R’shiel woke suddenly, startled and unsure of her surroundings. As she looked around she discovered she was in a small cabin on the
“Feeling better?”
R’shiel turned toward the voice and opened her eyes. The Harshini woman was seated on the other bunk, watching over her. She had black-on-black eyes, flawless skin, and thick dark red hair. She had introduced herself as Shananara as she had led R’shiel away from the demons. R’shiel glanced down and discovered her burned hands were unmarked. In fact, her whole body felt renewed. She could not remember ever feeling so well.
“I feel... wonderful. Did you do that?”
“I just gave your own healing powers a bit of a helping hand.”
“Thank you,” R’shiel said, genuinely grateful. With the physical pain gone, it was far easier to ignore the mental scars. She pushed back the blanket and sat up, a little startled to discover she was clean, but naked, under the covers. She hurriedly pulled the blanket up to cover herself.
“You have learned the human concept of modesty, I fear.”
Shananara reached into a deep bag and handed R’shiel a set of black riding leathers, similar to those she wore. “I thought you might need something to wear. We are of a size, I suspect. They should fit you.”
Shananara mistook her astonishment for embarrassment. “It’s all right. I won’t look.”
The Harshini woman politely turned her back as R’shiel dressed in the supple leathers. She had worn long concealing skirts all her life, and the velvety leather of the Harshini outfit clung to her frame as if molded to it. R’shiel felt rather exposed. When Shananara turned back she clapped her hands delightedly.
“Now you look like a true Harshini Dragon Rider!” she declared. “But for your eyes, it’s hard to believe you have any human blood in you at all.”
“I find it harder to accept that I have Harshini blood,” R’shiel remarked with a frown.
“Your mother never told you anything useful, did she? Who your father was, for instance? How she met him? Why he abandoned her? If he even knew of your existence?”
“My mother... my real mother died when I was born.”
“I’m sorry, R’shiel. I didn’t know. Family raised you, then? An aunt or uncle, perhaps?”
R’shiel wondered how much she should tell her. This woman had arrived on a dragon. She was a member of a race that the Sisterhood had deliberately set out to exterminate. R’shiel was not certain how Shananara would take the news that she had been raised by the current First Sister.
“I was taken in by someone,” R’shiel told her, evasively.
“Someone who lived at the Citadel?” Shananara asked, as she walked to the small shelf near the door and took down two goblets and a wineskin. “Don’t let it bother you, R’shiel. Dranymire and the demons have felt the bond with you ever since you reached maturity. We know you lived at the Citadel. It is nothing to be ashamed of.” She offered R’shiel a cup of wine. The sweet liquid slipped down her throat and warmed her through.
“I’m not ashamed of being raised in the Citadel.”
“You might have been a Sister of the Blade. Now that would have been interesting.” The idea seemed to amuse Shananara greatly.
“How dare you laugh at me! You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I think, or what I feel, or what I’ve been through! You’re not even real!”
“Oh, I’m real enough, R’shiel. As for who you are and what you feel, let me take an educated guess. You were probably a perfectly normal human girl up until... what? About two years ago? A little brighter than your friends perhaps, quicker to learn, faster to pick things up? You never got sick. In fact, you never had much trouble with anything. Then one day, the sight of meat started to repulse you. And headaches, there would have been terrible, terrible headaches. It went on for months until finally you could not even stand the smell of meat and the headaches were so painful you could barely lift your head in the mornings. How am I doing so far?”
“Tarja told you all of this!”
Shananara shook her head. “He did not, as well you know. Do you want me to go on?” R’shiel looked away, but she continued without waiting for an answer. “Finally, your menses arrived, years after all of your friends. The headaches vanished and the smell of meat no longer made you sick to your stomach, but other strange things began to happen to you, didn’t they? Your skin took on a golden cast that looked as if you’d been tanning yourself in the middle of winter. You could see auras around people sometimes. You began to feel strange, as if something far away was calling to you, but you couldn’t work out what it was. Eventually, the pull became so much a part of you that you didn’t even notice it anymore. Until today. Until you met Dranymire and the demons.”
R’shiel felt tears pricking her eyes as Shananara described her life so accurately it was painful. There was no way she could have known any of it.
“How do you know this? Who told you?”
“Who did you tell, R’shiel? You claim Tarja told me, but you never told him, did you?”
“How could you know any of this?”
“I know because every half-human Harshini goes through the same ordeal as they approach puberty. Your experience is not unique, R’shiel. Had you been at Sanctuary, where people understand what you were going through, it would have been much easier for you. I can explain it if you like.”
“Explain what?”
“Your aversion to meat for instance,” she said. “Harshini can’t eat meat, but humans can. It’s all part of the prohibition we have against killing. The only time it seems to affect half-bloods is during the onset of puberty. Ask Brak, if you don’t believe me. Like you, he is half-human.”
R’shiel accepted that news with barely a flicker of surprise. She was beyond shock, beyond awe.
“And the headaches?”
“Half-human children can’t reach the source of Harshini power until they mature.” Seeing her uncomprehending expression, Shananara frowned. “Think of it as a door in your mind that opens onto a river of magic. Until you reach maturity, the door is locked. Opening it can be painful. I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is. The headaches were the result of your mind trying to open a door to your power.”
“Then I really am one of you?”
“Yes, R’shiel. You really are.”
“Who is my father?”
Shananara hesitated before answering. “Do you remember what Dranymire said when he greeted you?”
She nodded. “He said, ‘Well met, Your Highness.’ Although why, I can’t imagine.” Looking back, she didn’t know why she had even approached the creature, or stood there surrounded by the ugly little gray monsters who swarmed over her. All she could recall was a need to reach out and touch the beautiful beast. To be wrapped in the security of the demons’ affection, where she felt, for the first time in her life, that she was truly whole.
“Dranymire and his demon brethren are bonded to the te Ortyn house. They can feel the call of your blood.” Shananara thought for a moment before continuing. “How old are you, R’shiel?”
“Twenty.”
Shananara nodded. “That would make you born in the Year of the Cheating Moon.” She rolled her eyes. “Now there’s an omen, if ever I needed one! Only two te Ortyn males were alive at the time of your birth, R’shiel: my brother Korandellen, who has never stepped foot outside of Sanctuary, and our uncle, Lorandranek, whom we were never able to keep inside. Lorandranek was your father.”
“Lorandranek,” R’shiel said, the name sounding strange, yet familiar. “Wasn’t he the Harshini King when the Sisterhood freed Medalon from idolatry?”
“When the Sisterhood freed Medalon?” she repeated with a shake of her head. “My, we have a long road ahead of us, don’t we? But yes, he was King at the time the Sisterhood...
R’shiel pulled her feet up and tucked them under her on the narrow bunk, feeling a little more sure about herself. She knew her history. “That was nearly two hundred years ago. How could he be my father?”
“Lorandranek was nearly nine hundred years old when he died, R’shiel, and he wasn’t an old man. You are
