“Well, well. What has Vanir set before us? A tasty morsel of a Senai spy? Of a Senai devil?”
The weight was lifted from my chest only to be followed by a powerful jerk on my wrists that insisted I get up on my feet or be dragged down the rocky slope on my face.
“Look here, brother Desmond! Didn’t I tell you that one had to be wary of the wild creatures that inhabit this wasteland? I’ve trapped us a Senai fox.”
Lara snapped her head around as I hobbled into the firelight, only to be pulled up short and collapsed to my knees by the skilled hand of the Rider and his dragon whip. The thong about my throat ensured I could say nothing. Desmond sneered down his straight nose as if I’d crawled out of a dung heap. Before he could speak, Lara shoved him aside. “You!” she said in disgust. “How dare you come creeping after me? Sneaking, nasty beggar.”
“Who is it, Lara? Tell me. And tell me what he’s doing spying on you.”
Unreasonably I wanted to warn Lara of the dangerous undertone in her brother’s cold baritone. But the woman quite effectively undercut both my desire and my ability to speak when she laid her gauntleted hand into my mouth so hard I rocked back on my knees and gagged on the blood that ran down my constricted throat. Clearly the D was not only for Desmond, but also for duplicity and double-dealing, and most certainly for danger.
“He’s beastly Senai filth,” said Lara, fury boiling out of her like molten lava. “He was found wandering in the mountains half-frozen. The same ones who took me in sheltered him, so I couldn’t deal with him as I wished.”
“And what would you suggest we do with him, girl?” asked the red-haired man, addressing Lara with such insolence that a true brother would have bashed him. Desmond only listened.
“Take him with you if you wish,” said the woman. “Or strip him and tie him to a tree for the wolves to find. What do I care for any Senai?”
Lara was not finished unsettling her brother even yet. Now she was done with me, she turned on him with the fullness of her anger. “There are more important matters here than a crippled Senai who cannot even lace his boots. Tell me, Desmond, who is this clan brother? All these years we’ve come together in secret, and I’ve asked but one thing: that for my safety and the peace of those who saved my life you not reveal our meeting place to anyone. Yet clearly this man is here by your leave. How do you explain it? Is this a new betrayal or has he been here at every meeting?”
Desmond stammered like a nervous squire on the eve of his first battle. I, struggling to clear my muddy head, had no little sympathy for him.
“Rueddi is a clan brother of the Fifth Family, a Rider in training. MacEachern suggested I bring him to help protect you. He feared this escaped prisoner might be hiding nearby and that he might try to prevent you taking your rightful place. You know”—he regained a bit of his injured dignity—“surely you understand who this Senai is.”
“He could be MacEachern’s bastard for all I care,” said Lara. “But you had no right to bring anyone here—even a clan brother—for any reason.”
“I did only as our high commander bade me. He will have this Senai, Lara. No king, no god, no man or woman will prevent it. The black-tongued devil should never have been released from Mazadine. It was a terrible mistake. The one who told us that seven years of silence would destroy the singer and break his perverted connection to the kai—that one lied to us. We’re going to take back our prisoner and bury him forever.”
Panic devoured my reason and with it all my subtle listening. Better to be dead. I strained against the sharp-edged leather thongs until my wrists bled, and the whip grew tighter about my throat, smearing the world with red. I rolled and lashed out with my feet, first at my red-haired captor, then at Lara and Desmond, but Riders are very skilled with their whips, and I was pulled away choking and gagging. Then a boot landed in my side, leaving my legs as limp as rags, and I had to spend all my energy to take another breath. Somewhere beyond the pounding of my blood and the rasp of my starved lungs, Lara was speaking calmly and coldly.
“So the promises you’ve made, my pardon, the hope that I would ride ... they were nothing but what? A ruse to draw me out and find out what I knew of the Senai? To snare him if he was nearby? All lies, then? Do the Twelve think I’m in league with this devil?”
“No! I didn’t mean—Of course not. The high commander knew the man had escaped into the mountains. He thought it possible that the same ones who helped you would help him. I was going to ask you if you’d seen him. MacEachern does not trust the Elhim, not after—”
Lara pressed her finger firmly over Desmond’s mouth. “Do not prattle. My trust will not be won by words. If you love me, brother, you must show me that I’m the true prize you seek. Leave this helpless Senai vermin for the wolves and take me home. When I step into Cor Neuill, I will have put my life in your hands, so I require this proof of your saying: Take back the most important prize and abandon the lesser. And if I am not the most important, then I no longer have any clan, any family, or any brother.”
“Lara!”
“I’ll not be used as bait. I’ll not have my honor suspect. And I’ll not be made a fool by lies and treachery. Prove your words by your deeds, Desmond.”
I had never met man, woman, or beast so mystifyingly unpredictable as Lara. If she were to kiss me full on the lips at that moment, I could as easily believe I was poisoned as that she cared one whit for me. If I’d not been so sick and terrified, I might have laughed at Desmond’s dilemma. As it was, I spit blood from my mouth, shifted my cheek that rested on a sharp-edged stone, and watched his face register every conceivable emotion as he gazed from his beloved sister to his despised enemy. She had put him in a wicked fix and me in worse. A wolf’s howl echoed eerily from the rocky heights. I was going to lose either way.
Desmond recovered admirably, though if Lara believed his words honest, she was a fool beyond saving. “There is no question here,” he said, not explaining why his decision had taken so long if there was no question in his mind. “You are my first and most sacred quarry—to retrieve you from exile and restore you to your rightful place. I had thought we could bring the Senai as our triumphal gift to our clan. But if you say it is not a worthy gift, if you believe I see his capture as anything but long-delayed good fortune for our house, then so be it. We will dispose of him as you say. The gods will silence his foul tongue.”
“And what of your friend, brother?”
“Rueddi is in my debt. He will carry out my wishes. Exactly.”
The red-haired man bowed to Desmond and smirked at me, even as he pulled tight on the strap around my neck.
Events moved quickly after that. Scarcely two heartbeats and I was left hanging in the freezing night, my wrists secured to a sturdy pine bough above my head, my feet scarcely touching the ground. Lara had seen to the binding; then Rueddi had ripped the cloak, gloves, shirt, and boots off me. My clothes were now scattered across the clearing and down the gorge after being laced generously with blood from a deep cut on my arm. As he led his horse from the bushes Rueddi gave me a playful lash with his whip, and by the time I won the battle to keep from crying out, Lara leaped up behind Desmond, and the three of them rode into the night.
One by one the scattered coals of Lara’s fire winked out. The rivulets of blood on my back and my arm and my face froze, and one by one my extremities went numb. The wolf’s howl split the night, closer than before. I could hear the change in key as she smelled my blood on the wind.