“This is Kavya,” he said with a roughened voice. The lump in his throat wasn’t going anywhere. “She’s Northern Indranan, and we’ve come a long way to get here. I had to use the inlay from one of my seaxes to make the journey.”
That would speak volumes to his family. No one sold their inlays unless the situation was desperate. He had been that desperate.
“Why have you come back?” Serre asked. Ten years Tallis’s junior, he was the only one of the siblings to appear more wary than welcoming. His gift had only just been revealed when Tallis accepted his exile.
What a farce. He’d run, pure and simple. He’d done murder for a higher purpose, but he’d run from the blood he was responsible for having spilled on a church altar.
“I’m here because of Kavya. She’s an Indranan triplet, and her brother has already killed her sister. He’s after Kavya now, and there’s no telling what creature he’d become if he takes her life, too. I’ve come back to retrieve our family’s Dragon-forged sword and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Murmurs of obvious distress slunk across the room, led by Serre’s harsh voice. Tallis sat on the nearest chair. The muscles in his legs were stiff, as if he’d run the entire way from Jaipur. Kavya stood beside him like a protective sentinel, rather than the woman he was professing to protect. It was all backwards.
“And you bring her here?” Serre glared. His back was straight and his eyes full of violence. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”
“Serre,” came Rill’s authoritative tone. “We’ve heard rumor and what we know to be outright falsehoods. Twenty years is a long time to weather other people’s opinions of a loved one and not be tainted by that negativity. But you’ll behave with civility toward your brother. Presenting his side is his right. It’s what we owe one of our own. Besides, you know how things have changed.”
Tallis looked up. The chandelier had been stripped of its antique crystal teardrops. Had they dismantled it? For money?
“I can see how things have changed,” he said with lead in his chest. “I’ve made life for you unbearable.”
“No, brother.” Feena smiled warmly. “You’ve changed it for the better.”
—
Kavya stood by Tallis as he and his siblings shared stories. So many stories. She’d known the Scottish and Norse reputation for storytelling but now realized how much of the tradition must’ve come down from the Pendray. This clan had lorded over hearty people who trudged through rough, ragged lives without regret or apology. There was no caste system as in India. There was no elevated sense of self-importance as in continental Europe, where the Tigony had done so much to make Greek and Roman civilization the envy of all history.
Tallis told their tale first, because his brothers and sisters had insisted. They weren’t saying a word until Tallis related the journey that had led him and Kavya to Scotland. She was impressed all over again by the strange events that meant she was standing in the parlor of a decrepit hilltop castle. She also noticed what he left out: them. The “us” of their travels was limited to their run-in with Pashkah, their travails, their weeks-long struggle to reach the Edinburgh Airport. They’d become lovers along the way, but that wasn’t a subplot. Not even a hint.
That didn’t stop curious sets of blue eyes from skirting between her and Tallis. Rill had seen them holding hands, and maybe Opheena had, too.
As Tallis added details about Pashkah’s intentions and madness, Kavya prepared herself for the worst. These Pendray would kick her out. They would kick Tallis out.
What then?
She was exhausted, and so very tired of living in fear. The smiles Tallis had pointed out upon their arrival in Edinburgh had been a temporary respite. She was still a hunted woman. Tallis would not stop searching for the person who’d directed his life for so long, warping him into the man she knew. He’d fought back, retaining a certain sense of honor among his cynicism and fatalistic approach to life, but he’d lost something, too. She knew it. He’d lost his innocence and his faith. What did he believe in now? What would remain of him if his need for revenge was ever slaked?
Each question took on more and more importance when filtered through her deep, abiding affection. She loved him. But she wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d want to stay with her. Tallis of Pendray would keep on moving. He was only in his ancestral home because her life had become entangled with his goals. He would leave his family and certainly leave her once he solved the mysteries of his mind.
He would walk away. Would she watch him go, or would she beg?
She blinked back tears that must have been exacerbated by fatigue. She wanted to lie down. Only, Tallis’s siblings hadn’t explained the changes that had taken place since his departure. She needed to know, too. She needed to know the aftermath, so she could better understand how to comfort him. He was already taking so much blame on himself. She saw it in every mournful glance he stole when looking around the living room.
Comfort him?
She may as well have been a little girl with fairy-tale wishes. Families like this were not for the her kind and never would be. Kavya gave up on envying that happiness.
“He’ll come for you,” said Tallis’s older brother, Honnas. “Won’t he?”
Kavya met his eyes. The man loved his wife’s hands, their grace and slender perfection. He regretted never having been able to conceive a son, who would’ve had a stubborn chin and a stubborn nature. He was afraid of lightning—the sky was being ripped in two—but he’d never told a soul.
She could read all of their minds. One at a time. Same as always.
Just not Tallis’s.
“Yes,” she said after a deep breath. “He won’t stop. We were born with our gift split into thirds. When it comes to the powers given to us by the Dragon, I’m the weakest in this room. A third of an Indranan. He wants to be whole. He won’t stop until that happens, just like he won’t stop until he stokes the embers of civil war back into an inferno.”
“To what end?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at Tallis, knowing his theory on the matter—his dream specter and its foul wishes. “It’s possible he wants to end the civil war by bringing all Indranan out of hiding. They’d wage open war on their siblings, from all corners of our territory. Our population would be halved, but everyone who remained would be a twice-cursed telepath. Powerful. Influential. Driven slowly mad by two minds shoved into one.”
“That would be . . .” Feena trailed off. She shook her head. “They . . . you . . . No,
“He’s the Usurper,” said Serre sharply. “Our people didn’t help choose him, and neither did Clan Garnis. He’s the leader of the Five Clans by choice of only three—the Sath, the Indranan, and his own Tigony. That’s not a true leader.”
Honnas sat forward on his chair. His wife, so tiny compared to Tallis’s sisters, had short auburn hair that showed off her pixie ears. She was always annoyed when her husband snored, but she loved nothing more than to submit to his bites on her nape. She’d done so only moments before Tallis’s return. That meant she would still be able to feel the sting deep inside her skin.
Kavya shivered and tightened her thighs. That was the problem with being among people whose emotions were so unguarded. She was subject to all the good, bad, shameful, proud, petty, and erotic. Only now did she have the experience to truly understand the latter.
“Serre,” Honnas said, with a warning in his voice. “It’s not the Giva’s fault the Pendray were so divided that we didn’t send our own kind to the Chasm to hear the Dragon’s choice. We were nearly as divided as the Indranan. It’s amazing we didn’t shatter into a hundred little factions, and scatter to the four winds like the Garnis, lost forever.”
“Now it’s different.” Feena seemed the most eager of the bunch. She appeared older than her years, and the silver tips of her hair weren’t as brilliant, but she carried herself with the regal bearing of a queen and the artlessness of a child. She loved lilacs and chocolate chips straight from the bag. “The Pendray are stronger than ever. That priest . . .” She shuddered. “Dragon be, what he’d been doing to our people. Creating division. Stoking petty disagreements. Abusing those who sought to give him their trust—unspeakable things.”
