Blood Lies (Dark Brothers of the Light #9) (22 page)

Stygean's eyes fluttered open, and he stared
at Jingen. "I hate you," Stygean snarled with barely enough breath
to speak. He had no strength to move, to fight, not even to raise
his arms in self-defense; and the threads of Jingen's spell still
held him bound, although they were fraying. Stygean's eyes held the
hollowness of despair, knowing that Jingen intended to stick him
again, possibly to finish the kill rather that allow time for the
blade's spells to drag him into the final darkness.

"Hate me in death." Jingen placed his
fingers on Stygean's neck to Read the suffering he created as he
re-inserted the blade into each of the wounds from the front and
twisted it. More pieces of the knife blade flaked off and began to
crawl around inside Stygean's body. Readers would not know which
way the blade had entered first. He considered sticking Stygean
again and decided against it: no one would believe that Chinisi
would do more than stab him a few times and flee. She was not
sa'necari; she was a weak outlands woman. Instead, Jingen gave it
another twist.

Stygean jerked with a groan and went still,
his eyes closing.

Jingen considered whether to take the blade
and decided against it. He didn't want it found among his
belongings in case the bodies were discovered. He wrapped Stygean's
fingers around the hilt and placed the piece of Chinisi's skirt in
his other hand. Jingen regarded his efforts and nodded his
approval: there, that was very suggestive of Chinisi having gained
control of the weapon for an instant and driven it into Stygean as
he tried to violate her. Jingen covered him with a quick layer of
snow before retrieving the horses and riding away. He went north
first and hit the main road not far from Ildyrsetts. He had to get
rid of their horses in such a way as to cast suspicion elsewhere.
It was a shame that it was winter, since that meant he had fewer
opportunities to sell them as there were less people traveling. The
closer to Ildyrsetts he got, the more nervous he became, and the
hour was growing later. Then he spied a man walking. He wore furs
and heavy home spun wool. Jingen dismounted and approached him. The
mon's hands moved along the quarterstaff he carried as he regarded
the boy. "What do you want, young master?"

The 'master' caught Jingen by surprise,
until he remembered the fine clothes he wore. This country bumpkin
of a human must have taken him for someone of importance. Well, he
was of importance, just not in the way the mon thought. "I have two
horses to sell. Fine horses."

"Fine horses…." The mon frowned. "Who did
you steal them from? Your father?"

Jingen lowered his eyes. "My father is dead.
My mother wishes the horses sold. If you buy them, I don't have to
ride all the way to Ildyrsetts and can go home and be warm
again."

The mon's eyes narrowed. "I can't give you
what they're worth."

"I'm not asking for what they're worth."

The mon nodded, reaching into his pouch.
Jingen's hand stole out to touch his cheek and he lanced in beneath
the mon's guard. The mon had a simple mind, completely without
protections of any kind, and Jingen thanked his stars for that.
Chinisi, even spellcorded, had required more effort to still. "The
person who sold them to you was tall and fair-skinned with light
brown hair and a Cherdon'datari accent."

"As you say. He was a bit off for around
here."

They completed the transaction, and Jingen
rode back to the manor. He put his horse in its stall and swiftly
rubbed it down. Then he strolled into the manor and up to the large
meeting hall on the second floor where he found Nainee and some of
the littles who were in her charge. He saw Farris' youngest child,
the little girl Stygean had rescued that day. Stygean had gone to
great lengths to keep Jingen away from them both. Jingen ran his
tongue over his fangs and then pulled them back up again. No more
Stygean. Loosestrife had tasted fine. He'd get another taste of
Farris and his first taste of the child tonight. He would shove
something in her mouth before he made her scream. Stygean had said
she was a screamer. Watching him fang the child would help put her
in the right mind-set for that.

He walked up to Nainee, giving her a large
smile. "Can I help with anything, Nainee?"

Nainee hoisted the toddler onto her hip.
"No, thank you. You're a good boy, Jingen."

"Thank you, Nainee."

Then he continued on. A glance through the
windows showed that night had arrived. Anksha would be making her
rounds soon, and he wanted to be in his room reading that book that
Cordwainer had loaned him.
I'm always so helpful.
He
snickered.

Jingen settled on his bed and wrapped up in
his blankets with an oil lamp nearby. He turned the wick to the
lowest he used to read by.

"Jingen?" Anksha asked, poking her nose in.
She glanced around. "Where is Stygean?"

Jingen closed the book and yawned. "I don't
know. I haven't seen him since this morning. You want me to help
you look?"

Anksha growled deep in her throat. Jingen
had an odd smell to him. She wasn't certain what it was, but it
made the back of her throat crawl. "Do not leave this room."

"Okay. I will just read a bit longer and
then put out the lamp."

Jingen laid back and folded his hands
beneath his head.
This was almost too easy.

* * * *

Chinisi found her way back to the little glade. At
first, she did not see Stygean, and then her eyes were drawn to the
snow pile with the tips of his fingers showing beneath. She ran to
him and brushed it away from his face. Swiftly Chinisi dug Stygean
out. Her heart caught once she saw him laying sprawled on his back
in the snow, his cloak askew and the strange blade lodged in his
ribs with his fingers curled about the hilt. Red stains spread
around him and across the white-clothed ground. The runed,
rust-colored hilt and broad quillions of the blade contrasted
against the light blue tunic and nearly matched the stiffening
stains in the cloth. Her hand hovered for a moment over the hilt,
wondering whether she should pull it out and thought better of it.
She saw how he shivered with cold. The snow would have suffocated
him, except that his face had been in a little pocket of air.

Stygean's eyes opened, and he regarded her in a
half-focused way. The last of Jingen's spells to prevent him from
fighting back had faded. Only the physical anguish remained. His
voice sounded soft and breathy. "Chinisi."

She swallowed. "I'm going to pull it out."

He blinked, struggling to push past a fresh wave of
pain and keep speaking. "No … not with your bare hands."

"I have my gloves on."

Chinisi drew it from his body. Stygean jerked as the
blade grated against his rib bones and he groaned. Animal whimpers
emerged from his lips. "It's caught. You'll have to turn it."

Chinisi's face went pale. She bit her lower lip with
a tiny nod and turned the blade a fraction.

Stygean cried out in pain. Then the blade came free
with bits of Stygean's flesh and a small chunk of something
red-black that might have been torn from an internal organ. Chinisi
gasped and retched, tossing the blade in the snow.

With the blade gone, the bleeding worsened. Chinisi
pulled her scarf off, rolled one corner up and stuffed it in the
wound.

Tears formed in Chinisi's eyes, ran down her cheeks
and froze in the dropping temperature. It stung her face. She
mastered herself and kept more from escaping.

"We've got to … got to get back."

She shook her head. "The horses are gone. He took
them."

"Damn him … leave me … find your way back."

"I couldn't, even if I wanted to." Chinisi tried to
sound calm, but the edge of tension refused to leave her voice.
"It's too dark already. I don't want to get lost. They'll come
looking for us. My uncle will come looking for us."

Stygean wondered if they would come looking for him.
Chinisi, yes. Him, no. He had made too many mistakes. Isranon would
assume the worst of him. "Chinisi…." He twisted up in agony,
feeling the flakes of sharp obsidian moving inside him through his
arcane senses. They would tear through to his heart by morning, if
he had not already bled to death. His only comfort was that he
would not rise as a rapacious undead in three days and become a
threat to Chinisi, for 'when sa'necari killed sa'necari, they did
it well.' They took no chances of a slain foe rising and coming
after them on the third day after their death.

His one regret was that his death would leave
Chinisi alone and far away from the mansion. Chinisi hugged him
tightly, and the specter of dying did not seem so terrible in the
comfort of her arms.

"I'm spellcorded. I can't use my magic," Chinisi
said.

It would dip well below freezing before dawn. Out
here there was no hope for them. "Make a shelter."

"I will. I was so afraid he'd killed you…."

Stygean winced at her statement, not wanting to lie
to her and leave her unprepared. "Be strong, Chinisi…. He has
killed me. Pieces of the blade … in the wounds … can feel them.
Spelled blade. Pieces moving … moving inside me … digging for my
heart." Stygean's fingers dug into the flesh around his wounds,
grimacing, his teeth clenching as he struggled not to scream when
each wave of anguish rushed through him.

"No." Chinisi's voice caught as she shook her head.
"No, he hasn't. I'll cut the cords off."

"Not with that blade… If you so much as prick
yourself, you'll die." Stygean's words became steadily more
sluggish and blurred as he spoke them.

"I'm not giving up." Chinisi pulled Stygean's arm
across her neck, slipped her other arm around his waist, and stood,
bringing him with her. She staggered under his weight, heading for
a clump of pine trees whose low-hanging branches reached the
ground. There she laid him down, crawled under the branches and
reached back for him. She dragged him in, using her weight as
leverage and tugging strenuously.

She gathered more branches and built it up around
them until the wind could not get through on any side of them.
Stygean's eyes fluttered closed, and she snatched at his arms,
shaking him. He opened them again.

"Don't sleep, Stygean," she pleaded. "Don't sleep.
You'll never wake up if you fall asleep before I can make it warm
here."

Her determination to keep him alive made it harder
upon him. It would have been easier if she would just accept the
inevitable and hold him. He wanted to be held, to feel the comfort
of her arms as the end approached. "Chinisi – don't. When sa'necari
kill sa'necari, they do it well."

"Don't say that!"

"It's true." He sounded so impossibly tired. "Hold
me…."

"I will. As soon as I get us settled here." Chinisi
touched the wound on his neck, trying to remember the words he had
used that first morning after his fight with Jingen in Ildyrsetts.
"He took you to the edge, didn't he?"

Again, that exhausted fluttering of Stygean's
eyelids. "Yes."

The only thing that had prevented Jingen from simply
continuing to stab him until he died had been Chinisi's escape,
which had forced him to chase her. That and the lateness of the day
when he returned for the horses.

Chinisi scraped her arms against the sharpest rock
she had been able to find and wished she had had Stygean's blades,
but she had no idea what Jingen had done with them. He might even
have taken them with him as a trophy. "Stygean, let your fangs
down."

He blinked at her dully. "My fangs? Whatever for?
Blood won't heal me."

"I'm going to use your fangs on the rope."

Stygean managed a faint smile and allowed his fangs
to come down. "You're always full of ideas."

It took several minutes, but Chinisi got her wrists
free and formed a wall of heat without fire around them. She
stabilized it and calculated how much power she needed to apply to
the stones she set out as an attraction ward to hold the spell in a
fixed position.

"If you can hold out until morning, I can find a
large enough clearing where I can send up a distress signal without
firing the forest and burning us to a crisp."

"I'll try."

"I doubt they'll come looking before morning. The
forest is too risky for horses after dark."

She tried to remember everything she had heard the
healers talking about concerning exposure and wounds, and in this
her insatiable curiosity served her well. She made heat around a
single finger and shoved it into Stygean's wounds from both sides,
cauterizing them.

Then she made a bed of pine needles and placed
heated rocks under his armpits. Body warmth. They had talked about
body warmth. She stripped off both their clothing and combined
their cloaks over him. She could not resist peeping at his manhood,
which lay like a mouse in a nest of black, curling hair. Then she
slid in with him and wrapped her naked body around his. Stygean's
flesh was chilled and goose-pimpled; he was shivering. Chinisi laid
her head on his shoulder.

"I love you, Stygean. I do. I never liked Jingen at
all."

"I know." His head shifted and he kissed her hair,
and then went so still that it frightened Chinisi. She pressed her
head to his chest to find that his heart continued to beat.
Satisfied that he lived, she fell into exhausted slumber.

Melupo 2-3, 1077

In the gathering darkness at twilight, Nevin
began lighting the lamps in the outer room to the suite where
Isranon sat with Cordwainer, going over lists of the supplies they
would need to purchase from the shops in Ildyrsetts. Isranon
glanced up with a smile and a nod at this: Nevin was always there
doing the small stuff for him. The changes in their relationship
amazed him at times, filling him with warmth and gratitude.