Tallis turned in time to see her swallow and push a tear back from her eye. She was smiling more often, which made seeing her cry even more unsettling. He didn’t want to see her cry any more than he wanted to wield a sword on her behalf. None of what he did for Kavya was in obvious service to his own goals: to find out who had poisoned his dreams, and keep that individual from success.
Reality didn’t alter, however. He’d returned to Scotland because of Kavya.
He pulled her into his arms. His chin fit just atop her head. “Can you explain it to me?”
“Remember what I said about how Indranan marry,” she said, her voice muffled by the folds of his jacket. “She and my father were linked. He had to make a choice: go mad right along with her, or sever the connection and try to prevent violence between Pashkah, Baile, and me.”
“What did he choose?”
“To break their link of twenty-six years. She was insane within days. Not that it did my father much good either. He just . . . stopped being. Once Baile was dead, Pashkah put his sword to other uses. The blood of more than one family member colors its blade.” She shuddered. “I’d already fled. I hated Pashkah. I hated the Indranan way. But I was glad my parents were out of their misery. In all ways that matter, they died as soon as they’d severed.”
Tallis regretted that their conversation had taken her from carefree smiles to the darkest possible memories. He should’ve left it alone. On some sick, self-flagellating level, he’d wanted to know if he was the inspiration for her new, relaxed humor. No, she’d been smiling because Scotland was an escape from lunatics, freak snowstorms, and slum alleyways.
She was weeping because of his questions.
Leave it alone.
Leave her alone?
Impossible. He didn’t want her to cry. He held her tighter and smelled jasmine as her hair tickled his mouth and nose. Their lives had been woven together, probably since the beginning of his dreams. Yet the woman he held was not the source of the visions he now considered nightmares—visions he hadn’t experienced since that last dream by the Beas River.
That . . . entity had been gone. For weeks.
Had Kavya driven her away? Or had that been Tallis’s choice, thrusting her out of his subconscious when he’d learned the difference?
“Here, look.” Tallis gently disengaged and urged her to turn back toward the valley. He stood behind her and crossed his arms around her upper body. She leaned her head back against his chest, which pierced new perforations in the armor of isolation he’d worn for years. He’d wake up one morning and realize she’d disintegrated the leather and metal and hard, stubborn memories. He didn’t know if his heart sped out of alarm or anticipation.
“Down there,” he said, pointing toward the end of the valley. “Can you see where the land meets the sea?” He took her hands in his and held them so that her knuckles were perfectly aligned mountain peaks.
She took a deep breath. “No, I can’t. The fog has it. Don’t tell me you can.”
“Not at all.” He breathed the mist-laden air. The scent of being home—that was a stronger memory than he’d imagined, whisking him back to the moment when he’d become the Heretic. He concentrated on his story, distracting them both from so much that was wrong. “The place where the land meets the sea is sometimes crisp, defined. On clear days, it’s almost too bright to look at—that beauty. Days like this, however, are considered sacred. The place where the land and sea blend into one is like the end of a rainbow. Neither is stronger than the other. You can’t see it or touch it or even describe it. But it’s there.”
“Sacred.”
“And in that mist is a boulder formation that resembles the ancient humans’ fertility goddess, only she bears hallmarks of the Dragon. She’s our interpretation. I know other clans believe the Dragon male, but not us. The boulder is called the Mother. She’s the heart and soul of the Pendray, and what was once my center.” He inhaled another breath of home. “But were we ever satisfied with the center? Of course not. Pendray have been racing toward misty, unreachable places for longer than history. It’s taken us across the water, made us people of hills and waves. Both. Always both.”
“The beast and the man. Both.”
Tallis closed his eyes, knowing he had to let her go or he’d pledge himself to more than her safety.
“We have some walking to do if we want to reach the estate by nightfall.” He shouldered his pack—a new duffel they’d bought in Istanbul, along with clothes more suited to English tourists. Kavya even wore jeans, a loose-fitting cowl-neck sweater, hiking boots, and a red wool coat that reached mid-calf. Zippered pockets on either side of the duffel held his seaxes.
Kavya followed. She was quiet, as was he, perhaps knowing they’d each said too much. They’d been saying too much for weeks.
Afternoon bled into twilight. He’d almost hoped he wouldn’t remember the way. That would mean “home” was purged from his mind and his heart, and he could leave when the time came. Instead he was a carrier pigeon on a cross-country flight toward the place of his birth. Many Dragon Kings had abandoned the stately castles that had once been their domain. Yet Tallis’s family was proud, holding on to old traditions to the very end.
No surprise.
“There,” he said—the first word he’d spoken in hours. He and Kavya didn’t share thoughts, but they’d become very good at sharing silences. “Do you see it?”
He pointed to a far hill where shadow rested atop shadow. Even the air there was darker than its environs.
Castle Clannarah, the local humans had named it. Tallis only knew it as home.
Kavya’s gasp came before he felt the presence of another being. Tallis swiveled on his heel and found her held at knifepoint by a beautiful woman whose face had been worn weary by the years.
“Hello, Rill.” His heart beat without any regard for how calm he needed to remain. “It’s been a long time.”
“Tallis?” Kavya’s eyes widened as the knife against her throat pressed deeper.
“Don’t worry,” he said, stepping closer, never breaking eye contact with the older woman. “My sister won’t hurt you.”
—
Kavya held perfectly still. On the inside, she wondered if Tallis realized the irony. He was trying to save her from the very tactic he’d used against her in the valley encampment. She’d wind up with another couple knife cuts on her neck.
What welcome should she have expected when returning to the land where Tallis had become the Heretic? Apparently his family was as dangerous as hers. Somewhere deep and unexplored, she’d hoped for better for him.
“Rill.” As if placating a wolf caught in a trap, Tallis’s voice was calm and low. “I need you to let her go. Look at me. Tell me I’m not your brother.”
“My brother’s dead.”
The woman was nearly as tall as Tallis. She’d wrenched Kavya’s arm behind her back at a painful angle. She was incredibly strong. Maybe that was a trait of Pendray women. Kavya was only just learning how little she knew of the Five Clans other than rumor and stereotype. Uniting the Indranan was a noble aim and she intended to see it through. But what of the Dragon Kings as a whole? Their race was dying. How could they discern the cause if they didn’t even know basic truths about each other?
No matter the deception, and no matter Tallis’s justifiable outrage, what if he really had been in service of a higher power? To unite the Dragon Kings. To solve the mystery of their slow extinction. There was no higher calling, although she knew how much his sacrifices had cost Tallis.