“Don’t expect to see him again, Jeren. Any moments together will be stolen and such a theft severely punished. He belongs to the sect. He belongs to Ylandra.”
“Until Springmoot,” Lara said. “That’s any day now. Once she arrives, Ariah will put a stop to this. You’ll see.”
Indarin sighed. “Unless Ariah rules in Ylandra’s favour. No Ariah has ever ruled against a Sect Mother in all the long years. Why would she? To do so would undermine her own authority. No. Don’t count on that. It’s a thin hope. Now, you should rest. Tomorrow we will begin your training.”
Jeren’s owl found Shan at sunset. It watched him with a sullen glare while he cleaned his sword, repacked his belongings and spread out the cloak made from the wolf’s pelt on the floor of his solitary tent. He would be alone now, forever, and it was Ylandra’s fault. He wanted to be angry about it. No, he was angry. He wanted to express that anger. He wanted to defy her and march into the main camp, to seize Jeren in his arms. But duty demanded his obedience, not Ylandra. His duty. So he stayed.
Jeren’s jewellery glittered in the moonlight. He’d have to find some way to get the sapphire necklace and gold bracelets back to her. It was only fair. Would she accept them as his goodbye, he wondered? Could he safely leave them outside wherever Indarin had billeted her? Or perhaps he should give them to his brother for her?
As he wrapped them up in the length of material that had once been a petticoat, his heart began that dreadful ache again. He knew it too well. He’d felt its kindred pain for all such losses. But this was worse. His sister and the wolf were dead. That Jeren was still alive ought to make it easier to bear, but somehow it didn’t.
Shan held the wrapped treasures to his chest and closed his eyes, trying to force his emotions under tighter control. He had no idea how long he knelt there, but a voice broke his meditation, not the voice he prayed to hear.
“There you are,” said Ylandra lightly. “I wondered where you’d got to. You missed the evening meal, but there might be some left, the most wonderful rabbit dish with rosemary and—”
“I wasn’t hungry.” He kept his eyes closed, gripped the necklace tighter. “I thought it better that I rest.”
For a long moment she said nothing. He felt her eyes on him. What? Did she expect him to be all right with this? To just spend time with her as if everything was normal? As if they were friends. No, she wasn’t that much of a fool. Was she?
“Probably wise,” she replied at last. “We will start early in the morning.”
“Start what?”
“Northeast. One of the settlements reported movements of Fellna nearby. The Red Fox Sect took the duty of guarding them but I have heard nothing else in seven days.”
He frowned. Normally runners travelled from sect to sect with news regularly. To hear nothing from the Red Fox for more than a week when they were close by was more than odd. It was suspicious. “The Fellna we encountered in the mountains were overly bold.”
“They are overly bold everywhere these days. I want to find out where they have holed up and why they are invading our territory, particularly here and now, so close to Springmoot. They’re arrogant indeed to think we’d allow it.”
Arrogance. She was a fine one to speak of arrogance, but Shan kept his peace and held himself perfectly still. She would see no reaction from him. Nothing more than duty owed.
“You’re the finest warrior of our sect, Shan.” When he didn’t reply, she touched his shoulder, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. Only that skin to skin touch betrayed it. “One day you will understand, I had to pick you.”
Was she asking for forgiveness? After what she had done?
“She’s my mate.” Three words. That was all. The only words he could manage to bite out while controlling the surge of rage and betrayal.
She took a hurried step back but her voice lashed out like a weapon.
“She’s a True Blood, serpent-born, a Holter. She’s everything you hate!” Ylandra blurted.
Black and red threatened the edges of his vision, blurring the darkness, staining it with blood, with the need to draw blood. He clenched his teeth together and forced his breathing to calm, but barely. He was a killer by training, by inclination, by fate. Why did so many people forget that? Why did they think—?
“You have another destiny, Shanith ,” she told him, her voice firm once more. “And I will not allow you to cast that aside for a—a woman. What you saw at the Vision Rock—”
He twisted, rising at the same time, his body surging towards her. Amid the blur of his fury he saw Ylandra’s face pale, her eyes widen. She took a step back again and it gave him a single point of satisfaction.
“I should never have shared what I saw with you,” he snarled.
Ylandra swallowed hard, her own anger surging to the fore now, her pride wounded by her own reaction. “But you did. And I am going to help you fulfil that fate whether you will it or not, do you understand? She can have no part in it. Battle with the Fellna is the duty of the Shistra-Phail since first the gods created us, and you, Shan, you will be the greatest of—”
“The gods didn’t create us, Ylandra. Don’t deceive yourself. We’re killers, no more, no less. Even our own people would disown us if they didn’t need us. They hate us. Despise us because of the blood on our hands. But I never realised we ever betrayed our own. Not before today.”
Ylandra sucked in a breath and the air between them chilled. The moments passed slowly before she spoke again. “You should move your billet nearer mine if you are to be my bodyguard. I will need to keep you near. Now, if you please.”
And with that she left, moving slowly, gracefully, but Shan was not deceived. Her hands curled at her side, ready to grasp a weapon, ready to defend herself if needs be. That she believed he might attack her both revolted him and gave him hope.
Petty, vindictive Ylandra—how was she chosen as a mother to them all? And yet he knew how. She was loyal, a devoted friend, a caring heart in times of pain. She was devoted to the sect. To many of the younger ones, she had been seen as a paragon, an ideal. That was the Ylandra he remembered.
That was before he left, when Vala was still Sect Mother. He wondered how many still thought that now?
Having just finished pitching his tent, Shan began the tedious task of dismantling it to move some twenty feet nearer to Ylandra’s. There was no point in arguing. There was logic to her stated reasons, though they were not her only reasons, and few could argue against her when it came to logic, or the security of the Sect. No one defied her. She had become accustomed to that.
Shan rolled the wolf skin cloak up, with the necklace inside it. He was by nature law-abiding and dutiful.
It was time for a little defiance.
Chapter Four
Jeren dozed fitfully. Across the tent Lara’s breathing was deep and even now. Jeren wished sleep would claim her so easily, but the only person she had ever slept alongside was Shan and so every breath she heard just reminded her of his absence. She did her best to at least silence the sobs that came in the darkness, but she could do nothing about the tears. Her eyes had swollen, her throat felt raw. Shan was gone. Nothing mattered anymore.
From outside she heard a wolf howl in the distance, lovelorn and lonely. Something jarred within her. She knew that sound, knew it like the beating of her own heart.