Sanctuary Read online

  Egrayne gestured to her devotee. ‘Write it in the lineage book, Roskara.’

  Imoshen beckoned Kiane. ‘Time to make him your choice-son, Kia.’

  Dragazim went around behind Kiane, knelt on the floor then crawled between her legs, to symbolise birth.

  Kiane reached down and helped him rise, turning him around to face her. ‘Welcome, Dragazim Choice-son Kiane.’ The hand-of-force touched his forehead with the little sixth finger of her left hand, letting her gift brush his senses. ‘I swear to protect your life with my own. I swear to rear you to revere the heritage of the T’Enatuath and protect our Malaunje.’

  With the ceremony over, everyone else filed out, but Imoshen caught Iraayel’s arm at the door. His father, Irian, had been the brotherhood’s hand-of-force, and Iraayel owed his martial prowess and gift to him. But he reminded her of Ardeyne, the brotherhood’s clever voice-of-reason. Ever since Iraayel had been empowered, she’d been testing him with glimpses of other gifts so that he wouldn’t be limited. Now she’d seen the way Dragazim looked to Iraayel. He was a natural leader. ‘You are a gift-warrior, but you are so much more. Don’t think a hand-of-force is all you could ever be. Keep up the exercises I taught you.’

  He laughed and kissed her forehead. ‘My subversive mother!’

  He left and Imoshen turned to see Saffazi watching her. Egrayne’s choice-daughter had been close to Iraayel, leading him into trouble since he was a child. And this last year their relationship had deepened. They’d faced death together when the city was attacked. Imoshen knew she should explain herself, but she was so tired. All she could manage was a weary smile. ‘Come along.’

  Head buzzing with exhaustion, Imoshen entered the ship’s main cabin to find her inner circle trying to maintain standards while packed into the cramped space. A Malaunje servant was working on Ysattori’s floor-length hair, creating the elaborate hairstyles that were a sign of high stature in T’En society. Ysattori’s shield-sister waited her turn.

  Short of the deep-bond Imoshen shared with Ardonyx, the shield-sister bond was the closest relationship two T’En could share. Unlike the bond between T’En and their devotee, it was an equal pairing of gifts; but if one died, the other often died as well.

  The cabin was all bustle as the other sisters and Malaunje saw to the needs of the sisterhood’s T’En children. Imoshen’s infant daughter had turned one last midsummer. Now Umaleni ran to her.

  She was the only sacrare child of the sisterhood. Born of two T’En parents, she would one day be an asset to the sisterhood. But Umaleni was not pampered; Imoshen had seen to that. If her daughter was to grow into a self-disciplined woman who could master her powerful gifts, then she must develop strength of character. Hers would not be an easy path. Iraayel had suffered because of his association with Imoshen, and he was only a man.

  Imoshen knelt, scooped her daughter up and hugged her, then smiled at her devotee. ‘Have you been good for Frayvia, Uma?’

  At the sound of her voice, the other baby girl began to wail and Imoshen’s breasts ached. She collected the infant and settled on the bunk under the window to feed her. Umaleni climbed up beside them.

  Imoshen noticed a five-year-old boy watching them. He had saved the baby girl’s life and carried her across Chalcedonia. Now he drifted over, looking lonely. He was the son of free Malaunje and couldn’t speak the T’En language. Imoshen held out her arms and he also climbed up next to her.

  Egrayne surveyed the cabin. ‘Take the bigger children up on deck to play. The little ones need to sleep.’

  As the cabin emptied, she sat on the end of the bunk. ‘You can’t just make these two children your choice-son and daughter, Imoshen. Their fate should be decided at an all-mother council. The boy will need a brotherhood to go to when he turns seventeen. All the other sisterhood leaders will want the girl. If you take her in without giving them a chance to claim her, they’ll resent you.’

  Egrayne was right. Few T’En babies were carried to term, and more often than not, they were stillborn or horribly deformed. Healthy female babies were the rarest of all. Every other sisterhood would want the little girl, but… Imoshen looked down at the infant suckling at her breast. ‘I’ve fed her, Egrayne. She’s mine now. I’d die for her.’

  Egrayne’s mouth tightened in a grim line, but she didn’t argue.

  ‘Captain Ardonyx tells me it could take four days to sail down the coast to Shifting-sands Bay. We’ll hold the all-council when we get there,’ Imoshen said. But no one would love these children as much as she did.

  ‘That’s another thing, Imoshen. It will be winter’s cusp in twenty-six days. Your choice-son turns seventeen two days before that. Since All-father Chariode’s brotherhood was destroyed, he is without a brotherhood. Kyredeon took in Chariode’s survivors. Have you asked –’

  ‘No, and I won’t. There’s something wrong with Kyredeon. He’s full of fear and hate.’

  ‘Be that as it may, Iraayel has to go to a brotherhood. He’s a gift-warrior, and powerful for a male. The sisters won’t –’

  ‘He’s a good person. He saved your choice-daughter’s life.’

  ‘I know. But we are packed on these ships with no privacy. We can’t have a powerful young T’En man living alongside us.’ She pulled the cover up over the sleeping boy. ‘Imoshen, the rest of the inner circle will vote to turn Iraayel out. The Mieren king has vowed to execute any of our people who remain behind after winter’s cusp. What will you do?’

  If only Ardonyx led a brotherhood. He was Imoshen’s secret bond-partner and Umaleni’s father. When he and Tobazim risked their lives to save Imoshen’s party from the wharf last night, she’d deliberately gift-infused them to augment their power and raise their stature.

  Ardonyx feared Kyredeon would fabricate evidence of disloyalty against the pair of them and have them executed. The all-father had made a practice of removing potential threats before they could challenge him for the brotherhood’s leadership.

  If Ardonyx and Tobazim wanted to survive, they had to move soon. But if they challenged Kyredeon before they had enough support from the rest of the brotherhood’s warriors and scholars, they’d be killed.

  It would break her heart to lose Ardonyx.

  And she would lose more than him, because no other brotherhood leader would accept her choice-son. They hated her, had done ever since the day she’d executed an all-father. She’d had no choice. The sisterhoods had made the safety of her devotee and Iraayel dependent on proving she was not a tool of the brotherhoods.

  Surely her kind had enough enemies without bickering amongst themselves? Tears of frustration stung Imoshen’s eyes.

  ‘You’re tired,’ Egrayne said.

  ‘I’m tired of the distrust between the brotherhoods and sisterhoods.’

  ‘Four hundred years of feuding can’t be forgotten.’

  ‘There’s still time…’ Imoshen whispered, as her eyes drifted shut. Less than one small moon, but there was still time for Ardonyx to convince Tobazim to challenge Kyredeon, still time for them to win the brotherhood, save themselves and save her choice-son.

  Imoshen heard the door close and knew Egrayne had left her to rest. On the other side of the cabin, old Tiasarone sang the sisterhood’s infants to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  TOBAZIM GRIPPED THE rail of the lower rear-deck, fighting his gift. It was an unusual manifestation of T’En power. Unlike Learon, his childhood choice-brother, his was not a martial gift and he’d always resented this; stature was easy to gain if you were a gift-warrior. But Learon, for all his strength in body and gift, had not survived long in Kyredeon’s brotherhood. The all-father had noted him as a possible rival, shamed him before everyone and driven him to seek an honourable death. It had all unfolded so fast Tobazim had not realised the danger. He’d failed his choice-brother, and he carried the knowledge with him like an open wound.

  If only his gift had been something martial…

  Instead Tobazim could sense the forces a
nd weights of a building and, now that the ship was at sea, he could feel his gift flexing as the ship plunged into the waves and the sails filled above him, driving the ship’s prow through the sea. The forces involved roused his gift and he had to reel the power in.

  The gift had always seemed to him to be a thing apart from his intellect, a thing that rode his body and drove him, a thing that demanded to be used. His gift seemed to be interested in the ship. He hadn’t had this much trouble controlling his power since he’d been in his teens and the gift had surged without warning. He blamed the new surge on the causare’s gift-infusion.

  ‘Tobazim, there’s–’ Haromyr broke off as he joined him and sensed the force of his gift.

  However, instead of pulling back, Haromyr drew closer, basking in the overflow of power. Tobazim wished they’d give him some privacy. What he really needed to do was go through his exercises to balance his mind, body and gift.

  ‘Have you told him?’ Athlyn joined him on the other side with Eryx and Ionnyn.

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Kyredeon’s assassin has come back from the dead,’ Haromyr said.

  ‘Ardonyx told me.’ Tobazim turned, leaning his elbows on the rail to look up at the high rear-deck, which the brotherhood’s all-father, his two seconds and inner circle had claimed. They had also claimed the captain’s cabin, relegating Ardonyx to the adepts’ cabin. Tobazim just knew there was going to be trouble. At sea, the captain’s word was law, but an all-father’s rule was absolute. He held the power of life and death over his T’En and Malaunje.

  ‘The assassin’s up there now,’ Haromyr said. ‘Graelen.’

  Tobazim let his gaze wander across the elite of the brotherhood’s warriors, Hand-of-force Oriemn and his followers. He spotted the new man, a gift-warrior by his neck torc – the most dangerous T’En men always were. Hard of face and lean of body, Graelen fitted right in with Oriemn and his bullies. Contempt burned in Tobazim. Kyredeon’s brotherhood knew only one rule, the rule of force for self-advancement. Honour, duty and the protection of those weaker than oneself were values dating from the High Golden Age of the T’En, and had no place here.

  ‘We have to kill him,’ Haromyr whispered.

  ‘Kill him,’ Ionnyn echoed. In the year that Tobazim had been with the city brotherhood, a core of discontented young adepts and initiates had gathered around him. He feared for them, because if Kyredeon killed him, the all-father would purge all his supporters. ‘Kill the assassin before Kyredeon sends him against you and Ardonyx.’

  ‘I won’t kill an innocent man.’

  ‘He’s not innocent.’ Haromyr laughed sourly. ‘If half the things they say about him are true –’

  ‘I won’t kill just because someone might do me harm.’

  Ionnyn snorted. ‘You can bet Kyredeon won’t let scruples stay his hand.’

  ‘Tobazim,’ Athlyn pleaded, ‘if you die, we are lost.’

  It was true, but… ‘If I kill on a mere suspicion, I am no better than Kyredeon and we are lost.’

  ‘That’s all very well in principle,’ Eryx muttered. ‘But –’

  ‘But we can’t watch you every moment of the day,’ Haromyr said.

  ‘You’re right,’ Tobazim conceded. ‘But is that the way we want to live our lives? Strike and counter strike? Living in fear?’

  ‘We want to live free of fear,’ Athlyn said. ‘Free of Kyredeon.’

  The others went very still.

  ‘You speak treason,’ Tobazim whispered.

  ‘He speaks what we have all thought,’ Eryx said. ‘Ever since the all-father drove Learon to seek an honourable death –’

  ‘I’ll consult Ardonyx, see what he says.’

  ‘And if he says to kill before the assassin can kill you?’ Ionnyn pressed.

  Haromyr nodded. For once, he was in agreement with Ionnyn. ‘What then?’

  ‘We can’t…’ Eryx broke off as a beautiful young Malaunje woman came up the steps to the lower rear-deck. ‘That’s his devotee.’

  She was as tall as a T’En woman, all ripe curves and unconscious grace, and when she smiled her face blossomed like a flower.

  ‘Close your mouth, Athlyn,’ Haromyr teased.

  The young initiate gulped. ‘I just don’t get it. How could someone like the assassin win someone like her?’

  Kyredeon’s voice-of-reason was all smiles as he led her into the passage to the captain’s cabin.

  Tobazim looked up to the assassin, who went to move, but the brotherhood’s hand-of-force and his followers hemmed him in.

  Tobazim suspected the assassin was as trapped as they were.

  But that did not make him their ally.

  PRESSED BETWEEN THE hand-of-force and his followers, Graelen could not move. Surely Kyredeon would not hurt Valendia? The bond between a T’En and his devotee was sacred, and she was innocent. But he remembered Kyredeon’s irrational hatred for All-father Paragian and his devotee, and feared for Dia.

  ‘Look down there,’ Hand-of-force Oriemn said. ‘See the knot of brothers together? The one in the centre is Tobazim. Mark him well. Now the all-father wants to see you.’

  Oriemn led Graelen down to the captain’s cabin under the high rear-deck. When Graelen walked in, he sensed the build-up of aggressive male gift, and his own gift surged in response. As if it hadn’t been enough to see Valendia sitting on the desk, between the all-father and his voice-of-reason. In that heartbeat, Graelen would have promised them anything to spare her.

  Unaware of the danger, Valendia was playing the zither and singing one of her compositions. Her voice was sweet and pure.

  ‘I heard that your devotee needed a zither,’ Kyredeon said. ‘So I found one for her.’

  Valendia looked up from the instrument. Her eyes sought his, telling him she was aware of the danger and wanted him to reassure her. But what she read in his face made her look down. Shame stung him; what had he led her into?

  ‘You can go now,’ Kyredeon told Valendia.

  She put the zither down and gave the deep obeisance, hands going to her heart to convey love and to her head to convey duty. ‘Thank you, all-father.’

  Kyredeon handed her the instrument. ‘I make you a gift of this. Think of me whenever you play it.’

  Dry-mouthed, Graelen watched her walk out. She looked back at him once before the door closed. He wanted to tell her to run, but there was nowhere to run to.

  ‘Such a sweet creature, your devotee,’ Kyredeon said. ‘And she carries your child, the saw-bones tells me.’

  ‘Yes.’ He could hardly speak. If Ceyne hoped this would protect Valendia, he did not know Kyredeon as well as Graelen did. Years ago, the all-father had told him if you know what someone values, you know their weakness. Had Kyredeon lived up to his all-father vows, he would have protected Valendia with his life.

  ‘I wonder… Are you loyal, Grae?’ Kyredeon said.

  ‘You know I am loyal. All I have ever done is serve you faithfully.’

  ‘There is something you can do for me to prove your loyalty,’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘There are two trouble-makers on this ship, Captain Ardonyx and Adept Tobazim. I want you to assassinate Tobazim.’

  ‘Not Ardonyx?’

  ‘He’s from Chariode’s brotherhood, and doesn’t have the depth of following amongst the younger brothers that Tobazim has. Tobazim’s death will have to look like an accident, so take your time, but… If you should hear that they are planning a challenge, you must bring me word. I will need to purge the brotherhood of his followers.’

  Graelen nodded. Anything to protect Valendia.

  TOBAZIM WAITED UNTIL the high rear-deck was empty of everyone but the helmsman and Ardonyx, then he went up the steps.

  Ardonyx strode over to join him. The pitch of the deck didn’t seem to bother him at all. ‘You shouldn’t be up here. I’ve already had trouble with Kyredeon today.’

  ‘Over what?’ Tobazim asked.

  ‘Tamaron’s people. To he
ar Kyredeon talk, you’d think it was lack of foresight that sent the all-father and his inner circle on a tour of their brotherhood’s estates just before the Celestial City was besieged.’

  Tobazim bristled on Ardonyx’s behalf. ‘You did the right thing, giving his leaderless brotherhood shelter on your ship.’

  ‘Not according to Kyredeon. He begrudges them the space and the food.’

  ‘It won’t be for long. Tamaron and the rest of his people will meet us at Shifting-sands Bay and –’

  ‘And then we won’t have a ship for him, unless we can buy one from Baron Nitzane.’

  ‘Sorne can negotiate.’ Tobazim steered the conversation back to what was worrying him. ‘Just before the wharf was attacked, you came to tell me Kyredeon’s assassin had returned. What were you going to say?’

  ‘Why? What are the others saying?’

  ‘That I should kill him before he can kill me. What do you say?’

  ‘I say we should not deal so readily in death. This Graelen is a friend of Saw-bones Ceyne. He could be useful to us if…’ Ardonyx met his eyes.

  ‘If?’

  ‘You want me to say it?’ Ardonyx shrugged. ‘It is only a matter of time before Kyredeon strikes out at us. When that day comes, we’ll need all the high-ranking adepts we can muster.’

  Tobazim’s mouth went dry with fear. ‘To offer challenge is to be ready to die. Mine is not a martial gift.’ And he did not have a shield-brother to support him when they battled the old brotherhood leader and his shield-brother on the higher plane. Tobazim’s heart leapt. Was Ardonyx offering this bond?

  ‘Speak with Ceyne. He was on the previous all-father’s inner circle. He’s known Graelen since he was a lad of seventeen. Don’t judge the man by his reputation. In this brotherhood, a bad reputation is a good thing.’

  Tobazim grinned. He went downstairs to the infirmary, where he found quite a few adepts and initiates suffering from seasickness. And, to his surprise, the assassin’s devotee was helping brew a big pot of peppermint tea.

  ‘Almost ready,’ she told him kindly. ‘A cup of this will settle your stomach.’