Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  The sharp grey eyes met hers but Lidan didn’t flinch away this time. She held her place. She wouldn’t be afraid.

  ‘She isn’t serious, is she?’ Lidan’s question hung in the thick, hot air like vegetables in a soup.

  ‘Oh, by the stars, she’s as serious as she’s ever been.’

  ‘And if Mother Farah has a boy?’

  The Crone raised her brows and shrugged. ‘Best prepare yourself. You’re on a high ridge between disappearing from here altogether or becoming the first woman to rule this place. It’s up to you which way you fall. Not even the ancestors can tell what your mother might do.’

  Lidan shook her head. ‘She won’t do anything until Father decides. She promised.’

  ‘She’s promised many things in her days, girlie. Not all of them good, and not all of them honoured and seen through either.’ A gnarled finger stabbed towards Lidan and she recoiled. ‘You have to decide your path through this mess. Follow her, follow your father, or cut your own way? No one can tell you what’s best.’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt…’ Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, almost lost in the groans of the wind begging to be allowed in.

  ‘It might be too late for that, girlie.’ When Lidan gaped at the Crone, she whisked her aged hand and coughed. ‘Get gone, before she comes back looking for you.’

  *

  Four steps outside the door Lidan broke into a run. What had she agreed to? How had she let those awful, evil words come from her mouth?

  If I fail, then you can do whatever you think is right…

  She had all but signed the child’s death warrant! Even if she didn’t commit the act herself and her mother’s version of events came to pass, Lidan’s hands would be dripping with blood—invisible, guilty stains that would never fade.

  The echo of the words thumped in her ears as she hurried down to the village and slid breathless through the door of the stables. The place was abandoned, all the rangers and apprentices joining the daari in the hall to celebrate his next child and leaving the horses standing in their stalls. They looked at her, curious and wondering if she’d come to deliver more food to their feed-bags. Could they see the tears in her eyes?

  By the ancestors, what was happening to her family? The pillars of her world were crumbling, dragging with them the fabric of her life. She was the reason her parents bickered and fought. She was a girl. If she were a boy, there would be no reason for them to fight; there would be no competition between her mothers, no impetus to produce a son and her father could live happily with his legacy secure. Instead, he had only girls—ten of them!

  She shuddered and smudged tears across her cheeks as she unlocked Theus’s stall door and swung it wide. Because of her, the clan’s future stood in jeopardy and to secure their differing visions of how things should be, her parents seemed prepared to tear each other apart. Her mother was ready and willing to commit murder.

  Theus greeted her with his head high, and stamped a hoof as if demanding to know why he remained trapped behind walls of timber. Lidan stood before him, blocking the doorway and tried to let her racing heartbeat slow down.

  Mam says I can’t ride you… Da says I can’t ride you… What use is an heir who can’t ride?

  Before she could second-guess herself, or the horse could figure out what she was doing, Lidan slipped a halter over his head.

  No one would notice she was gone. Why would they? She was invisible. The Crone said she would become nothing once a brother was born, but she was wrong. She was already nothing. No one cared what she did, or what happened to her. Her father wouldn’t care once he had a son. Her mother wouldn’t care once she wasn’t the heir.

  She was invisible—invisible and alone.

  The horse jogged behind her to the stable door and out into the dusty common where Hummel’s gate stood open for a group of rangers and their mounts. Not waiting to see if anyone noticed, not giving them a chance to disagree or halt her, Lidan ran.

  Perhaps a voice called her name.

  She shut out all sound except for the rasp of her breath and the thump of her blood. With her horse at her side she ran into the valley at the foot of the Caine, the grass browner than tanned hide, the sky an empty expanse of azure blue, stained only with the promise of sunset. At the creek they splashed through the shallow water to the other side, Theus pulling at the halter, eager to sprint along the open valley without restraint. She ran harder, pumping her legs faster, her boots slick with the remains of last night’s frost.

  At the far western end of the valley, where grassland gave way to bush and the creek emerged from the hills and tablelands, Lidan ran out of breath. Theus snorted and pawed the ground. He wanted to run, further, deeper into the high country, but Lidan shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she panted, ‘I’m going to break you. And once I do, all on my own, Father will know I’m just like him, that I can be his heir. He doesn’t need a son. And Mother won’t have to fight him anymore. She won’t have to worry about other children. I won’t be invisible anymore. I’m going to break you and prove them all wrong.’

  The length of a fallen tree offered a step to Theus’s back, but the black horse wanted no part in her plan.

  She pulled the reins and slapped him, tried to drag him closer to the tree and shouted every command she could think of, but they all echoed unanswered through the trees. Theus stamped backwards and threw his head, held it high, and danced and kicked. Lidan scrambled to avoid the jab of a sharp hoof and slid away from a prancing rear Theus aimed at her chest.

  All the while she kept the leather reins in her hands. The rangers said to never let go when breaking a wild horse. They said the battle was lost once the beast took the reins. She found a thin stick and whipped him, and he snapped at her with huge flat teeth. He caught the stick like a hound might snag himself a bone and ripped it from her grasp, the rough bark slicing her palm wide open. In utter frustration she screamed until her throat burned and hammered his side with her fists.

  Beaten and exhausted, her chest heaving and salty tears streaming down her face, Lidan let the leather straps fall from her fingers and threw her hands in the air.

  ‘Go! Go back where you came from! They aren’t ever going to let me ride you, so what’s the point?’

  The horse started and trotted away with an offended snort. Lidan sank to the ground, sobbing.

  Stupid girl… Failed before I even started…

  If only she could be the clever girl her mother wanted. A clever girl would appreciate her mother’s efforts to secure a better future and eagerly take the opportunity in both hands. A clever girl would be interested in how she looked and how to tie her hair, so the sons of rangers and daaris noticed the long, fine lines of her neck, rather than scampering about in the mud with a forge apprentice and playing with babies in the garden. A good first daughter would be on her mother’s side, ensuring no one ever undermined her position as heir.

  It all seemed simple enough. It was a game, played by folk pretending never to move their pieces across the board. Could she play along and win? She knew she wasn’t ready for the consequences of losing…

  She stared at the creek as the eastern sky deepened from blue to black, night crawling closer, following at the heels of sunset. In the bush at her back, flocks of leafy tree dragons squawked, flapping between the trees in search of insects. The massive burnt orange monolith of the Caine stood majestic and imposing in the sky. Visible for miles in any direction, watching over the land, the silent sentinel stood strong against the forces of time in the harsh South Lands. How could she dominate such a place? She was a girl; a first daughter, but a girl nonetheless.

  She was nothing without the power of her title and position as heir. She might be invisible now, but she risked vanishing altogether if she allowed others to encroach on her status. If she wanted to be anything more than a daari’s first-wife, she had to employ the sparse tools and resources gifted by her birth. If she wanted to survive, she had to
prove everyone wrong. She wasn’t a weak little girl—she was the Tolak heir.

  Her sobbing subsided and the black muzzle of the half-broken horse exhaled hot breath across her hand. Lidan looked up at Theus. ‘You want something from me, horse?’

  He snorted and shoved his nose under her hand. The animal understood the human tongue better than a beast should.

  ‘If you want something from me, you can earn it. Nothing comes without a price; nothing is given without charge. You want carrots and bush apples, let me ride you.’ She pushed his nose away and expected him to trot into the bush and never return. Instead, Theus wandered a while cropping grass, but glanced back as if unsure what to do about this human.

  Her eyes followed his careful moves and she wished Behn could see the obvious intelligence in the animal. The apprentice reckoned he’d borne too many kicks and been stamped on too often to have any time for wild horses from the high country. He said the thin air made them stupid. Lidan disagreed. Theus was a careful, considered thinker who, once his mind was set, could not be deterred.

  She could be like that.

  He found his way to the fallen tree and stamped his hoof, obviously incensed that Lidan hadn’t noticed his cleverness. From her seat on the damp ground, eyes stinging from so many childish tears, she gave him a smirk. ‘Think you’re smart, don’t you?’

  Theus tossed his majestic black head and she climbed to her feet, the naïve girl she’d been for so many years falling to the dirt, dead and discarded like old snakeskin. Before she committed to riding him back to the Caine or dying in the attempt, she held his head and stared him in the eye. Perhaps if she said the words aloud her ancestors might see to helping her succeed.

  ‘No more fear, Theus. I won’t be afraid anymore. I’ll show them what I can do.’ Lidan tousled the mane between his ears. The log gave just enough height to get her knee over his back, and with stony confidence, Lidan swung up and took the reins as she’d seen the rangers do. ‘Walk on,’ she commanded and Theus lowered his head to oblige.

  When they strode calmly through the gate, two figures stood above the lintel on the wall. Siman and Jac stared at her in the fading light of the evening, not a word passing between them or Lidan as she continued beneath their feet. They knew the girl left with a half-broken horse, having never ridden one of her own. They knew she’d gone without the usual tools for the job; a light leather saddle, a long rope and a hair whip. They knew she didn’t have the experience to master such a beast, and yet here she was, riding him bareback, with hardly enough time passing for her to teach him a simple command.

  They showed no awareness of the old woman watching them from the ridge above the village. Lidan saw her, but made no move to acknowledge the Crone. She didn’t need to. The old woman knew what had happened and what it meant.

  Lidan wasn’t invisible anymore.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands

  Theus didn’t protest returning to his stall. He had a strange air of contentment, framed by the sweat on his flanks and the jets of hot breath clouding from his nostrils. Fed and watered, he settled for the night alongside the other horses as if he’d been born among them.

  Lidan shouldered her way through the door into the windy night. On a night like this the clan kept to the safety of sturdy walls. Hungry things found their way to villages on a bitter wind—namorras eager to feed and grow their tribe of the soulless. Tales of their long claws and sparse white hair whispered in her head as she hurried towards the light of warm fires and the protection of a thatch roof. The hall’s thick walls only slightly muted the noise echoing into the valley, windows and doorways burning bright, drums and pipes playing a beat so loud it vibrated in Lidan’s chest as she drew near.

  Across the common, Sellan shouted curses at a tine-woman and Lidan slipped into the shadows beside the empty forge. The hall suddenly lost its appeal. Her mother sounded like she was well into a rage, and by the volume of the raucous laughter, a fair amount of ale had already found its way past men’s lips and into their minds. The other children would already be in bed, saving them the sight of their drunken parents.

  Despite being the eldest of Erlon’s daughters, she was never allowed to partake in these sorts of festivities; her father sternly disapproved of his daughters witnessing feasts beyond the traditional formalities. Bed was the best option by a long shot, away from the world of a clan’s leaders and their troubles, or injured rangers and their sickening wounds. Hugging her arms around her chest, Lidan picked her way through the kitchen garden to the back of the hall and made for the rear entry to the women’s quarters.

  Grunting and gasping stopped her dead, a mess of heaving bodies and tangled limbs revealed by the dim light of torches and stars. Lidan slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and started backwards. A man’s bare backside and a woman’s limp, bare legs jerked and pumped in an inconsistent rhythm, the rest of them hidden deep in shadow.

  The grunts quickened, as did the thrusting visible in the half-light. Lidan’s foot hit the leg of an old table stacked high with preserving urns and the whole pile crashed to the ground in a deafening smash. She fell and hit the cold dirt on her rear, utterly mortified and scrambling to escape the attention of the couple she’d stumbled across.

  ‘Oi!’ The man shouted, heavy steps staggering in her direction. ‘Show y’self!’

  Lidan froze.

  No…

  She prayed her ears betrayed her. She prayed she was wrong. His hand reached down and pulled away the fallen table, drunkenly stumbling sideways with its weight. Light spilling from the hall washed over his face and Lidan grimaced.

  ‘Liddy-girl?’ The voice became a soft, inebriated version of her father’s. She shuffled further back and fought the smashed urns for freedom. ‘S’all right, girl! Just me!’

  Of course it was him—who else would it be? It wasn’t enough to overhear him fighting with her mother and bickering about Farah, but now she found him mid-way through a tryst with only the ancestors knew who! She made it to her feet and ran for the light at the end of the wall, where the only remaining route to her bedroom lay through the kitchen. Her father’s huge hand snagged her arm and she spun, shoulders held tight in his grasp.

  ‘Let me go!’ screamed Lidan and Erlon shook her.

  ‘What’s got into you? It’s me, Liddy!’

  She stopped struggling and glared. Over her father’s shoulder, a young tine-woman slowly corrected her clothes, covered her legs and slipped into the darkness as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Erlon followed Lidan’s gaze and rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t mind her—’

  ‘I said, let me go!’ Lidan pulled from his grasp and stumbled back.

  Erlon checked his belt and ran his hands from forehead to chin, glancing again over his shoulder. Who was he looking for? A daari could lie with any of the clan’s tine-women—they belonged to him—given as payment by other clans, or captured in raids. His encounter with the kitchen girl wasn’t an issue. Why was he nervous, so eager for silence?

  ‘Liddy,’ he cooed.

  Lidan spat at his feet. ‘Don’t call me that.’

  All her plans for proving herself vanished. Burning in their place was a ferocious hurt that would not be silenced. How dare he, after abandoning her to the hands of her mother? He pretended to care, but he didn’t. He didn’t care when Sellan locked her in the pit, freezing to death and bleeding. He didn’t care enough to send the Crone away even when he swore he would. All the anger and uncertainty, the pain and horror, boiled to the surface and rushed her thoughts with an avalanche of raw emotion. Her hands shook, clammy and sweaty, her skin prickling with bumps at the surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins.

  The daari’s face darkened to a scowl and he raised a finger in warning. ‘You’ve had a fright, but that’s no way to speak to your father!’

  He was right. He was terrifying, but she’d gone past the point of no return. Her words couldn’t be reclaimed. Sh
e had very little to lose, if anything at all. Between him and her mother, they’d already dismantled the world she thought she knew.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t speak at all, just shut up and disappear. Maybe I should, so you can pretend I don’t exist!’ shrieked Lidan, tears blurring her vision. Her mother’s voice echoed in her ears and the words shot out before she knew what they were. ‘You’ve got something better on the way now—your precious boy. That’s what you really want. A boy. Only a boy can be the heir. I’m nothing because I’m not a boy. I’m an heir who can’t be an heir. Well, you’re wrong! You’re all wrong. I can be, I’ll show you—’

  ‘What in the name of the ancestors is going on here?’ Sellan rounded the corner behind Lidan and immediately pulled her into a protective embrace.

  ‘You!’ sneered Erlon and stepped forwards, drawing up to his full, imposing height. ‘What poison have you poured in her ears? What lies have you told?’

  ‘The truth is all I’ve ever spoken, Erlon. The truth about you and your priorities. I won’t have her world crushed when she’s usurped by that whore’s by-blow! Lidan is your true heir.’ Sellan filled the space between Erlon and Lidan, levying her height on him even though he stood a full head taller. His drunken gaze cleared and rage flashed across his eyes, recognising his wife’s challenge. Lidan backed into the shadows. She didn’t want to see what happened next.

  ‘Watch your mouth, woman,’ Erlon growled at his first wife, fists clenched tight, his knuckles paling with tension. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know perfectly well, and so do you,’ accused Sellan.

  Erlon turned to where Lidan hid in the shadows, rigid with anger and wondering if her world was about to come crashing down around her ears. In the silent darkness, trimmed at the edges by the rambling trill of pipes, her father watched her.