Blood Lies (Dark Brothers of the Light #9) (24 page)

Anksha crept close to Stygean, sniffing his
mouth like a cat. She felt him, but without a link there was little
she could tell about his condition beyond that he was weak and
close to death. "This is bad." Anksha sighed.

Chinisi gingerly showed them the dagger,
handing it to Anksha first.

Anksha gave Nevin the blade, and he examined
it, reading the runes and recognized it as a sa'necari dueling
blade, made to take out an opponent with the first cut. A wordless
snarl spiraled up from Nevin's throat. "I doubt Isranon can save
him."

Alassance scrambled out and shared a
grief-tinged glance with his friends.

Grygg put the side of his fist to his mouth.
"Deed was already done long before we started searching. Jingen was
standing in the corridor as we left."

"Son of a bishop-basher." Anksha growled the
term she had picked up from the Rowdies.

Nevin's eyes softened as he extended his
arms. "Let me have him."

Chinisi clutched Stygean tighter. "He tried
to protect me. Please don't hurt him."

Nevin gave her shoulder a pat. "I
won't."

Chinisi surrendered Stygean and sat back on
her haunches. Nevin opened the cloaks wrapping him. He glanced a
question at Chinisi when he saw the boy was nude. She blushed as
bright as her hair.

"Exposure," she said. "I was keeping him
warm…."

Nevin gave a grunt and a nod. He ran his
finger over the cauterized wounds. "You did this?"

"With my finger once I got the cords
off."

"Smart girl. Tough one too." Nevin turned
Stygean's head and found the feeding mark. "Jingen took him to the
edge, did he?"

"He stabbed him first."

Nevin's expression went grim. He knew enough
of the sa'necari and their ways to make some shrewd guesses.
"That's a dueling blade; there's probably pieces of it inside
him."

"Oh gods." Chinisi gave a gasp that showed
she had finally begun to accept the fullness of what Jingen had
done to Stygean; and the evil that characterized the darker side of
the sa'necari.

"Get him dressed." Nevin kept his tone
steady, reluctant to upset Chinisi worse than she already was. "It
won't do for myn to know you slept together, regardless of your
reasons."

Nevin knocked the walls away, sending the
branches scattering while Anksha and Chinisi dressed Stygean. Then
Nevin lifted Stygean in his arms. Stygean's head fell against his
shoulders. Nevin pressed his cheek against Stygean's hair,
remembering another dark-haired young boy. "Howl wolves. Let the
others know we've found them."

Chinisi threw her cloak over Stygean as well
as his own and wrapped him tightly. She placed a warming spell on
the cloaks.

Anksha frowned, seeing that Chinisi had
given her cloak to Stygean. "Aren't you cold?"

"I'm a fire mage," Chinisi said, as if that
answered the question. "But I am hungry."

Anksha reached into her pouch and filled
Chinisi's cupped hands with candy.

Chinisi smiled a bit. This was not exactly
what she wanted, but it would do. So she began to suck on a
mouthful of pieces.

They did not have long to wait, for Isranon
and the others came riding through the trees. Cordwainer, Lobelia,
the healer Deryna, and a second set of lycans arrived from another
direction. Chinisi's uncle climbed down from his horse and headed
for her with relief written large upon his face.

Darianna changed into a woman and approached
with Travis. She frowned at the way Nevin held the boy. "Is he
dead?"

Nevin gave a slight shake of his head.

"Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad
one." Travis touched the bite marks on Stygean's neck.

Anksha slapped Travis' hand away from
Stygean. "They aren't mine."

Isranon dismounted. Gordain swung from the
saddle beside him. Seeing the way that Stygean lay in Nevin's arms,
Isranon felt grateful that he had not been there to hear the boy's
screams when Anksha took him. He had begun to love the boy like a
younger brother, something he had never had before. Isranon's
distress deepened as he approached Nevin, and he had to force
himself to go the last few feet to their side. Anksha must have
torn through Stygean savagely for him to be so still in Nevin's
arms.

He restrained himself from touching Stygean,
vowing to never see him again. Isranon felt disheartened and
crushed by his failure with Stygean; his feelings pulled at his
shoulders like a heavy weight across them. He had believed so
strongly that the boy had turned around, that Isranon had allowed
himself to love him. "So it is finished." He spoke low, struggling
to hide his anguish, the way his heart felt shattered.

Gordain shook his head sadly, refusing to
look at the boy.

Chinisi, who had rushed into her uncle's
arms the moment he dismounted, turned at the sound of Isranon's
words. Her voice sharpened with ire. "All of you think he kidnapped
me? Well, he didn't. Jingen kidnapped me."

"My love." Anksha's voice dropped to a low
growly protest. "I didn't touch him."

Isranon's eyes widened. "What?"

Nevin lifted Stygean toward Isranon. "Jingen
stabbed him with a hellblade and then bled him to the edge. Stygean
pursued Jingen as you once pursued Troyes."

Isranon turned to Gordain. "Get back to the
manor quickly. I want Jingen secured before he can either escape or
hurt someone else."

Gordain returned to his horse and started
back with two wolves running before him.

Chinisi pulled out of her uncle's arms and
went to Isranon, dragging him to Stygean. "You'll heal Stygean?
They say you can heal … that you're a master lifemage."

Isranon felt as if Chinisi's desperation
were tearing the heart out of him. "Not everything can be healed,
but I'll try." Isranon found all of Stygean's injuries, his
appalling weakness, the effects of exposure which Chinisi had
partially mitigated, and the spells – worse there appeared to be
slivers of the blade moving around inside him. "You have the
blade?" He dreaded the thought of Jingen being loose with a blade
that could do this to someone.

Chinisi produced it, wrapped in a piece of
her tunic. Isranon examined the flaked, obsidian blade and felt
sickened.

Then he stretched his awareness into
Stygean's body and began unraveling the dark magics killing him;
however, the blade shards sent vines of bane spells lacing up
through Stygean as swiftly as Isranon cut them away. Isranon forced
himself to stop, determined to try again later in civilized
surroundings. He turned his attention to the wounds, healing them
to make it more difficult for the shards to continue working their
way to the boy's heart. He warmed all the coldest places in
Stygean's body. Then he took his flask of Sanguine Rose from his
pocket and poured some into the boy's mouth, and made him swallow.
Stygean did not respond to the power of the brew, and Isranon could
hear Chinisi weeping. Isranon cast shared life to increase
Stygean's strength and prayed that it would be enough to get the
boy back to the manor. The apprentice who had betrayed him had not
been Stygean; it had been Jingen. Jingen had always been so
compliant, so helpful and never a moment’s trouble. He had been too
perfect. Stygean had been the defiant one, the grieving angry boy,
conspicuous in his rebellion and demanding every effort Isranon
could devote to him. It had been so easy to suspect and accuse
Stygean.

How could I have been so wrong?

"We must return swiftly," Isranon told them.
"Nevin, once I'm mounted, hand him up to me."

Nevin nodded.

The four boys had tears in their eyes as
they remounted, commiserating quietly among themselves.

Chinisi rode behind her uncle, and they set
off for the manor.

* * * *

Gordain stalked through the halls of
Edvarde's manor with an expression of rage on his face. Many
stared, but none approached until Luck fell into step beside
him.

"What's going on?"

"Just come with me."

Gordain spotted Jingen sitting in the
drawing room and strode over to him. The boy looked up at him.

"What is it?" Jingen asked, his eyes
guileless.

"You know what," Gordain growled. "We found
them alive."

Jingen inhaled sharply, caught the breath
halfway and nearly choked. Practice smoothed his features back into
his helpful mask. "That's good isn't it?" Jingen said.

Luck glanced from Gordain to Jingen and
back, frowning.

"Yes. Considering you stabbed Stygean when
he tried to rescue Chinisi from you."

"I don't know what you are talking about,"
Jingen protested. "I didn't see either of them yesterday."

Disharyl, who had been returning from her
daily chores refining dried herbs for Amiri, ran over to them as
Gordain jerked Jingen to his feet and looped his wrists with
spellcord. He snapped the silver seals to the cords that would kill
Jingen if he tried to remove them.

"Mother, help me." Jingen cast pleading eyes
on his mother.

Disharyl grabbed Gordain's arm. "Let my son
go. He was with me yesterday. He never left the manor."

"That's not what Chinisi says."

"And what does Stygean say?" Disharyl
protested. "How can you take his word?"

"He's unconscious. Jingen put a dueling
blade in his ribs."

Luck looked sick, snatched Jingen and tied
his hands behind his back. "I've never heard of anyone surviving a
wound from one of those."

"Nor have I." Gordain shook Disharyl off.
"Your son stands accused of attempted murder. By day's end, that
will probably have become murder."

"I didn't do it! Chinisi must have done
it!"

"Bloody, fucking liar." Luck backhanded
Jingen across the mouth.

A pair of guardsmyn passing by caught hold
of Disharyl at Luck's gesture and restrained her. Then the two
officers dragged Jingen through the manor and down into the
dungeons where they locked him in a cell.

* * * *

On their return, Isranon went straight
upstairs with Stygean. Nibari ran ahead of them to get the fires
going in the hearths of the suite. Nevin carried the boy. A nibari
folded the blankets back and placed several layers of pads across
the bed, and Nevin slipped him in beneath the top sheet. Basins and
ewers of water and wine were brought; herbs, potions and blood in
bottles; bandages, washing cloths and towels. Randilyn appeared
with Isranon's satchel.

"If you need us…." Randilyn said.

Isranon shook his head at her. Randilyn left
and Nevin started to.

"Stay with me, Nevin. This will take all I
can give just to twist the spells out."

"You care for him."

"My son by Anksha is not yet born. My son by
Merissa I may never meet. Stygean … fills a void in me, Nevin."

"As you did in me, Isranon," Nevin replied. "Can you
now accept that I was right and you were wrong about the lad?"

Isranon looked suddenly tired and soul-worn. "I
doubted myself and my choices every bit as much as I did the boys –
especially Stygean.. I worried that I might be seeing their
progress through my need for them to change. I do not remember ever
doubting Jingen. I know now that he deliberately deceived me and
others. Stygean, because he was so openly defiant, was the more
honest of the two. Yes, I was wrong to doubt him. I'll never
forgive myself."

"Give it time."

Isranon nodded. "First we get the pieces of
that god-forsaken blade out." Isranon took a small sharp blade and
tongs that were barely larger than tweezers from his satchel. Nevin
fetched the table from the sitting room and placed it near Isranon,
where the mage could reach it.

Nevin washed the area around the first wound
with wine, then Isranon re-opened it with the small blade. Isranon
set the blade aside and took Stygean's wrist. By extending his
awareness through the boy's body, he could sense every piece of the
blade and their dark arcane power.

Isranon probed patiently, pulling the chips
of obsidian out of Stygean and dropping them into a basin. He
sweated with the effort and the stress. Nevin wiped Isranon's
forehead, and Isranon smiled faintly at the wolf. Nevin seemed to
sense Isranon's needs as keenly as Isranon sensed Stygean's. When
Isranon had gotten everything out that he could, he sealed the
wound and shielded the power of the fragments he could not reach so
that they would not become active again, blunting them. He repeated
the procedure with the second and third wounds. Yet he could still
feel Stygean fading beneath his hands.

He threw power into Stygean, searching for
what more he could do and found nothing. Isranon felt a warm
stickiness around his mid-section, leaking into the quilted padding
he now wore in the places where his old wounds kept returning. He
had to stop or risk damaging himself.

Isranon rose unsteadily to his feet.
"There's nothing more I can do."

Nevin supported him, eyes hard, reading
Isranon's face. "Nothing?"

Isranon shook his head. "I can't save him. I
don't know why. But I can't."

"Will you try again?"

"After I've rested and had a little of the
Rose."

Nevin helped Isranon to his rooms.

* * * *

Grygg and the others walked Chinisi to
Stygean's chambers. When they entered, they found Randilyn sitting
with him. The nibari swiftly wiped the tears from her eyes and put
on a brave face. It was common knowledge that Randilyn loved
Stygean as if her were the son she would never have: Ymraude nibari
did not reproduce.

When they came in, Randilyn excused herself,
and the boys and Chinisi moved chairs close to the bedside. Iyan
wept and sobbed. Dahnig had tears in his eyes.

"You can't die on us, Stygean," Dahnig kept
repeating, grasping Stygean's hand. The youth looked as if the life
had already gone out of him, frail, lost in the netherworld of
coma, his disheveled black curls making his face ghastly by
contrast.