Blood Warrior

Tallis jerked away, eyes wide and chest thumping. The dream was gone, but the unnerving truth lingered.

Kavya and the Sun were not the same woman.

—

Kavya and Chandrani huddled behind a trio of evergreen trunks so entwined that they formed a natural shelter. Chandrani had shed what she could of the padded clothing beneath her armor, giving it to Kavya to stave off the worst of the cold.

But Kavya couldn’t sleep.

That old fear had returned, that if she slept, she wouldn’t wake up as herself.

I won’t let that happen, Chandrani said without words.

Their communication link was whole again, as was the ability to use each other’s senses. But Chandrani’s powers of attack remained pell-mell and unreliable. Whatever she might accomplish for their defense would be done instead with body and skill. What sort of life had Tallis lived that he knew with such certainty how to incapacitate an Indranan?

Kavya stared into the gentle black as a late sliver of moon rose above the tallest peak in the east. The silver sheen reflected off the river’s wide waters. She stared as if watching a flame. Surely Pashkah had recruited a Tracker for his army. Kavya and Chandrani may as well be pursued by bloodhounds. They weren’t safe at night, and she couldn’t think of a safe place to go come dawn.

I can’t sleep, she said. You know that.

I know. You’ve never been very good at letting go.

A moment of levity made Kavya smile at her friend. Can you blame me?

The Indranan hadn’t been their only enemies when growing up in Delhi and Mumbai. Some humans would’ve liked finding defenseless young girls on the cusp of womanhood. She and Chandrani had hidden each other with psychic distortion, and they had stayed small and quiet. Only telepathy. Had anyone found them, Kavya harbored no doubt that Chandrani would’ve died trying to protect her. Her sense of debt to Kavya was infinite.

I’m afraid of Pashkah, she told Chandrani. After tucking her slippered feet more securely beneath her body, she adjusted the armor’s padding. Her legs would be numb from lack of circulation, but at least they wouldn’t be numb because of frostbite. And I’m afraid of what that man Tallis said. What if I really have been contacting him in dream?

Chandrani’s outrage was instantaneous. How? You’d have known.

Dreams are dreams. And there’s no telling what exists inside our minds. So many Masks. So many days where time is missing. Can we really say that our thoughts are our own? Or our memories? Some Masquerade could’ve planted malevolent intentions when he installed a Mask. I don’t know why, or why Tallis in particular, but it’s possible. We’ve known people who’ve layered too many disguises on top of their true personalities.

As mad as the twice-cursed, Chandrani replied with a nod.

Kavya shivered and tried to keep her jaw steady. Her teeth hadn’t stopped chattering since those moments surrounding Tallis’s kiss. That means what he said is possible.

Even if you can’t read his mind?

Can you? Kavya’s frustration surged back in force.

No. I could hurt him, but I couldn’t find a single thought. Chandrani shifted. Her metal-lined armor didn’t make much noise, but it sounded terribly loud in the nighttime stillness. Kavya, you need to set aside a puzzle you can’t solve tonight. Rest.

Impossible.

Images of blood and ruined flesh—cleanly cleaved heads and a chunk of skin ripped from her brother’s arm—filled her mind. A sob choked up from her chest, but her mind was awash with crying that wouldn’t stop. “We were so close,” she whispered aloud. “So many people trusted me. I trusted that everyone would welcome the truce. But Pashkah . . . Dragon damn him.”

A noise behind the entwined trio of trees stilled them both. Kavya held her breath and clenched her teeth. She couldn’t hear beyond the noise in her ears and the squeak of wind swirling through the boughs. If it was an animal, she wouldn’t be able to identify it. She could only read the thoughts of creatures possessing a higher consciousness, which fit with what Tallis had explained regarding how he’d resisted Pashkah’s attack. If it was a human or a Dragon King, she should’ve known minutes ago. Maybe longer.

That meant it could be nothing—a trick of the landscape as it slowly changed its eons-old shape.

It could be a Black Guard trained in tracking.

Or . . .

It was Tallis.

He appeared so suddenly that Kavya screamed in her mind. Chandrani stood and squared off against the infuriating Pendray. “Haven’t you caused enough havoc?” Chandrani asked. “I preferred your vow to leave and never come back.”

The moon amplified Kavya’s ability to see his features. Deep circles curled beneath his eyes. His mouth, so apt to smiling in that disconcerting way, was a grim streak of shadow. She saw worry and extreme fatigue as plainly as if he’d spoken the words—as plainly as if she’d taken up residence in his mind and experienced his exhaustion.

“Put it away, Chandrani,” he said nodding to her saber.

“She’s right, though, about you vowing to leave.” Kavya forced her voice to remain even. “Why not stay gone? Pashkah did what you’d set out to do—to ruin me. There should be nothing left between us other than my extreme regret that I ever met you.”

“Look at me.”

She stared once again, indulging his command because she wanted to. He was handsome to the point of stabbing pain in her chest. A man had never figured into her plans. She was too vulnerable. She could barely sleep, let alone lie beside another. So much vulnerability was terrifying. Tallis made her want what she’d never even imagined. That should’ve been enough to raise her defenses and cast him from her thoughts.

He was dangerous.

Except, she’d never considered lying with a member of a different clan. Tallis couldn’t creep into her mind. He’d find the idea repulsive.

Instead he would touch and stroke her with his strong, work-worn hands.

So she looked, memorizing the way the moon added deeper luster to the silver sheen of his dark hair. That heavy mass was tempting. She could bury her fingers in it and pull his mouth down to hers.

“Kavya.”

She blinked. “Yes. I looked. What about it?”

“I slept.” He shouldered past Chandrani, who made a token protest both mentally and verbally. “Do I look like I’ve slept?”

Kavya pushed free of the trees as she stood. The moon wasn’t strong enough to help answer his question. She placed cold hands on his cheeks. Only when skin met skin did she realize that her touch was an echo of how she’d held his blood-streaked face. His eyes closed briefly on a sigh. That wasn’t possible. He was too angry for sighing.

“I knew it,” he whispered.

Rather than question him—because he was still a lonayip bastard who spoke in riddles—she turned his features toward the moon. The circles under his eyes were so deep and dark as to appear agonizing. He looked ten times as tired as when they’d parted.

“I don’t understand.” She pulled her hands back just enough for him to grasp them, fingers twined, holding each other again. She was afraid of repeating these intimate things—making patterns, finding familiarity she didn’t want to feel but couldn’t deny.

“You came to me again. In a dream.”

Kavya jerked away. She wasn’t touching him, just the sharp bark of the trees at her back. “I’ve been here with Chandrani the whole time. Linked with her mind. Very much awake. I . . . I—”

“You what? The only way you can convince me of a Dragon-damn thing is to tell the truth. It has to sink into my bones as the truth. I don’t have any other way to judge what you say. So