Halfblood Heritage

by Rheaume, Laura

“Yeah. Let me take a look.” He opened the door, peeking his head in quickly before pulling it out and shutting the door again. He shook his head, this time appreciatively, and told Rend, who had just returned with a duffle bag and a medium length stick, “Three asps.”

  “Okay, you’ve got to respect the resourcefulness.”

  Smoke explained to Scythe, “They’re not indigenous to this area and difficult to handle, what with being so poisonous. I’m giving it 5 out of 6 for style and...4 of 6 for cheek.”

  “Agreed, but for effectiveness, a negative 2.”

  “We are not worried, because...?” asked Scythe, feeling very concerned about finding poisonous snakes in his room.

  “Well, actually, you should feel lucky. They’re not trying to kill you right out. They’re just sending you a little ‘I love you not’ note, the type of message that would only kill you if you’re dumb or slow. Since you are neither, you should be safe, right?”

  “If you were Human, you would have just walked right in and probably been bitten a bunch of times and died. But, since you’ve got Kin senses, you picked it up like anyone else would have. In other words, they’re messing with you.”

  “So, I can expect more snakes.”

  “Oh, no. They won’t repeat, would you?” Rend asked Smoke.

  “No way. It’ll be something different next time, and increasingly harder, I imagine. That’s what I’d do.”

  “Yup. Unfortunately for them, though, we’re just too weak willed to pass up the opportunity to use a sweet trio of snakes when we’re handed one. Be right back.” Rend took his bag and the stick and went into the room, cajoling, “Here you go, sweetie...”

  “So, this is good news?” asked Scythe, admiring how calmly Rend handled the situation and hoping he could be half as good at it someday.

  “Well, it means that at least one faction of people, probably some frustrated jokers in the rank and file, are going to channel their resentment of your existence into this type of threat, instead of really putting their minds into wiping you out. That takes a little of the stress out of our job, but not much. We still have to keep an eye on you, because there are just too many people who are hating the Humans right now. Later, things may cool off, who knows?”

  There was some banging around in the room and a little screech, “Holy son of a leprous water buffalo!” Then they heard another smashing sound, something that sounded a lot like a chair getting thrown across the room.

  Smoke raised his eyes, calling, “What? You having trouble already?”

  “No, I got it. Why am I snake guy, again?”

  “Because I’m insect guy, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Hold on, you little twisty beady eyed...What the hell! Smoke, you dung for brains idiot! There are four asps in here!”

  “Nope. I counted three.” Completely unconcerned, he shrugged his shoulders at Scythe.

  “Well, there’s one under the bed, and I think it’s the mother.”

  “Look, can we hurry it up?” complained Smoke. “I’m gonna take Scythe down to the steambath and keep an eye out while you mess around here.”

  Ignoring the cursing coming from the room, Smoke led Scythe down the hall to the steam room and stood watch outside for the twenty minutes it took his muscles to relax. Scythe then showered off quickly and dressed in clothing appropriate for meeting with a governor’s son: a tailored uniform in the same dark blue colors as his Blade uniform. He rubbed his hands over the smooth material and the crisp, recently ironed pleats. A Blade uniform. His Blade uniform. It was magnificent, and he had a hard time not smiling like an idiot when he had finished putting it on.

  Chapter 8

  Smoke and Rend took turns showering so that one of them could always be with Scythe in his new and improved, snake-free room. Scythe opted to sit on a chair which he had placed in the corner even though Rend had already stowed the duffel bag--strangely still for having four snakes inside--in his room. He felt better when he could easily see the entire room.

  Finally, the three of them headed up one of the large spiral staircases to the seventh level with the two other Blades that had joined them. Lex took the lead and a new man named Ungol followed behind.

  “Rend, how long do you think this will last?” Scythe asked, glancing around him nervously.

  “What?”

  “The everyone-wants-me-dead thing.”

  “Oh, that. Smoke?”

  “Forever.”

  “That was my guess, too. We’re going with ‘forever’ on this one.”

  Scythe frowned, “The Humans were impossible to live with, but they didn’t want me dead...”

  “Are you wanting to go back there?”

  “No, the city is a cold, lonely prison for a halfblood, but I’m not sure this is much better. I’m pretty scared most of the time.”

  “You should be scared all the time. We have got to work on that. We can’t win the bet with an attitude like that.”

  “Come on, no jokes.”

  “No jokes? That would be scary.” With a glance at Scythe’s face after his frustrated growl, Smoke relented, “Okay, no jokes. Look, Mismatch, you’re going to have to suck it up, keep vigilant all the time, and I think, eventually, you’ll be able to function here somehow. What are your alternatives? Where else are you gonna go?”

  Rend added, “If you make it past training, you’ll be a Blade; that counts for a lot to most people. For one, you won’t be so easy to kill; for another, you’ll have at least fifteen badass fighters at your back all the time. Finally, and most importantly, once you are a Blade, you’re one of us, a brother, and no one hurts our brother. The team’s honor will be at risk if you are taken down, of course, but it’s more than that. Keyrin talks about the Blood of the Kin all the time, right? Well, there’s a similar feeling in the Blades. We are bound together, we look after each other, no matter what.”

  Smoke said, “Blade warriors know how to get what they want, and if something happens to one of ours, even if it’s a halfblood, we are gonna get some vengeance. For example, those snakes are gonna end up causing a lot of mayhem, four times the difficulty that we had with them. That will be a big deterrent to most people; they’ll think long and hard before coming after you once you’re a Blade. That was our thinking, anyway, when we talked to Keyrin.”

  Scythe stopped in his tracks and stared at them. “The Blades was your idea?”

  “Sure, who else?”

  They had stepped forward. For him.

  Scythe’s chest suddenly felt like it was going to burst and the burning was back in his eyes at thinking about the many ways that his old friends were looking out for him, about them risking their lives for him. He wanted to say something, but his throat was closing up again, so he whispered, “Thanks, for that.” He bowed his head, humbled and a little embarrassed about the tears he felt forming.

  Smoke put an arm behind Scythe’s back and pushed him forward. “Look, no crying. Keyrin is gonna think we’ve mistreated you and assign you to Creed or someone.”

  “Yeah, stop with the crying.”

  Scythe nodded, brushing his eyes off and looking straight ahead.

  “Seriously, Blades don’t cry. They have their tear ducts removed.”

  “No, that’s not it. Blades sear them closed with a red hot poker.”

  “No, you’ve got it wrong again, Rend. Blades replace their tear ducts with scorpion venom ducts, which they use to poison their targets.”

  “I’ve got it, Blades constrict their ducts so that the salty tears shoot out, blinding their enemies.” He pantomimed a salty tear attack, shooting invisible tears at Lex’s back.

  “Actually, when you become a Blade, your tears transform into acid, which you use to burn your way through sheet metal.”

  “And the winner is...” announced Rend, grinning at Scythe who had finally broken into laughter.

  “It’s got to be the venom ducts, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, venom or acid.”
/>   “In any case, Blades don’t cry.”

  “In public.”

  “I cried once, when I dropped a muffin. It was one of those apple ones, with the crunchy tops...”

  “But you didn’t cry in public.”

  “Oh, no, I’d never do that. It was in the bathtub, after.”

  Lex called back to them, “We’re here, idiots. Shut the hell up.” He mumbled under his breath, “Cannot stand your damn bizarre rambling.”

  They stopped at a pair of ornately decorated double doors that stood at least ten feet tall. The closed doors were guarded by two men. One was a Blade named Durn, and the other was a soldier wearing a red and black uniform.

  Lex spoke to Durn, “Delivery.” The man turned and knocked on the door, whispering to someone just on the other side. Lex then nodded to the second man. “Heya, Night. How you been?”

  “Better than you, I expect. This him?” He looked Scythe over, appraising him. His eyes finally settled with a grimace on Scythe’s face.

  Smoke and Rend stood on either side of him, assuming the deceptively casual stance that Scythe had seen them use when he entered the Kin city. Scythe felt the tension in the hall jump. Something was going on between the Blades and this other soldier. Instinctively, he knew that he couldn’t show weakness there, so he resisted the temptation to look at the Blades and returned Night’s stare. He pulled from his center a blanket of calm which he wrapped around himself, letting it fall over his face and settle in his eyes. His heartbeat was slow and steady.

  Night’s lifted his eyebrow a little, interested.

  While he stood in the middle of his focused, centered state, Scythe was suddenly moved by a strange compulsion. In his mind, in that place that knew that Lena’s power was like dark blue flames, something stirred. Night’s eyes started to become transparent, thinning out until they were like glass. Scythe realized that he could, if he wanted to, look through the eyes into the man. It occurred to him to try to ‘read’ him: to see, as clearly as he could, what kind of man he was. He let his gaze settle more deeply in the man’s eyes, not realizing that his own eyes started to transform from a deep, murky green to a brighter forest green.

  Spheres coalesced in an enormous space, each with their own mental identity. This one held an image of Night standing watch in ...

  Night, already surprised by the young boy’s composure, was jarred when the youth’s eyes started to change color. Unnerved, he looked away, unknowingly breaking the link that was growing between them. When he glanced back at Scythe, his eyes were the original dark green, making him wonder if he had imagined the unnatural change in the first place. Scythe hadn’t moved or lost any of his calm, but continued to stare at him. Night swallowed once, trying to pull himself together in front of the Blades. “He’s just a whelp.”

  “For now, he’s our whelp. What do you think of him?” asked Lex, curious at the unusual response from his old friend.

  “He’s a halfblood. There’s nothing to think.”

  The door opened, and a Kin man spoke to them, “The Young Lord will see you at your leisure.”

  Scythe felt a reluctance to leave; he was filled with a strong desire to complete the connection with Night. It was as if he had had a piece of delicious pie pulled right out of his mouth before he got a single taste. When Smoke took his elbow to lead him into the room, Scythe reached out to Night, trying to catch his attention, but the man moved to his place beside the open doors, almost imperceptibly shaking his head and avoiding eye contact.

  Rend stepped between them, coolly prompting, “‘At our leisure’ really means ‘Move it.' Let’s go.” He took hold of Scythe’s other elbow, ushering him into the room with Smoke. Lex and Ungol waited outside the closing doors, joining Durn in thoughtfully watching Night.

  Smoke whispered as they stood in the center of a waiting room at least as big as their training facility, “Alright, someone tell me. What was that?”

  Rend whispered back, “No idea, but it rated a five of six at least.”

  “Scythe, what’d you do?”

  Scythe didn’t respond, beyond shaking his head. He was feeling dizzy and confused. He tried to piece together what had just happened to him. He couldn't remember ever having an impulse like that one before. The desire to hold the man’s eyes had been incredibly strong and it was only now fading, leaving behind an annoying light-headed feeling.

  When it was obvious that he wouldn’t answer, Rend whispered, “Whatever. We’ll get it out of you eventually.”

  The aide returned, motioning them into the next room. They walked into a large office with vaulted ceilings that highlighted the room’s rare feature: a huge stained-glass window that encompassed an entire wall. The brilliant glass panes, glowing with the afternoon light, showered the floor with spots of color; the window itself was a masterpiece: a beautiful mural depicting many joyful Kin celebrating a wedding, surrounded by flourishing plants and wildlife. Bookshelves lined the rest of the walls, from the floor to a height of fifteen feet; three ladders leaned up against them, one for each wall. The wall above the shelves was covered with another mural, fully ten feet high, which elaborated on the window’s theme. Below the window was a huge desk, behind which sat Keyrin, pushing aside some paperwork and folding his hands. A welcoming smile spread across his face.

  “Well, gentlemen, how is our little experiment progressing?”

  Smoke blinked once and then answered, “Well, we’ve got the Blades with us, for now. The rest are waiting to see, I think, if we’re going to stand by him.”

  “Which we are,” interjected Rend. “We had a few lookers today, and last night, but they weren’t ready to openly defy you.”

  “Or you, I imagine.”

  “Not yet, but it’s early.”

  “So, how are you feeling today, Scythe? Yesterday was a big day for hard truths. How are you managing?”

  “Well enough, thanks to these guys.”

  “And your training?”

  “It will be hard, but I’m up to it, My Lord.”

  “Keyrin, please, Scythe. Of course you are up to it. That we already knew, from long ago. Well, let’s be off then. It won’t get any easier if we wait.”

  They passed through the entryway again, pausing only when Keyrin conferred with the Blades, Night, and two other soldiers in red and black that appeared in the hall, the governor’s private guard.

  “It isn’t far, so ordinarily I wouldn’t need all of you, but I can see that the Blades are being cautious today, and I don’t blame them. Red Guard in front, Blades in the back, let’s go.”

  They followed the Red Guard down the hall, away from the outer wall and into the interior of the palace. Soon they came to a stairway that they took downward, past four flights before coming to the bottom. The noisy sounds of people talking and busily moving about was welcome after the relative quiet of the palace offices.

  Keyrin explained to Scythe as they walked down the hall, “This is the infirmary for all the Kin. It is fairly large, some sixty rooms, so we’ve never had to double up patients during peaceful times like these. This is the section for basic checkups and minor illnesses. Most people are seen here. Down there is where our babies are delivered. We may want to swing by there later, to see the new babies. That always rejuvenates me. Would you like that, Scythe?”

  “Um, sure, that would be fun.” Scythe couldn’t remember the last time he saw a baby up close. Humans didn’t feel comfortable with him around their children, with a few exceptions.

  “Are you afraid of babies?” he teased.

  “I don’t know anything about babies.”

  “Well, you’ll be watching my child soon, so you’d better start learning.” Keyrin’s obvious excitement moved him to grasp Scythe across the shoulders and hug him.

  “I’ll do that,” Scythe smiled, catching some of the man’s enthusiasm.

  “This is where our more serious patients are: Kin in need of operations, some of the terminally ill who need constant care, and
the ones in the advanced stages of diseases.” Scythe noticed that it was much quieter in this area, the staff was less boisterous and very little talk was coming out of the rooms.

  Through an open door, Scythe caught a glimpse a young child holding the hand of an elderly patient and something about the image made him pause outside the room. The girl looked up, distracted from her grief by the people gathered in the hall, looking in. Her eyes were like water to Scythe, wavering between this place and the one she’d been dwelling in, the one where her grandma was healthy. He let her see him, the side of him that knew her grief, the side that no Kin had seen. After a moment, the young girl nodded. Then she sighed, her shoulders relaxing, before looking down at her loved one again.

  “The Blood of the Kin: a healing power,” whispered Keyrin, who had backtracked to stand next to Scythe. “Let’s go.”

  Following Keyrin again, Scythe shook his head, murmuring, “I don’t know about power, but I do know about that pain.” He thought that he would like to visit that girl again.

  “The Blood of the Kin binds us all, allowing you to comfort that girl in her need. When will you believe?” he persisted.

  “I was comforted the same by a Human when my mother died...” Scythe commented, hearing the heartbeats of three of the people accompanying them speed up suddenly. That made him look sharply up at Keyrin to gauge his response.

  Keyrin smiled reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Scythe. It’s to be the truth, or nothing. That’s our agreement, right?”