Vengeance

Her denials and half-truths had been instinctive, a slave’s way of keeping out of trouble. How bitterly she regretted them now. ‘It — I — the guards were looking after him — I was afraid — ’

‘Never make excuses to me!’ Rix stalked off.

The chancellor turned to Tobry, wrinkling his nose. ‘As for the shifter-cat, the law requires that it be put to death.’

‘No!’ cried Tali.

‘I was aware of the penalty before I ate the beast’s liver,’ said Tobry, with a trace of his old insolence.

The chancellor gestured to an attendant carrying a flask and a sealed box. ‘You have the powdered lead?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said the attendant.

‘Stand ready to burn the livers the moment they’re taken.’

Tali stepped in front of Tobry and spread her arms. ‘There has to be a way to save him.’

‘There isn’t, as he knows better than any,’ said the chancellor.

‘What’s he talking about?’ said Tali, twisting to look up at Tobry’s furred cheeks.

‘His grandfather was bitten by a jackal shifter and House Lagger tried to save him,’ said Rix. ‘Though I’ve never known why that was such a mistake.’

‘You can’t bring anyone back,’ said Tobry. ‘Once you’re fully a shifter, you remain one until you die. They should have put Grandfather down, but he was greatly loved and the best magians in the land were called in to break the shape-shifting curse.’

‘But they didn’t succeed?’ said Tali.

‘It looked as though they had but, inside, the shifter madness was taking him, and he stalked the halls by night, hunting his own family. He got into the nursery, killed my little brother and all the young cousins, and turned several others, though it was years before we realised the culprit was Grandfather.’

‘Oh, Tobry, I’m sorry.’

‘Father had no choice but to hunt down his own father-in-law. It tore our house apart.’

‘But there’s more, isn’t there?’ said Tali, seeing the pain in his cat eyes now and remembering things he’d said previously.

Tobry stared back through time and space. ‘I was thirteen,’ he whispered. ‘Just a kid. When Father called for help I didn’t understand what was going on. Grandfather still had the shifter’s strength and he was going to tear Father’s throat out. What could I do? I saved Father; I killed my grandfather.’

‘You could have done nothing else,’ said Rix.

‘Mother went out of her mind and Father was destroyed by the guilt — not for trying to do what had to be done, but for failing and calling on a boy to do a man’s job. Afterwards, Mother burnt Lagger Mansion down with the rest of the family inside it, all save me.’

Tobry looked into Tali’s eyes. ‘So I’m certainly not going to inflict — ’

‘I don’t have time for this,’ said the chancellor to his guards. ‘Cut the beast’s livers out.’

CHAPTER 108

Tali remembered a detail of her mother’s murder that was not on Rix’s painting. ‘What if there’s another way?’

‘Magians have been looking for a solution ever since shifters were first created a hundred years ago,’ said the chancellor.

‘It’s not a spell,’ said Tali.

‘Really?’ His eyes picked at her, peeling the layers away, trying to prise open her head again. ‘Many people have been bitten by shifters since the war began — valuable people we can’t afford to put down. Tell me more.’

Could he know about her pearl? Was he just toying with her? Tobry was sweating — he was worried about it, too. A stench of burnt meat drifted her way, from the skewers forgotten on the fire, and Tali lost her train of thought. ‘What?’

‘ “What if there’s another way?” you said,’ said the chancellor.

‘Oh! Yes! After she killed my mother, Lady Ricinus collected a tin of her blood.’

‘She took blood? Why?’

Tali was working it out as she went along. ‘In Cython the Pale are half starved and worked like dogs, but hardly anyone ever gets ill.’

‘You asked me what a cold was,’ said Rix, momentarily forgetting that he was angry with her.

‘And in Hightspall, whole houses have died out from plague and pox, yet no one in Palace Ricinus has caught any disease in years. People in the palace are really healthy.’

‘I nearly died of fever when I was ten,’ Rix pointed out.

‘But you haven’t been sick since,’ said Tali. ‘And you keep having nightmares about someone rubbing blood into your wounds.’

‘I never understood why I kept having such an odd dream — ’ Rix stared at her. ‘Are you saying Lady Ricinus kept your mother’s blood to use on me?’

‘To give you our immunity to disease,’ said Tali. ‘Perhaps she put some in the palace water, too, to protect the household.’

‘Get to the point,’ growled the chancellor.

‘What if Pale blood can protect against shapeshifting?’

‘I wouldn’t call shifting a disease.’

‘But what if it is?’ Tali persisted. ‘What if Lyf created the first shifters that way?’

‘Such creations would be an utter debasement of his king-magery,’ said the chancellor thoughtfully. ‘And the oath each Cythian king swore to use magery only for healing.’

‘Perhaps he felt the end justified the means,’ she said pointedly.

‘Let’s see it, then.’

The gleam in his eye was alarming. But if she failed, Tobry would be butchered. Tali reopened her wrist artery, put her thumb over it and reached out to the largest gash on Tobry’s chest.

He backed away. ‘If my blood gets into that cut it’ll condemn you. Bleed into a cup.’

The attendant held out a drinking mug. Tali allowed her blood to spurt into it until the bottom was covered a fingernail deep, then pressed her thumb to the wrist puncture and murmured her healing charm. The flow stopped. Tobry held his hand out for the mug.

She felt a spasm of fear. What if she was wrong? How could her blood heal, anyway? She rubbed her slave mark, for luck, then tipped blood into her cupped hand. The deepest gash across Tobry’s chest had not scabbed over. It was a jagged, zigzagging wound, still raw.

The chancellor leaned forwards, his lips parted. He wanted her to succeed — but why? Tali’s throat had gone dry. What if she failed? What would happen if she succeeded? She fought the fear down, steadied her shaking hand and pushed her blood into the wound. Hoping to reinforce it, she murmured her strongest healing charm. Tobry must not die. She could not bear it.

‘More?’ she whispered.

All the little hairs on Tobry’s cheeks were standing up. ‘Yes, more.’

As Tali rubbed the blood inside the ragged edges of the gash, Tobry’s fingers hooked and the tendons of his neck stood out.

‘Is it — ?’

‘I’ve felt worse,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘But not much worse.’

Then, as she watched, her blood was drawn into his flesh until all trace of it was gone.

‘Wash your hands, very carefully,’ said Tobry.