Blood Warrior

too. It was a cruel joke for the Dragon to play, bonding siblings so closely, only to have those siblings turn on one another.

“This ends here, Pashkah. I’m not running. I’m not hiding. I’m returning to the Indranan to repair the damage you’ve done.”

“With this disgusting Reaper?” He kicked Tallis in the stomach, who was slowly rousing but pinned to the ground by four Guardsmen.

“He’s going to kill you,” Kavya said. “Not even the Dragon could change that now.”

Pashkah strode forward, his Dragon-forged sword in hand. Kavya backed up a step, then another.

She was defenseless.

Around them, the fray had eased. Everyone knew why they were there. The Guardsmen and Tallis’s family were foot soldiers as the generals squared off.

“You always thought you were above the rest of us.” Pashkah’s face contorted in a blend of expressions. “You thought you could erase thousands of years of suspicion and hatred. It can’t be done. She said the same thing, and she forced my hand.”

“She? What are you talking about?”

“Baile! Don’t you remember what we promised? We’d never succumb to what the others did. We were stronger than that. Kavya, you remember how we vowed.”

“And then you killed our sister! What sort of vow is that?”

“One I couldn’t keep when she attacked me with Father’s sword.”

Kavya staggered back a step. “No. That’s not how it happened. You betrayed our trust and you killed her.”

“I did kill her, yes.” His single nod reminded her more of her lost brother than anything ever had. His voice wasn’t the same, nor his looks nor his demeanor. Kavya caught images of unfamiliar men and women, but mostly she saw Baile. Their sister. Her so-distant features flickered over his. But Pashkah had used that particular nod when absorbing new information or admitting a wrong. “It was her life or mine, not because I meant to betray anyone. Who was the strongest of us, Kavya?”

She swallowed. The cold was getting to her now, although the sea winds had nothing to do with it. Old memories realigned. She adjusted her grip on the hilt of Tallis’s seax, if only to urge blood back into her pinched, numb fingers. “She was.”

“And who was the strongest of us, physically?”

“You.”

Pashkah shone through his own eyes. He was taking control of . . . something. Even the appearances of his shape-shifting features had slowed, calmed, resumed their usual configuration. He’d always been so handsome. Now Kavya saw that he’d have matured into a magnificent man. “And who of us was the least threat?”

“Me. My gift was weaker. I was weaker.”

“We were all wrong on that score.” He twirled the hilt of the sword their father had kept safe. Their pod had been so peaceful. He and Mother had assembled another three couples. The sword had been insurance, in case adult brothers or sisters came with murder in mind. It hadn’t been intended for one child to use against another. Members of the pod had worked tirelessly to teach the siblings tolerance and peace—that they were better than the greed of their gift.

“That’s right,” Pashkah said. Kavya had been with Tallis for so long that she’d forgotten how invasive that could feel. “Tolerance and peace. You learned that lesson better than any of us. Baile smiled along. She hid from us even then. Tell me in truth that you knew our sister. Knew her heart, her fears, her deepest thoughts. Tell me whatever it is you think you know and I’ll tell you it was a lie. She wanted both of us dead, and she started with me. I never saw it coming, and you wouldn’t have either. She wanted a stronger body to keep pace with her mind.” He smashed his left fist against his skull and roared in pain that didn’t seem physical. “Then we’d come for you.”

“This is long past, Pashkah. It’s too long past. Fight her now. Let Chandrani and my husband go. We can walk away. Or . . .” Her voice broke, thick with emotion. She didn’t like seeing him this way—as her brother. As the brother she’d loved long ago. “Or, Dragon be, you can help me. Our people need us.”

A telltale sneer reshaped his face. Baile again. Even his voice took on her inflections and cadence. “Always so good. It’s not going to happen, Kavya. You’re going to die today, so I can stop chasing you and begin the culling that needs to take place.”

Kavya raised the seax, although she knew it would be destroyed if they clashed weapons. She growled. Only then did she glance at Tallis where he remained pinned. The dawn bathed his face with a pink light that added more vitality than he possessed. Blood dripped from his temple, and his eyes were unfocused. She knew that look. Constantly bombarded by psychic pain.

And yet . . . She looked again.

Her berserker was in there. And he was waiting.

“He’s a mindless Reaper.” Pashkah grinned. “But he knows the truth. She’s been feeding it to him for years.”

Kavya stilled. “She?”

“Our sister dearest.”

“Baile?” Kavya lunged on pure instinct. The seax stabbed deep into the joint that powered Pashkah’s right shoulder. He cried out and clutched the wound. “Baile has been in Tallis’s dreams?”

“Using your face,” came the singsong taunt of madness. They were blended into one now, brother and sister, both of them tying Kavya’s gut in a sick spin of knots. “And using your body and the sweet innocence of your ideals of peace. Funny thing to find those same ideals in a Pendray. We searched the world. He was the one who seemed happy to see us. Happy to do our honorable bidding. But we couldn’t have you two figuring that out, could we?” Pashkah’s mouth formed a smile that eerily echoed their dead sister’s. “So we blocked your thoughts. No sharing secret weapons. Only these crude pieces of metal.”

“Pashkah,” she pleaded. “I know you’re in there. Fight her. Help me end this!”

“Oh, I plan to.” He stepped forward.

Kavya knew to stand her ground. She saw it and heard it in every aspect of her brother’s body, face, warped mind.

He doesn’t want me dead.

“You’re right on that score,” he said. “And neither does Baile. You see, I’m through fighting her. Help you end this? There’s no other way than to end my life.”

She swallowed a flash flood of grief. “Then give Tallis the sword. He can end your misery.”

“I would.” Pashkah lifted his fists, one of which swished the sword through the air. The other tugged his hair with so much force that he could have stripped his scalp clean off. “But she doesn’t want to die. Our dear departed Baile. She wants you to do the dirty work, Kavya dear. The three of us together as one. All those followers ready to do your bidding again. Your pretty face. Your endless optimism.”

The horror of that scenario made Kavya want to vomit and scream, but her skin held her body together. She trusted that it would until the Dragon took her back to the Chasm for eternity. “I would have to kill you, Pashkah.” She shook her head, correcting herself. “I’d have to kill both of you. But I won’t be a vessel for your insanity. I won’t do it.”

“Yes, you will. Or your new husband loses his head.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tallis watched the unfolding scene as if he were a much younger man, experiencing his first dream vision. The colors were all wrong. The sounds in his ears and the taste in his mouth—they were distorted. He could hear