road. Something big and powerful.”

  He took a sip of his tea, grimaced slightly, and then continued. “They had just pulled the wagon free when their horse bolted and left them behind. Temo claims he saw a man-shape emerging out of the dark and heard the sound of night-beetles. He ran. He swears Greak was right behind him, swears he heard his labored breathing. But his father wasn’t behind him when Temo got home.”

  Tarn glanced at the hearth. “Is there any oatmeal left? I didn’t want to spend the ridiculous price they wanted for breakfast at the inn.”

  Riah brought him a bowl, and Tarn spooned a chunk of butter into it. “The wife and son,” he said, “supposedly cowered in their house all night, but Greak never appeared. In the morning they found the body. The cloak and hood were intact. But not the rest of him.”

  Sheft sat numb. He had bled at the Rites, and another man died. He couldn’t tell himself it was a coincidence this time. Hidden under his sleeve, the unhealing Rite-wound writhed on his arm, and he once more bore down on his spirikai for ice.

  Tarn took a spoonful of oatmeal and swallowed it. “Greak was getting on in years and was shaken by the Rites. Exertion caused by panic no doubt proved too much for him. As for the state of the body when it was found, any corpse left out in the night would certainly fall prey to scavengers, including night-beetles.” He took another spoonful. “This seems to be helping,” he said to Riah.

  “Is the council going to conduct another inquiry, like it did in Redstar?”

  Tarn frowned, as if troubled by the question. “No one seems to have asked for one.”

  Which was odd, Sheft thought. The priestess was eager enough to demand an inquiry when Dorik’s son-in-law died.

  Riah sat down on the nodding chair and picked up her mending. “So what’s this about Parduka wanting to disband the council?”

  Tarn reached for the honey, stirred some into his tea, and turned to face her. “Dorik warned me that something is going on in the village. People are complaining about criminals running free, about foreigners taking over.” He chewed his lip. “Some are saying Greak would be alive if the council had made another decision in Redstar. A few loudmouths are actually calling our faction murderers.”

  Riah said nothing, but her face seemed to pale.

  “Parduka’s behind all this. She’d like nothing better than to form a new council, one more open to her obsession with reviving the old ways.” He pushed his empty bowl away and clutched the mug. “Things aren’t looking good, Riah. All I’ve worked for is in danger of crumbling away. I stopped in at the alehouse. Cloor was friendly enough, but not many others. I could cut the hostility with a knife.”

  Tarn took a sip of his tea, put the mug down, and turned to Sheft. “Based on what I heard today, I’ve been forced to make a decision. I’ve done all I can for you. For your own safety, if nothing else, you must leave the area. That’s the easiest way—perhaps the only way now—to protect the council and stabilize the situation in the village.” He turned his head, thoughtfully rapped his knuckles on the table, then looked back at him. “But you can’t leave yet; it will look as if you’re running away, as if my enemies are right. Dorik, Rom, and Cloor can handle Parduka until after the spring plowing. I expect you to stay confined to my fieldhold until then. After that, I will get hirelings to help me.”

  Sheft stood, anger flaring. “I’ve already decided to leave.” Not for his own safety—far from it. “But it’ll be before the spring planting and after Etane’s wedding.”

  Riah looked up, her forehead wrinkled with concern. “But where will you go?”

  “It’s obvious,” he answered. “I’ll go home.”

  He stormed out of the house, but made it only as far as the well. Still shaky from ice-reaction, he slumped down with his back against it, bright sunlight cutting into his eyes. Tree branches, almost leafless now, cast sharp-edged shadows over the yard.

  He had no home. And, in spite of what Tarn said, he was responsible for two deaths. If he had been quicker with the ice back in Redstar, Greak would still be alive. If he had refused to attend the Rites, Temo would still have a father. But he hadn’t.

  Nor had he told Mariat it was over between them. Instead—and the thought brought on a wave of self-loathing—he had allowed her to touch him, embrace him, yesterday in the barn.

  He picked up a stone and threw it as hard as he could at the star-nut tree. His root-ridden blood itched inside him. An urgent desire seized him: to slash his veins with the carving knife and let the malignancy inside him rush out. But even at the thought, his spirikai constricted. Ice rushed through him, seeking a wound that didn’t exist. It was denying him any easy escape. His own spirikai had decreed his fate: to bear the guilt for two murders for the rest of his life.

  Nausea rose in his throat, and he lowered his head between his knees. The gravelly soil between his boots came slowly into focus. It brought a harrowing question. What if it happened again? What if some accident between now and Etane’s wedding proved too much for the ice?

  Horror jerked him upright. He should leave immediately. He should get up and start walking.

  But, he suddenly remembered, the Groper rarely stirred in the dead of winter. It hated frost, snow, and the frozen ground. He had time to fulfill a promise to his only friend, who stood by him when most of the villagers turned against him. Time to say good-bye to the woman he loved with all his heart.

  Then he’d do what he must: begin the long journey to his homeland. Bearing the shame of who he was, and what he had done, all the way.

  He got to his feet and spent the rest of the morning raking the now dry hay into ricks. He did this chore methodically, stifling all thoughts and feelings. Tarn took a wagonload and headed toward the field. Soon after, Riah called him in for lunch.

  He stared at the soup in front of him, a spoon in his hand, vaguely aware that his mother, who had been pacing in front of the hearth, now stood with her arms folded at the head of the table.

  “You cannot go to the holding in the north,” she said.

  “I’m going,” he said curtly.

  “You cannot go there because it does not exist.”

  What? He looked up at her.

  “Tarn believes the story he told you is the truth. It’s not. You were born in some other place altogether.”

  “What other place?”

  “You were born in Shunder, across the Riftwood. You must go back there, and soon. That is why I am telling you this now, S’eft.”

  The spoon slipped out of his hand and clattered against the table. Her use of the dreaded name, for the second time in three days, shocked him. And there was nothing beyond the Riftwood. It went on forever.

  “Are you hearing me?” Riah asked him sharply, but now she was someone else, the mother who was a stranger.

  “You said the holding does not exist. Wh
at about this Neal? Does he not exist as well?”

  “He was my husband. That is true enough.”

  “Therefore Neal was my father, right?”

  Staring evenly at him, she waited a heartbeat too long to respond. “We hope he was.”

  A warning clamored inside him, like the one that had saved his life in the wheat field. Out of the unknown, something sharp and lethal was spinning toward him, and somehow he must seize the handle and live. “What do you mean you hope Neal was my father? Was he or wasn’t he?”

  Riah lowered herself onto the bench across from him. “Please sit.”

  He discovered he was standing and reluctantly sat down.

  “You and I were born in Shunder, a land that lies between the Riftwood and the Eeron River. Our home is a beautiful place, S’eft, yet our people suffer greatly. They are oppressed by a malevolent lord, who seizes their children and ravages their land. Only morue relieves their pain. This is an addictive herb hybridized by this lord, and he alone controls who sells it. Those entrapped by it would die for its purple leaves and cannot live without them.”

  Her gaze was level, her voice composed. Only the tense lines around her mouth revealed any emotion. “Neal and I were wed one month. We lived in a small community called the Seani, which has long opposed the evil that looms over Shunder. In the course of a spy-mission into the lord’s stronghold, my husband and I were taken and separately held captive.”

  She transferred her gaze to the hearth. “They questioned me, then locked me in a cell and left me alone in the dark. I was young and afraid, but still held about me the confidence of the Seani-born. Until someone entered.” Lines deepened around her mouth. “He made use of me, and I could not prevent it.”

  Even though the hearth fire crackled only a few strides away, a dank chill settled on him.

  Riah went on, calm and distant, as if she were telling him about some long-ago dream. “Afterward, he asked my name. He repeated it—so strangely, like a long breath: ‘Ree-aahh.’ Sometimes I hear it, at the edge of my nightmares, the whisper of my own name.”