Haemas could feel her father’s stunned surprise.
“Have you ever wondered why she had no place for you in her heart, you, the only living son she ever bore?” Danih fixed him with a flinty stare. “The truth is she bore no living son and you were always indelible proof of that sorrow.”
Dervlin’s hands slipped from the child, and he sat back on the stiff dead grass, his face gone white. “You lie!” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Does the name of Enya Falt mean anything to you?” Danih lay her cheek against the sobbing child’s face. “When Mother couldn’t provide an heir, Father generated one down in the Lowlands, then brought you home for her to raise. `Not even from a Highlands House,’ as she used to say.”
Dervlin Tal sat in numb silence as his sister regained her feet, cradling the babe. She arranged the blanket around the wailing child’s red face and looked back at her brother, radiating contempt. Then she turned toward Tal’ayn.
“Don’t think this is finished, Danih!” Dervlin flung after her rigid back. “I’ll see you pay for the dishonor you’ve brought upon this House!”
Haemas heard crashing through the knee-high grass, then saw Jarid rushing toward the lone figure at the stream.
Jarid! She called to him before realizing.
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. Shock crossed his face, then his lip curled back in a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t the skivit. I didn’t know the Darkness gave up its dead that easily.” He looked around and ran a trembling hand back through his sweat-slicked bright-gilt hair. “Although that scene could have passed for Darkness itself.”
The shrilling vibrations redoubled, and she realized it was his nearness. Fighting the pain, she forced herself to move closer. “We have to leave before—”
The same agony was mirrored in his high-cheekboned face. “If I can’t kill him in my own time, at least I can do away with the son-of-a-bitch here!”
“It won’t make any difference!” Haemas clenched her hands, fighting to make her lungs breathe, to keep from crumpling to her knees. Pain sang through every cell in her body. “Nothing will change!”
Jarid wavered on his long legs, then laughed hoarsely. “Just think. If I kill him in this time-frame, you’ll never even be born!”
The dissonance hammered through Haemas’s head. “It may not have even happened this way! This may only be an Otherwhen.” She swallowed hard, blinking at the dark-blue mist thickening in front of her eyes. “And if you intervene, this will only shift into an Otherwhen. You can’t change what has already happened!”
Jarid put one hand to his head, his face ashen, his forehead furrowed. She could feel him trying to fight off the frightful buildup of dissonant energies. “Watch me!” he snarled, then staggered through the leafless trees toward the stream.
The younger version of Dervlin Tal stood on the bank, trim and fit as the father she knew had not been for many years. He watched them with narrowed suspicious eyes. “Who are you? Why are you sniffing around my land?”
The air was growing dense and increasingly difficult to breathe. Haemas forced her rubbery legs after her tall cousin. Electric blueness whipped through the space around her. The ground seemed to writhe beneath her bare feet. Jarid! she called. You must come away now!
Ahead of her, Jarid’s tall form stumbled against a tree, then recovered. How could he bear the dissonance? Another few seconds of the head-splitting pain and she, herself, would be beyond caring how this affair ended.
Jarid closed with her father on the bank of the stream. For a second, the two men hung there together, outlined black against the orange-red of the setting sun. She saw Jarid’s hands clench around her father’s neck, then a burst of mental energy dazzled her even where she stood, yards away. Jarid sagged heavily into the yellow grass.
Dervlin Tal watched with bemused eyes as she wrenched at Jarid’s limp arm. As she touched him, the dissonance increased, a thousand out-of-tune lute strings screeching inside her head.
“Get up!” she shouted at him through numb lips. “We have to go back!”
Jarid blinked at her, confusion written in his face. Then he managed to stumble onto his feet and swayed against her, fighting the pain. She took a step forward, trying to align herself with the line enough to go back. Jarid started to follow, then slumped against her shoulder, pale eyes rolling back in his head. The whirling blueness around them darkened, obscuring the stream and Tal’ayn, her father.
“Try!” she screamed at Jarid, her fingers digging into the arm she’d looped across her shoulders. “You have to try! I can’t take you by myself!”
Even as she said it, she knew he could not. His mind had been weakened from the effort to come here and the dissonance, and then dazed by the stunning blow he’d received. Even his shields were down.
The increasing blue darkness roared in her ears as they hung there together, then the reality finally penetrated her conscious mind. His shields were down. She could shield him.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on wrapping around his mind as Summerstone had shown her. Nothing of his disrupting energies must escape. She stepped forward again and he stumbled after her. Danih’s angry face floated through her mind. If it were not for me, Haemas found herself thinking, she would still live.
But that wasn’t right . . . She’d been born years later. That was Jarid’s thought. Haemas shook her head, then dragged the dead weight of her cousin another step forward. Had the roaring lessened? She was afraid to drop her shields and find out.
Anger . . . sorrow . . . rage . . . burned through her like white-hot pokers. What right had those smug old men to keep him, a Tal, from his rightful place as heir of Tal’ayn?
She recoiled from the violence of his mind. Her shields slipped and the dissonance without was so great she feared they would both be ripped apart. Drawing his hurtful seething mind close again, she thickened her shields and tried to summon strength for a final step.
Hatred raced snarling through her mind, hatred of her Killian blood and her pale eyes, so like his . . . loathing for himself because of what he was and what he could never be . . . and above all, greed for Tal’ayn, her birthright, the one thing they would never let him have.
She embraced his hateful, scalding mind, then managed one more step and fell to her knees. His body slipped from her exhausted arms and flopped to the floor.
For a terrifying moment, she huddled there, shields locked, fearful that when she looked up, there would be nothing but the awful yawning blue maelstrom.
A hand touched her shoulder. Taking a shallow breath, she opened her eyes and looked up into the dark-brown eyes of the chierra servant.
DERVLIN TAL’S impatient strides burst through the anxious, whispering knots of servants and endless Senn mothers, cousins, wives, and daughters gathered in the halls of Senn’ayn. They scattered out of his way, then stared after him with wide, worried eyes. Lord High Master Ellirt puffed in an effort to keep up. “The healer said you should rest,” he repeated to Tal’s back.
“Damn healers don’t know nearly as much as they think they do!” Tal snapped without slowing. “It’s just a scratch!”
Ellirt sighed and followed him around a corner. The so-called “scratch” from Alyssa’s blade seemed rather more like a gash to him. And, even though Healer Ekran, who had been representing the Healer’s Guild at the ceremony, had tended the wound after Alyssa had been subdued, Tal refused to wait long enough for him to do any real healing, and now Ellirt sensed the seeping warmth of blood beneath the thick shoulder bandage.
The word from Healer Alimn was that she was all right, he said to Dervlin. I don’t think we really need run.
Silence descended between them like a closed door. Very well, Ellirt thought, shut everyone out. Why should things be any different than they had always been?
Tal’s carpet-muffled steps swerved into an open doo
rway. A dozen strides behind, Ellirt cast his mind ahead—Haemas was in that room, and Jarid Tal Ketral, as well as others, and many of them had fared badly.
Ellirt followed him into the large library and picked his way through the shocked onlookers. The air was thick with the smell of heated metal and the stench of burned flesh. He halted at a long table where Birtal Senn’s head rested on outstretched arms. The palms of his upturned hands were scorched. He touched the man’s temple with his fingertips; nothing remained of the old friend of his long-ago childhood but an empty husk.
Several more men seated around the long table radiated pain and fear and confusion. Ellirt placed his hand on the sleeve of Kimbrel Killian, one of his former students, and reached out with his mindsenses to assess the damage. The young man flinched, and, through his tattered shields, Ellirt glimpsed the raw agony that had seared his mind. Overload burn, he thought, then withdrew, shuddering.
The man next to Kimbrel slumped in his chair, his head lolling to the right, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. It was one of the older Sennays, Ellirt wasn’t sure which. He shook his head, appalled at the waste of lives.
“Get up!” Dervlin Tal’s voice, shrill with anger, rose above the muffled confusion in the room. “Get off the damned floor and face me like a man!”
Ellirt made his way to the corner where Jarid Ketral sprawled on his back across the thick-piled rug, the Senn healer kneeling at his side. His eyes were closed and his raspy breathing was shallow.
“You made him what he is!” Haemas Tal pushed between her father and her unconscious cousin. “Now leave him alone. He’ll pay for what he’s done, but if you had ever given him one moment of understanding—or even respect—we might not be here like this.”
Ellirt could feel the frightening fury boiling through Tal’s mind. Not now. He gripped the other man’s shoulder. And not here. This should be resolved between the two of you in private.
Petar Alimn, the Senn healer, straightened and ran a hand back through his thinning hair. “I’ve done what I can for the moment, but he’s very weak. He will need rest and constant looking after for a few days. I can arrange for care here at Senn’ayn.”
Ellirt drew the healer aside. “The Council will want to question him when he has recovered,” he said in a low voice. “See that a guard is kept on his door round the clock—a Kashi guard.”
The healer nodded and motioned to a pair of chierra servants waiting with a litter. “Take this one up to a guest bedroom. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He stood and crossed to Kimbrel Killian’s side.
Haemas retreated as the servants moved in with the litter, then clutched a chair as her knees buckled.
Tal reached for her arm. “You’re coming back to Tal’ayn with me.” His voice was brusque. “We’ll discuss this later.”
The girl jerked away from his touch, her head held high. “I think not.”
“You will come home and behave like a proper daughter for a change!” His anger lashed out like an whip.
Ellirt sensed the girl’s energy reserves were almost gone. He moved quickly to her side. “The Council will also have a number of questions for the Lady Haemas. If she wishes, she can go back with me to Shael’donn until Senn’ayn selects a new representative and a quorum can be seated for the inquiry.”
Go home and see to your wife, Dervlin, he added. I’m afraid Alyssa will have much to answer for as well.
A tremor passed through Tal’s body. Then he turned and stalked out of the room, his shoulders rigid.
Haemas waited until he was gone, then sank bonelessly into the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. Her breath came in long, shuddering gasps. From behind, Ellirt laid a monitoring hand across her forehead; her skin was cold, clammy, and in her mind, he felt a dark, spinning exhaustion, threatening to pull her down into unconsciousness.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “Let go now. You’re safe, and everything will sort itself out.” With a sigh, she sagged back against him, close to collapse.
Supporting her shoulders, Ellirt motioned to the nearest servant. “Bring the Lady Haemas some keiria tea,” he said, “and make it strong.” The servant bowed and dashed out the door.
He took her icy fingers in his, trying to lend her his strength. How had she even survived? Somehow she had managed to channel psionic energies at levels that had killed half the grown men in this room and incapacitated the rest, all of them men who had received the best training the Highlands had to offer.
At his side, a pair of servants loaded Senn’s lifeless body on another litter and crossed the limp arms over the motionless chest. Such a waste, he thought, and for what? What good could any of this possibly have done the Kashi Houses?
* * *
Jarid Tal Ketral’s pale eyes stared straight ahead as two sturdy Rald younger sons, armed with brightly polished swords and daggers, led him before the Council of Twelve. An air of nervous anticipation rippled through the assembled spectators, both male and female, drawn from every High House in Highlands. Arranged around the clerestory ledge of the circular chamber, twelve fluted urns of mind-conjured chispa-fire cast a sickly blue pallor across the prisoner’s face. His eyes were fever-bright, his skin almost translucent. The Ralds positioned him before the Council’s dais, then stationed themselves at the door.
Seated between Kevisson Monmart and Master Ellirt in the back, Haemas shifted restlessly. Jarid had haunted her whole life, poisoned her relationship with her father, and tried to kill her, yet she remembered his raging despair when she’d enclosed his mind with hers and found their thoughts mingling; in that searing moment she had seen, beneath all the hatred and anger, the most miserable soul she had ever known.
Dervlin Kentnal Tal led the High Lords into the chamber and assumed his place at the center of the half-circle, his mouth thin and determined. “Brothers, today we must pass judgement on this Kashi who comes before us.”
The remaining eleven heads, ranging in hue from white to the purest shade of gold, nodded. Haemas noted how Aaren Killian lounged back, his elbows braced on the arms of his ornate leather-upholstered chair, and gazed at Jarid over locked fingers. This was as much his fault as anyone’s, she thought. Jarid might have had a chance if Killian had acknowledged him as his son and raised him at Killian’ayn. She closed her eyes, seeing Danih’s agonized face as she fought for the despised, wailing child cradled in her desperate arms.
“You know from my own testimony, and that of the Lady Haemas, Jarid Tal Ketral has violated every vow given at his Naming.” Tal’s intense golden gaze swept the room. “And he professes no repentance concerning his crimes.”
A savage smile flashed across Jarid’s haggard face.
“Will any here speak for him before sentence is pronounced?” Tal looked to the man seated at the far right end of the half-circle. The Lord of Chee’ayn shook his head. Tal turned to the next in line.
One by one, each High Lord shook his head.
Lastly, Tal looked to the Lord of Killian’ayn, who spread his hands on the shining oak. Then his fingers knotted into fists and his head gave a tight, nearly imperceptible shake.
“Through the consensus of the Council, then, I must pronounce the maximum sentence allowable, short of execution.” Dervlin Tal squared his shoulders. “It is our decision that Jarid Tal Ketral have his mindsenses burned out, then be remanded to the Lowlands to work the remainder of his natural life at hard labor.”
A hint of amusement leaked from Jarid’s mind. I’ll see you in Darkness first, old man!
The onlookers gasped as Jarid flung a bolt of psi energy with murderous intensity at the two Ralds by the door. The pair staggered, then wilted to the floor without a sound.
On her feet and shoving through the startled crowd without even thinking, Haemas scrambled toward the dais. She felt the energy disperse about the chamber, the backwash prickling through her mind.
She could feel Jarid’s concentration as he summoned what strength he had left after that first stunning blow. Haemas pushed through the final row of white-faced spectators gaping at the prisoner.
Coward! she flung at Jarid. It’s me that you want to kill! It’s always been me! Take me!
Dream-slow, he turned in a half-crouch to face her, his high-cheekboned Tal face ablaze with hatred. You would have been next, Cousin. The reflected blue chispa lights danced in his eyes. But if you can’t wait your turn . . .
The buildup of energy in his mind was blinding. Fear knotted her stomach. He would never be able to channel so much, and she would never be able to shield against it. Sweat ran freely down her face as she stood before him, paralyzed by fear. It wasn’t fair, she thought, staring into Jarid’s feral eyes, he was going to win after all.
He always won.
She recalled Summerstone’s words . . . Fear is but a sister whispering in your ear to keep you from harm.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering the hard-won knowledge she’d acquired fighting her fears. Fear was meant to guide, not control.
Jarid laughed. Now, skivit, his mental voice hissed at her, shall we settle the inheritance of Tal’ayn once and for all?
Think not of fearing, Summerstone’s voice spoke in her memory. Think of living.
Haemas suddenly became aware of the sweet edge of crystalline vibration that always sang below the level of ordinary perception. She dropped her shields and wrenched her mind into alignment with the courtyard portal crystals, darting down the first blue line that appeared to her.
In the middle of the room, Jarid flung his bolt, then stared fixedly at the spot where she had stood. He hesitated, puzzlement written on his face, then doubled over and collapsed to the floor.
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