Blood Warrior

“The arrival of a twice-blessed sibling is certainly that.”

“Twice-cursed.”

“Do your clan words matter to me?”

Kavya had underestimated the extent of Pendray rage lurking beneath his cool surface. He radiated the tension of a gale-force blizzard wind. He was different in that he held back what other members of his clan basked in using at any opportunity. At least, that’s how the Pendray were described in rumor and disdainful talk.

“If he kills me, he’ll lose connection to reality. His mind will be all that matters. He’ll live there and refashion the world to match what he sees. That could mean anything.” She nodded toward where bodies lay motionless on the altar. Blood had started to congeal around her fallen allies. “I doubt it will be peaceful.”

“Turns out you won’t need me to discredit you. The Sun led her people to slaughter, with your brother as the heavy.”

“You know nothing,” Chandrani said with unflinching vehemence. Despite her bleeding temple, she pushed Kavya forward and took up the rear defense. She held her saber with practiced steadiness.

The bubble of relative safety behind the altar muffled sound. Rock protected Kavya from the audible nightmare her people were enduring, but nothing buffered the suffering they shouted in silent, psychic screams. Her stomach was a solid cramp of tissue that wouldn’t loosen. Nothing could undo this damage, even if she restored some sense of unity.

How confident she’d been that afternoon.

Too confident. Too arrogant. She’d created a place of spiritual safety that belied actual safety. Northerners and Southerners had put aside their differences. There in the valley, when had any needed to use telepathic attacks? Never. They’d been taken by surprise, and they were fighting back, but with two deadly sweeps of his sword, Pashkah had proven all of them to be woefully complacent.

“There,” she said. “That block.”

Tallis sheathed his seax and dropped his pack. He squatted before the boulder that concealed the exit and pushed.

“Help him or cripple him?” Chandrani asked. “I can do either. He didn’t hit me that hard.”

“Half your face is covered in blood. He knew just where to hit you, didn’t he? Can you read my thoughts?

Chandrani shook her head, appearing ashamed as if she were to blame.

Kavya touched her friend’s cheek—the only skin left exposed by the riveted armor. “Help him. We’ll deal with him later.”

“I won’t let him hurt you.” Chandrani’s expression remained impassive, but the conviction in her voice was unmistakable. She never lied. She never exaggerated. Her only failing was in thinking she could do everything herself.

They were very alike in that sense.

“Now isn’t the time to discuss my fate,” Tallis ground out, with his shoulder to the copper-flecked stone. It was half his size. “This was your escape? How did you expect to move this?”

Chandrani pushed Tallis aside. She touched a hidden place along the valley wall. The boulder opened like a door on a hinge. “Brains over brawn, Pendray.”

“Too bad for you, sister,” came that dreaded ghost-soft voice. Pashkah had intoned for the crowd, but delivered his sincerest threats in whispers.

He stood flanked by two members of the Black Guard. Each held a terror-stricken young woman, while Pashkah was armed with the same blood-drenched sword he’d used to commit public murder. “Brains would’ve been useful today, Kavya. Now it’s time to see what sort of deity you’ve really become. Come with me or these young women become my next victims.”

CHAPTER FIVE

He’ll kill them anyway,” Tallis said calmly.

Pashkah focused his intense eyes on Tallis. Neither malice nor temper shone in those shaded depths. “Pendray can speak? You learn something new every day. Next I’ll expect dogs to write poetry.”

Tallis held back his temper at the slight. He focused instead on Kavya. She was more calm in the face of her brother’s threat than she had been on the receiving end of Tallis’s kisses. What that meant would have to wait. Getting out alive was all that mattered.

“You know I’m right,” Tallis said to Kavya. “They’re damned by an accident of fate.”

“And you believe in fate, you blood-hungry Reaper?” Pashkah’s soft voice was mocking with laughter, although his unnerving expression never changed. He reminded Tallis of how Kavya had appeared when addressing her flock—that slippery facade—but he couldn’t tell whether it was a Mask or some Indranan trickery. The man was rich with the power of madness. “You’re such primitive creatures. It’s a shame we’re obligated to include you among the Five Clans.”

“Go.” Tallis had sheathed his seaxes to move the boulder, which meant he felt damn near naked. He flicked his gaze between Pashkah and Kavya. “Get your woman out of here and go.”

“I’m not leaving while he lives,” Chandrani said.

Pashkah blinked . . . and Chandrani screamed.

She collapsed onto her knees. She pressed her hands around her skull.

“That’s what you get for being a thorn in my side for too long, Chandrani, dear. Anyone who protects or harbors my sister will receive the same.” Pashkah trained his viciously vacant expression on Tallis. “I wonder how little effort it would take to lobotomize a Pendray.”

The charged-up urges gathering in Tallis’s blood had become a hurricane contained within skin. He smiled broadly. “I’m up for it if you are.”

That unreserved joy seemed to upset Pashkah more than the words, with his brow drawing into a blink- quick frown. “Try me, Reaper beast.”

Tallis let himself go.

With seaxes instantly in hand, the world whirled into shades of scarlet and lead. His peripheral vision became steam. Formless. Irrelevant. His focus trained on Pashkah’s sword. In the heartbeat’s worth of time between ordinary and extraordinary, Tallis had identified the weapon as the crux of the standoff. Without it, Pashkah could injure but not kill. The Black Guardsmen still held their captives. They might kill the young women if they escaped through the archway, but Tallis wouldn’t let their vulnerability influence Kavya. Nor would he divert his energy.

The sword was the key.

He homed in on the glinting golden glow. The power of the Chasm lived within its luster. Tallis’s swords would be cleaved in two if struck by that blade. Nothing commonplace could withstand its potency.

He whipped his body into a greater, faster rage—hyper-focused, yet frighteningly mindless. The part of him that had lived too long among the humans dropped away. He was a creature of energy and the elements. The earth flowed up through his feet. He struck quick-patter steps across the valley’s granite floor.

Slicing Pashkah’s hand off should’ve been an easy task. But the fleeting moments before he sacrificed his rationality left him open to telepathic attack. Pashkah lanced his body with pain and filled his thoughts with bile, sugar-spun lies, and dizzying misdirection. Tallis saw images of flowers, bloody teeth, entrails, grains of sand in an hourglass no larger than a child’s palm. He felt the wind against his face as if fire and acid had joined with a tempest to flay his face.

His gift fought back. He hadn’t given in to its entirety in years. The monster was immune to Pashkah’s meddling, because the monster dwelled deeper than consciousness. Whatever Pashkah was doing to his higher thoughts no longer bothered Tallis. Whatever had sparked the confrontation no longer mattered. All that his