Clans of Luteri Bk. 02 Ch. 01-02

He stopped Shaol and pulled a red scarf from the pocket of his cloak, blood color. He pulled off his cloak, rolling it and placing it in the pack by his knee. He tied the scarf to his upper arm, pulling it tight with his teeth, his movements jerky.

"Corsaire clan won't like it that they have to wait until I've spoken to Kavini to kill me," he said shortly. "But they won't say anything to us or touch us. Don't mind them."

The bond twinged between them. She didn't touch it again. His hands folded over hers, his chin resting briefly on top of her hooded head.

"Let's go see your father," he said to her.

They entered the Aspens into Corsaire territory.

#

They rode for another hour or so. When the day was getting late, Aslin began to feel it first as a crawling sensation.

They weren't alone.

Kane had probably known long ago, and she realized Shaol was tense, had been tense since they first entered the Aspens, his ears back, his head ranging left and right.

Gradually she began to see them, the hood obscuring her side vision, the shadows of late day making it difficult to make out details. A corner of dark cloth through the straight white trunks of the Aspens. A horse's huge black head emerged, bobbing as he walked, his body still hidden as they moved. She looked to the other side, seeing the same. A hoof that stepped. Riders in black began to appear around them, deep blue swirls, Luterian lettering on their black leather.

Luterian warriors like Kane, but Corsaire clan. A man appeared to their right, as big as Kane, on a horse as big as Shaol. Aslin looked at his features from under her hood. Long dark hair below his shoulders, such dark eyes, bitter carved features, cruel and beautiful like Kane, the same intensity. His eyes almost appeared black in the dim light of early dusk under the trees.

Two more men appeared on her left, the same eyes. Aslin shivered, suddenly glad for the hood,

wondering if that was what Kane had meant when he said her eyes sometimes looked black, if Kane sometimes saw her this way.

The men didn't speak. Kane seemed to ignore them, guiding Shaol steadily, but his arm around her was tense. The bond twinged between them again as it did if one of them were experiencing a strong, unpleasant emotion. Kane was unhappy, it told her, but she had already known that.

The men around them closed in slowly until they were surrounding Shaol. The Corsaire warriors began to look at them, turning their heads, long looks. Even with the hood she felt the impact of their eyes. It was awful the way they stared, somehow hungry, their faces seeming the same, inhuman and cold, malevolent.

Shaol, choosing the largest horse in range, surged sideways to swipe at the warhorse ridden by the dark-haired man she had first seen, his ears flat. To her surprise, Kane didn't try to stop him, the Corsaire man veering his horse away sharply, who didn't like it. The Corsaire man fought to control him, expression in the man's face now, furious hatred, glaring at Kane. She heard Kane give a bitter laugh behind her.

Kane wore the truce band. The Corsaire warrior couldn't touch him. Kane was taunting the man for it, she realized.

Their escort kept up with them, at their front now, their backs, to their sides, Barley swallowed in Luterian warhorses behind Shaol, the small horse probably terrified.

They went up to a flatter area and the land opened up in front of her. Aslin looked ahead and saw a great black castle in the center of a blue expanse and realized it was a lake.

It looked so strange, like magic, the huge structure of dark dull stone seeming almost unreal in its crisp symmetry, tall turrets, a village below it just past the iron gates marking its entrance. The castle seemed to float on the serene expanse of shockingly blue water under a sky as brilliantly blue, a long straight and wide wood bridge leading to it from the path they rode, straight up the center.

The sight of it both surprised her and also didn't, as if a part of her had expected it even before they topped the rise. It was so perfect, so pleasurable to look at, the black against the blue of the lake, against the blue of the sky, one merely shifting hue to blend into the other, the single bridge dwindling to its balanced gates.

Corsaire Hold sat on an island in the lake. Shaol's hooves landed on the long bridge and with that sound Aslin slid effortlessly into its familiarity, the silent dark-haired men who rode with them for a moment not menacing but reassuring, familiar. Home, her clan. Memories trembled on the edge of her mind, ready to capture. The water was wide and blue and still, reflecting the sky, her heart pounding. She closed her eyes, smelling the water, brackish, a mineral smell, cold. She wished she could take the hood off.

She opened her eyes as they approached the gates. She knew what they would look like, black and straight and tall, an inset wrought in shapes of Aspen trees, so familiar she might have drawn the shapes with her own hand. The center smaller gates opened, two men coming from the other side who didn't look at them, and with their escort they entered Corsaire Hold. The warhorses beside them dropped behind or moved forward in the narrow street.

All Aslin's memories scattered as she saw the people lining the main cobbled street in the Corsaire village three and four deep, saw their faces. They had come out, all of them just standing there, staring, very still.

Then it began. Hissing, the sound rising and joining, full of venom, seeming to fill all the air around them. A man leaned forward and spat in front of Shaol's hooves right before he walked there, the warhorse baring his teeth and sliding his head sideways, clacking. Another spat on the cobblestones they walked from the other side, and soon people were spitting all over the street Shaol walked on.

Kane ignored it. Aslin felt herself trembling under their eyes even with the hood, her hands shaking, and she touched Shai's Kiss on her throat, somehow comforted by it.

The man whose horse had almost collided with Shaol turned his head, looking at her wrist when she did. Her oath bracelet. She quickly slid the cloak's sleeve to cover it before he could read it. Her bloodline was written there, Kane's bloodline. The man's blank expression broke into a fierce, savage grin, looking straight at her as if he could see her through the hood. He was terrifying.

Aslin faced forward, her heart pounding. She wanted to leave. She didn't want to go any farther. She began to breath fast. She touched the bond. Nothing. She touched it again, feeling panic rising in her.

"Kane," she said softly.

"If I turn back now they'll kill me before Shaol takes three steps," he said to her in an uninflected tone, not bothering to lower his voice, not seeming to care who heard.

The hood of her cloak was trembling, she realized, the man to her right who kept pace with them giving her a mocking, knowing sneer. She looked down at her hands, willing them to be still, but it was no use. A deep twinge came from the bond. Kane. They shouldn't be here. This felt wrong.

Kane's hand came over hers and she let out her breath, not realizing she had been holding it. They were almost to the end of the village, the hissing fading behind them, such a relief for that to end. Riders in front of them dropped back, ones behind them moving forward until they were surrounded again in the wider way. All the hooves clattered on the cobbled stones as they approached the tall heights of the castle and passed through its arched entrance into a common courtyard.

It was dark enough now that the sconces ringing the courtyard were in flame, the only light, illuminating the space oddly, long shadows. The sound of hooves on the stones stopped as all the horses did, as Shaol did, and the only sound remaining was of the flames sputtering in gusts of wind.

There were more Corsaire men here on the edges of the courtyard, surrounding them like tall statues. The men were all cloaked, all armed, not moving, their faces cold. Kane dismounted, dropping the reins, as the Corsaire warriors who had brought them did as well. Kane reached up and pulled her down, his hands at her waist reassuring.

All the Corsaire warriors came close, not touching them as Kane drew her through a door, his hand under her elbow, the men moving enough to let them pass. Then the men surrounded them, going with them,

still silent.

They walked through large stone passages with torches, nobody saying anything, turning left and then two rights, Kane seeming to know the way. People stopped in the passages to stare. A faint hissing rose and fell. Aslin looked down, focusing on the floor they walked on and not on them, not on the men around them. She wanted to leave. She didn't care if they were her family. Kane was right. They were hateful.

She looked up when they walked into the Corsaire High Lord's Hall, her hood still covering her from her nose up, only her mouth and lower chin visible, she knew, the rest in shadow. She turned to look at Kane's face. She almost didn't recognize him. He was as expressionless as they were. His eyes looked like theirs, full of rage and hate. She looked around, feeling alone, beginning to breathe faster.

The Hall itself was huge. There were people standing in groups around the edges, all of them as silent as every person had been since they arrived. There was a huge fireplace, the Hall lit well, long tables with chairs, banners with the shape of Aspens, blue against black. The floor was black and smooth, huge slabs of polished rock joined in patterns. Aslin blinked, experiencing a flash of playing on this floor, a foreign memory, feelings she didn't recognize, of running her hand across this polished surface, smooth from Corsaire footsteps, her clan, feeling possessive and pleased.

She looked at the two chairs at the front of the Hall. One was empty. A man sat in the other.

Aslin took two quick steps forward. Kane reached and hauling her back by her arm as she heard the sound of steel and two men were suddenly close, their weapons drawn, the blades gleaming in front of her. Her eyes were on the seated figure. She knew him. He was large, strong, more tall than stocky, black hair with white showing in it, dark eyes, a drawn, severe face.

Her father. She remembered he was her father. She felt a surge of relief and longing, straining a little toward him against Kane's hand.

One of the Corsaire warriors who had ridden with them, the one whose horse Shaol had attacked, the one who had silently mocked her, went and spoke to the High Lord quickly, indicating her with his hand, but she couldn't hear what he said. Then the High Lord's eyes went to her and she felt a leap of hope, recognizing his eyes, his regard so familiar.

Cold contempt crossed her father's features as his eyes roamed her cloaked figure and dismissed her. She felt a slow flush that went through her body, swallowing. Aslin stopped straining forward, Kane pulling her more securely to his side.

"Kane of Tavishi," the man said into the tense silence. "You ride under a truce band. When your audience is done, you will die in the Corsaire courtyard."

Kavini leaned back carelessly. He gestured at her.

"Ruthe tells me you have brought your oath here, Tavishi. You must be mad. I will have to decide if I will dump one or two bodies in front of the Tavishi gates tomorrow morning. Say what you have come to say."

Aslin stared at the High Lord. He was talking about killing Kane, killing her. When Kane responded, it was with a harshness she hadn't heard from him since that first night in Alveria, since he had first bought her and hated her.

"I bring your daughter Aslin," Kane sneered, his hand going to the back of the hood of her cloak, pulling it from her in a sharp motion, revealing her. "As a gesture of respect to the Corsaire High Lord, her father."

#

Kane had the satisfaction of watching the blood drain from Kavini's face, all of the faces around them slackening and showing shock, all of them staring at her. The Corsaire flinched, her shoulder coming up against her cheek, turning her head into it a little as if she wanted to hide from their eyes.

Kane had watched them spend their hate on her, a small part of him pleased that she would see her clan for what they were.

He was a fool.

Corsaire didn't want peace. More than that, he didn't want to give it to them. He had known it as soon as he entered their territory. It was like he had been blinded, like he'd forgotten. Seeing them, his hate had answered theirs, unchanging, so familiar, a black well of pain and rage rising to choke him. He began to breathe faster, his nose flaring with it.

Kane's eyes slid to his left. What made him think he could come here and stand in the same room as Ruthe? Ruthe, who had dragged Maele alive behind the same horse Ruthe had just ridden into the courtyard, dragged him until he was dead, dragged him even after he was dead. Maele, Kane's brother who had no brothers. Maele, who liked to carve clever animals in wood.

Kane hadn't even recognized the bloody mess that was Maele's face when Ruthe had dumped him in front of the Tavishi gates and rode away. Kane had hit the iron gates running, fumbling to get it open, already crying out in fear because he knew who the lifeless figure was, knew despite the fact that all Ruthe had left behind for his clan to grieve before giving him to Shai's fire was long light brown hair and meat in dirty, torn, bloody Tavishi clan clothing.

It was Maele, though. Kane knew it by the scar that ran along the figure's lower right arm, a scar he had gotten when Kane had persuaded him to climb a rock face when they were ten. Maele had fallen and a tree branch had pierced it, hiding his tears on the long walk back to the Hold, Kane pretending not to notice them.

The rope had been on his hands, so his arms had remained untouched. For a terrible moment before he reached the body and threw himself on his knees beside it, Kane had wondered if Maele had looked for him, had tried to hold out against the pain for Kane to save him.

Kane had seen that scar and had raised his eyes, his face twisted, blind with tears, and Ruthe had mocked him, saluting him from the horizon, his laughter floating across the distance. Tavishi clan had held Kane back, held him until he stopped screaming and struggling, finally sinking to his knees, sobbing. He would never forgive him, never. He would kill Ruthe if it were his last act, kill everyone he loved.

Kane's eyes shifted to the Corsaire, her hood back, revealing her.

It happened so fast. Her eyes shifted and she looked back at him and he saw her but he didn't, dark Corsaire eyes in this evil, black, twisted and vicious hall, her clan all around her. For the briefest of moments, no more than a flicker of a bitter thought, rising from the hate in him, she looked no different to him than they did.

The bond broke open without his willing it and all of his hatred for them, for Corsaire clan, breached the barrier he had placed between them, flowing through it and striking at her instead. Her face went white and she shook her head, backing away from him.

Kane woke from the haze of his rage, abruptly and totally clear. He stared at her. He took a step toward her, looking for a way to take it back. But it was already there.

The bond echoed, what she felt coming back to him. Confusion. Pain. Longing toward him. Disbelief.

Then loss, loss like he'd never felt before. It ripped into him, wiping out everything else. He cried out, his hands going to his head, behind it a rising sense of horror, frozen at what he had done. She slowly sank sideways to her knees onto the floor, her hands limp on her lap.

They were moving toward her but Kane got to her first.

"Don't touch her," he snarled, going on his knees in front of her, taking her shoulders.

"Clear the Hall," Kavini said in a loud voice, everybody moving.

Her gaze was fixed on the floor.

"No," Kane said, barely hearing himself. "No, don't go, Aslin, I didn't mean—." He felt all his sense of her slipping away from him. He couldn't hold onto it, gone, the bond suddenly no more than smoke, the wind taking it, cold emptiness where it used to be. "No! Aslin!"

Footsteps beside him. He looked up at a Corsaire face.

"What do I do?" he demanded.

Kavini squatted beside him, looking at her, reaching to touch the oath bracelet on her wrist. He bared the mark on her shoulder. His face twisted with grief before he controlled it, expressionless again. His fingers touched her cheek, caressing. She didn't respond, her dark eyes quiet. Kavini looked at him and Kane almost cried out to see pity in the man's eyes.

"The bond can't survive hatred, Kane," Kavini said. "I don't know."

Kavini stood. Kane stared up at him.

"I'll have a chamber prepared," the Corsaire High Lord said. "Take her there. Yours was not the only hatred my daughter felt here today."

Kavini left, the hall empty and silent, as empty as the place in him where the bond had been. Kane looked down at her. Rage, now directed at himself, coursed through him, hot and heavy.

He put his arm under her legs, his other under her back, lifting her onto his knees, getting to his feet. Aslin was limp, her long braid trailing over his arm. He put his forehead on hers, closing his eyes, willing her back to him. Nothing. Empty. The bond was gone. She had been frightened coming here and she had trusted him and look what he had done. The remorse was acid.

"Hai, hai, Aslin," he said.

He lifted his head, looking around himself distractedly. It was only a hall, a Luterian hall, a musical instrument abandoned under a chair. He'd promised Aslin a piano. A child's toy, a wooden horse, by the fire. He had ignored her when she touched the bond, when he had felt his hatred rising, refusing so she wouldn't feel him remembering every bitter loss, every outrage.

Thinking about it didn't even bring an echo of anger. It was spent, gone. White thick candles on the long table. It could have been Tavishi Hall.

"Kane."

He looked. Ruthe. He waited for the hate to rise. It was just a Luterian man with guilt in his eyes.

"I didn't know," he told Kane, as if trying to explain. "I would never have—." The man stopped, his eyes going to her face. "She used to play here when she was a child."

Another dark-haired man came, gesturing. Kane followed him, carrying her, pausing next to Ruthe briefly, not looking at him.

"If she doesn't return to me, I want you to end me in the courtyard."

#

The rooms were similar to a woman's rooms at Tavishi Hold, no oath room. Past the hall there was a common area. There were a table and chairs in front of the window, light wood, a huge rug in the same blue, a tight, intricate pattern. Another room, a study with a desk, the shelves empty. A door led to a bedchamber and a large bed, ornate light carved wood bedposts, a fireplace, a china pitcher with tiny blue flowers, a basin next to it on a dresser. A vase with fresh white flowers. The coverlet had a pattern of small blue birds, Luterian wool as soft and warm as the pattern was delicate.

He put Aslin on the bed. She closed her eyes and curled on her side away from him. He lay down with her, turned toward her.

"I do not hate you," he told her, his voice lonely in the room. "And if all the hate I have felt for your clan is what is needed for you to return to me, then I release it. I release all of it, Aslin, I swear this. Do not leave me without you, please."

He curled up behind her, his forehead against her back, pain in the place the bond had been. He let it take him. It was what he deserved. Aslin, who had never hated anyone in her life, who hadn't hated him. He had taken his bond and fed it to his hate, and now his hatred was gone and he was alone with himself.