Way Walkers: Tangled Paths (The Tazu Saga)

by Leigh, J.

  “Really?” Bertrandith didn’t appear convinced. “How tender of you, Skaniss. I didn’t know you were developing a gentler side. I’d even go so far as to call it into question if I hear of you punishing your troops for allowing this ‘walk’ to take place. Since it was your idea, I assume.”

  “Mmm.” Skaniss had little room to say aught else.

  “Thought so,” Bertrandith said curtly then turned a gentler expression to Jathen and Thee. “Well, come along. I hope you aren’t too hungry, as you’ve missed lunch.”

  They followed Bertrandith to the palace, leaving Skaniss standing in the middle of the courtyard. At the doors, Jathen glanced back to see the huge Tazu silhouetted against the sinking brightness of the sun. Jathen could not make out his expression, but the dark shape lingered in his vision for a time after Skaniss shifted and flew away.

  Once inside, Bertrandith asked, “Is everything truly well with you two?”

  Jathen nodded. “We’re fine.”

  “Fine,” Thee repeated.

  Their noble rescuer didn’t seem to believe them any more than he had Skaniss, so Jathen changed the subject, hoping to avoid an interrogation. “Is Mother around?”

  “No. Her Highness is making visits to various acquaintances among the high bloods.”

  In other words, she’s still ego-stroking the nobles on the council, and probably some of Kyanith’s cronies, to see if he’s really going to do this to me. More waiting. Great.

  “When is she getting back?” Thee asked.

  They stopped, having reached the break in wings between the residential and municipal sides of the palace.

  “I wasn’t informed of a specific time. Most likely late, given what she’s… dealing with.”

  “Thank you, Lord Larsenitiss.” Jathen tried to drag Thee toward the family wing and freedom.

  Bertrandith chuckled. “How many times must I tell you? It’s Bertran to you and your sister, Highness. We’re still cousins, if distant.”

  “Um, yes,” Jathen said. “Well, we’d best get cleaned up. Come on, Thee.”

  “Bye,” she squeaked as Jathen practically carried her up the massive staircase and past the saluting guards stationed there. Once around a bend, Thee whispered harshly, “You should have told him.”

  “Not a chance, not him.”

  “And why not? He’s never been anything but nice to you, and he and Skaniss are always butting heads. I can’t think of anyone better.”

  “Bertrandith Larsenitiss is Kyanith’s youngest, and I’ll trust him about as far as I can throw him.”

  “But that’s the only thing you hold against him. He’s always been very cordial to you, even when no one’s looking.”

  “Don’t care. Anything said to him gets to Kyanith.” He pursed his lips. “I learned that one early.”

  “Ugh.” Thee rolled her eyes. “You can’t still be blaming him for that. He—” Her chastisement was cut off by her own happy squeal when she spotted a slender figure reading on one of the hall benches. “Seren!”

  Tinier in stature than Thee, Serendibiss Chertith, the golden-haired second daughter of the prominent Chertith family, was the most frequent member of Thee’s entourage, which earned her the rare status of Jathen actually knowing her full name, if little else.

  Darting forward to meet in the middle of the hall, the girls greeted each other in a flurry of excited chirps and giggles. Jathen was glad Thee was normal and had friends. One thing he would never abide was if she were ever treated as badly as he. Jathen walked away, content to let the girls be. He was halfway down another branch in the hall before his sister called his name. He turned back and saw Thee dragging Serendibiss toward him.

  “Here, Seren,” Thee practically shoved her friend forward.

  The shorter Tazu almost skidded on the marble floor so as not to collide with Jathen. Playing with her claws and staring at her feet, Seren stood as if trying to summon courage with each ragged breath.

  “Yes?” Jathen asked curiously. Serendibiss tended not even to look at him, let alone speak.

  He didn’t really blame her, as he knew from Thee she had a good heart, but she came from Chertith stock. Kyanith’s father had been a Chertith, and though none of the younger generation’s Monortiths shared any actual blood with them, their influence at court was palpable, earning them placement in the palace’s residential wing. Theirs was one of the pure-blood Tazu families particularly notorious for commenting in private and public about the “disgraceful moot strutting around the palace,” often going so far as to paint Jathen’s condition as contagion that shouldn’t be spread.

  “I just…” She raised her eyes to his. A deep sapphire matching her scales and imbedded with gold flecks, they invoked in Jathen an unexpected simile of stars in the night. “I’m sorry about the thing”—her lids dropped again—“with the succession.”

  Annoyance, rage, and sorrow crackled in his veins. “Thee, how could you tell her?”

  Serendibiss cowered, but his sister snorted. “Oh, come on. She’s my best friend. I told her before we left.”

  “And now the whole ruddy court probably knows.” Although that was probably a foregone conclusion with or without Thee’s friend spreading gossip, Jathen felt righteous frustration anyway. “What the Chertith family alone will say once they hear—”

  “If so, then not because of Seren,” Thee insisted, poking the other girl. “Right?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Seren told her feet. Her pretty eyes lifted for a second. “And I am sorry.” Back to the floor and behind flaxen tresses those eyes went. “You’d be a good king, I think. We think… me and Thee.”

  Jathen stared at her. No one outside of his mother and Thee had ever said such a thing to him, and he was dumbstruck by gratified admiration and shock at the source. Granted, Thee had most likely goaded her into saying it… but still. “Thank you,” he said with no forced sincerity.

  She bobbed her head, again not looking at him, then tugged on Thee’s sleeve. More courtier girls scampered down the hall in their direction, children of two openly antimoot families among them.

  “Yeah, we’ve got to go,” Thee added. “See you later, big brother!”

  Jathen watched them run down the hall. How horrible. Even if Thee didn’t put her up to it and she really meant it, she still feels so ashamed for saying such about a lowly moot that she couldn’t even look at me. The realization left Jathen feeling dirty, as if his very skin were to blame for her irrational discomfort rather than her family’s prejudice.

  How many times did I cry as a child because my hide doesn’t match my blood? He stared at his bound hand, where the blood had turned a dark, caked brown. How many more times will I rage over it before I die? He sighed. I’d best go see Petalith. Spirit knows, her tongue-lashing will be far worse if I put it off and wind up with an infection.

  Hurrying down the corridor, he passed exquisite moldings and architectural details without a second look, their existence having become commonality long ago. Jathen did observe that without Thee beside him, the guards flanking the stairs to the royal residence didn’t bother to salute. Minutes later, he reached the entrance to the queen’s chambers. The guards there were far more affable, two of his mother’s personal retainers who had been with her since she was a hatchling.

  “Has she returned yet?” Jathen asked the blue and gray pair.

  Eglestonith, the elder of the two, eyeballed him, while Raspiss, the blue-scaled younger, watched in heavy-lidded boredom. “No wonder you can’t keep a consistent personal guard, Highness. You ever consider that when you keep slipping past them and ruining your clothes, you also ruin their careers?”

  Jathen smirked, half tempted to inform them how he wished to high heaven such actions on his part would end Skaniss’s career. He held his tongue, though. “Has my mother
returned yet or not, Eglestonith?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” the gray-scaled Tazu informed him. “Though if Petalith let her in through the balcony, she might not have let us know just yet. You want to wait inside? She issued a ‘Do not disturb’ but was quite clear you and Thee are exceptions.”

  “Yes, please.”

  The guards opened the heavy doors.

  Chapter 4

  Jathen entered.

  The queen’s chamber was a round room with a ring of arches sectioning the space into two concentric circles. The inner was a sunken concourse directly beneath one of the many signature domes featured in Tazu architecture, the stained glass affair spilling ample gold-tinted light into the massive room. The outer ring was further divided into eight arch-flanked bays. Airy and open, the quarters carried a sense of vaulted regality and privacy. One could move freely along the outer ring among the eight bays as well as pass directly through the center from one compartment to another.

  Jathen stepped down from the foyer into the recessed concourse with its white- and violet-banded marble floor, only to have his heart sink. The balcony doors behind the informal throne were locked tight, with no sign of his mother in the reddening sky.

  Sighing, he closed his eyes as the guards shut the doors.

  “She’s not back yet.”

  Opening his eyes, Jathen turned to face the compartment directly to the right of the receiving throne dedicated to study. “I know.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Petalith asked. Seated at his mother’s gilt-trimmed desk, she was robed in the emerald green of her Way. The aging Tazu had pearl-green scales that Jathen always likened to porcelain cast so thin it was nearly transparent. Though no one would ever mistake the Daughter of Desmoulein for something so delicate.

  Petalith always reminded him of the arboretum—lovely warm greens seen though a crystalline glass curtain, and attached to the palace. Housing plants that could kill as well as cure, the humid arboretum seemed an apt simile for the moody doctor.

  Not looking up from her paperwork, the healer continued, “Your brother needs rest, and I need to complete the delivery report with all the times for the astrologer and the blood samples for the Bawan so they can compile their Life Ladder portions—none of which is going to benefit from your anxious pacing. So get out and go eat something! Even if I wasn’t a Talent, I would have heard that malnourished stomach of yours wailing when you came in.” She batted a claw at him. “Shoo.”

  Jathen said, “I came seeking your healing expertise.”

  “Whatever for?”

  He held up his hand. “I need my wound bound properly.”

  Petalith gazed disapprovingly over her rimless glasses. “What in the physical plane did you do to yourself?”

  “I punched a mirror,” he confessed, readying for the verbal lashing he’d somehow managed to avoid so far.

  “You did not,” she said firmly as she placed her pen down beside the inkwell. “Unless the blasted mirror punched back.”

  Blinking in surprise, Jathen turned around and got a good look at himself in the dressing alcove’s mirror across from the study. Curving with the wall of the whole compartment, the floor-to-ceiling affair gave him a stark view of how tumbled he looked. Alley grit and dust covered his left side, and half a dozen small cuts and scrapes were scattered across his face. His hand was still bound, but the fabric was dark with dried blood and dirt, while the rest of his outfit was completely ruined.

  “Umm…” He struggled to conjure some diplomatic explanation, only to have his brain waylaid by enthusiastic chirping from the nursery.

  “Oh, just wait there,” Petalith said. “I need to get my kit.” She strode toward the door, shooting him a patronizing glare. “That’ll give you plenty of time to come up with a reasonable lie.”

  He frowned, wondering how he was going to explain both mirror and Skaniss without causing more trouble. “Pet, I—”

  “Don’t bother me with it yet. Just keep Tinzy from pestering him,” she said, tilting her head toward the cradle in the nursery bay beside his mother’s bedchamber. She exited, calling, “Wash your hands, and for the love of Bree, don’t sit on anything!”

  Sighing, Jathen did as told, seeking out the sink next to the bed. He removed the makeshift binding and ran his cut hand under the stream of flowing water. After drying his hand, he turned to the nursery section. There sat the same cradle both he and Thee had in turn occupied, and the source of the incessant chirping. A drake was perched on the rail, rhythmically prodding the bed’s contents with his tail.

  “Teasing him, Tinzy?” Jathen asked the petite amber-colored dragon.

  The family pet lifted his wedge-shaped head, measuring Jathen with eyes the shade of emeralds. He blinked twice, then fluttered his small wings. “Cheep.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jathen smiled, reaching out to run a finger along Tinzy’s thin neck.

  The drake chirped happily and leaned into his hand, making the slight thrumming purr so similar to his bigger cousins, the bestial wild dragons.

  “You don’t need to bother him on my account.” Standing beside the cradle, Jathen gazed at the unwitting cause of so many of his current personal troubles. His new brother was awake and kicking, staring back at him with the golden Monortith family eyes. At five days old, Dolomith was a tiny Tazu babe, born a month and a half early.

  Despite the rancor dealt Jathen in the wake of Dolomith’s birth, he could not find it in himself to hate the baby boy. There had been too many stillborns and miscarriages over the years, little eggs that never hatched and children who were labored out only to never draw breath. The ordeal was hard on his mother; she felt every death, mourned every lost babe. To have one finally live after so long was a great relief for Rhodonith. Besides, the kid was cute. Dolomith had lovely grass-green scales and their mother’s black stripes.

  “Hey, little guy,” Jathen said, kneeling to get a closer look. “You letting Tinzy pick on ya already?” Tenderly, Jathen stretched a finger out at the babe, who caught the digit with one tiny hand. “You’ve got a good grasp there,” he said as Dolomith dug tiny black claws into his flesh. It tickled more than hurt, like a kitten’s delicate bite. When Dolomith stuck the finger into his mouth, Jathen couldn’t help smiling as toothless gums chewed harmlessly and a little forked tongue searched instinctively for food.

  Jathen stroked his brother’s head with his free hand, smoothing the mess of thin dark hair. If you had the choice, would you want to rule us? Hausmannith’s words popped into his mind again, making him measure the infant with a deeper consideration. “Hate to tell ya, kid,” Jathen whispered, “but I don’t think you’ll be given much of a choice in the matter, either.” The thought made him deeply sad, thinking of the fate of the small child, like his own, already set in stone. In this, we are the same.

  The world altered around Jathen, the room melting away in a blur of vision. There was a flash of light, and Dolomith was no longer happily cooing in his bed. Instead, smoke and incense filled the alcove, as a small body wrapped in indigo silks was consumed by the roar of a funeral pyre.

  As quickly as the image had come, it was gone. Dolomith still clutched his finger, but he had stopped gnawing on it to stare at Jathen with an expression that may have been confusion. Exhaling a shuddering breath, Jathen gently removed his hand from his baby brother’s grasp.

  No, not again. Jathen trembled, shaking his head in despair as he slipped to the floor. He’d had other visions of stillborn babes over the years. Of the first two he’d seen die before they were born, Jathen had said nothing, but with the third, he told his mother. Her subsequent anxiety over possibly losing her baby had sent her into an early labor, and the results played out just as Jathen had seen them—Rhodonith almost dying as well. After that, Jathen decided it was better to do nothing when it came to the visions o
f dying babes. The future seemed to be set as far as such was concerned. The new vision, however, felt completely different. All the children Jathen had ever seen die had not even gained the benefit of an hour’s life.

  How can this baby die? Not certain what he was looking for, or if he’d even know it when he saw it, Jathen knelt and leaned over the cradle to inspect his brother. Dolomith gurgled happily, while Tinzy joined the fun of peering and poking, both of them probably interpreting Jathen’s examination as a game. Finding nothing, Jathen sighed. Maybe it was another future child. Shutting his eyes, he tried to picture the brief but searing premonition. The image of green scales and black stripes beneath the shroud of sheer indigo silks came once more. It can only be Dolomith.

  Pondering his options, Jathen batted at some of the dark charms hung above the cradle to bar against wandering chaotic souls in search of bodies. The amulets kept such ghosts who had not crossed to the far side of the Veil from “slipping into” vulnerable newborns and ousting their souls. Dolomith cooed again, grasping at the talismans with his little claws.

  “Well you don’t seem too worried.” Jathen stroked the soft head. “Let’s not tell Mother for now. But I’ll ask Petalith to keep an extra close watch on you. Sound good, kid?”

  Dolomith gurgled, blowing bubbles with his pink forked tongue.

  Jathen laughed, using the light blue blanket in the crib to mop up the mess. “Now you are all wet, silly egg.” A worm of worry rumbled through his stomach. Alive as the babe seemed, Dolomith was still so small, and he did not seem to bawl as loudly as Jathen thought a hatchling should. Thee had wailed with lungs strong enough to make corpses disobey necromancers. I’m no expert, though. He began slowly rocking the cradle. Dolomith’s lids drooped, and he was asleep very quickly, wheezing slightly as Tinzy stared from his new perch on Jathen’s shoulder. I’ll tell Petalith, then.