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Then she saw Chaghan, facing the riders with his fists clenched, felt the sheer intent radiating out from his form—we’re here in peace we’re here in peace I am one of you we’re here in peace—and she realized that this wasn’t just some psychospiritual battle of wills.
This was a conversation.
Somehow, the riders could communicate without moving their lips. They conveyed images and fragments of intent without spoken language directly into their receivers’ minds. Rin glanced at Kitay, checking to make sure that she hadn’t gone mad. He was staring at the riders, eyes wide, hands trembling.
Stop resisting, boomed the first voice.
Frantic babbles erupted from the bound Hesperians. Augus doubled forward and yelled, clutching his head. He was hearing it, too.
Whatever Chaghan said in response, it was enough to persuade the riders that they weren’t a threat. Their leader lifted a hand and barked out a command in a language Rin didn’t understand. The riders lowered their bows.
The leader swung himself off his horse in one fluid motion and strode toward Chaghan.
“Hello, Bekter,” Chaghan said.
“Hello, cousin,” Bekter responded. He’d spoken in Nikara; his words came out harsh and twisted. He wrenched sounds out of the air like he was ripping meat from bone, as if he were unused to spoken language.
“Cousin?” Kitay echoed out loud.
“We’re not proud of it,” Qara muttered.
Bekter shot her a quick smile. Whatever passed mentally between them happened too fast for Rin to understand, but she caught the gist of it—something lewd, something violent, horrid, and dripping in contempt.
“Go fuck yourself,” Qara said.
Bekter called something to his riders. Two of them jumped to the ground, wrenched Chaghan’s and Qara’s arms behind their backs, and forced them to their knees.
Rin snatched up her trident, but arrows dotted the ground around her before she could move.
“You won’t get a third warning,” Bekter said.
She dropped the trident and placed her hands behind her head. Kitay did the same. The riders tied Rin’s hands together, pulled her to her feet, and dragged her, stumbling miserably, toward Bekter so that the four of them knelt before him in a single line.
“Where is he?” Bekter asked.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Kitay said.
“The Wind God. I believe the mortal’s name is Feylen. We are hunting him. Where has he gone?”
“Downriver, probably,” said Kitay. “If you know how to fly, you might catch up!”
Bekter ignored him. His eyes roved over Rin’s body, lingering in places that made her flinch. Hazy images came unbidden to her mind, too blurry for her to see more than shattered limbs and flesh on flesh.
“Is this the Speerly?” he asked.
“You can’t hurt her,” Chaghan said. “You’re sworn.”
“Sworn not to hurt you. Not them.”
“They’re under my charge. This is my territory.”
Bekter laughed. “You’ve been gone a long time, little cousin. The Naimads are weak. The treaty is shattering. The Sorqan Sira’s decided to come down and clean up your mess.”
“‘Charge’?” Rin repeated. “‘Treaty’? Who are you people?”
“They’re watchers,” Qara murmured.
“Of what?”
“People like you, little Speerly.” Bekter pulled off his hood.
Rin flinched back, repulsed.
His face was covered in mottled burns, ropey and raised, a mountainous terrain of pain running from cheek to cheek. He smiled at her, and the way the scars crinkled around the sides of his mouth was a terrible sight.
She spat at his feet. “Had a bad encounter with a Speerly, didn’t you?”
Bekter smiled again. More images invaded her mind. She saw men on fire. She saw blood staining the dirt.
Bekter leaned in so close that she could feel his breath, hot and rank on her neck. “I survived it. He did not.”
Before Rin could speak, a hunting horn pierced the air.
The thunder of hooves followed. Rin craned her neck to look over her shoulder. Another group of riders approached the clearing, this one far larger than Bekter’s contingent. They formed a circle with their horses, surrounding them.
Their ranks parted. A slight little woman, reaching no higher than Rin’s elbow, moved through the lines.
She walked the way Chaghan and Qara did. She was delicate, birdlike, as if she were some ethereal creature for whom being anchored to the earth was a mere inconvenience. Her cloud-white hair fell just past her waist, looped in two intricate braids interwoven with what looked like shells and bone.
Her eyes were the opposite of Chaghan’s—darker than the bottom of a well, and black all the way through.
“Bow,” Qara muttered. “She is the Sorqan Sira.”
Rin ducked her head. “Their leader?”
“Our aunt.”
The Sorqan Sira clicked her tongue as she strode past Chaghan and Qara, who knelt with their eyes cast down as if in shame. Kitay she ignored completely.
She stopped in front of Rin. Her bony fingers moved over Rin’s face, gripping at her chin and cheekbones.
“How curious,” she said. Her Nikara was fluent but oddly syncopated in a way that made her words sound laced with poetry. “She looks like Hanelai.”
The name meant nothing to Rin, but the riders tensed.
“Where did they find you?” the Sorqan Sira asked. When Rin didn’t answer, she smacked her cheek lightly. “I am talking to you, girl. Speak.”
“I don’t know,” Rin said. Her knees throbbed. She wished desperately that they would let her stop kneeling.
The Sorqan Sira dug her fingernails into Rin’s cheek. “Where did they hide you? Who found you? Who protected you?”
“I don’t know,” Rin repeated. “Nowhere. No one.”
“You are lying.”
“She’s not,” Chaghan said. “She didn’t know what she was until a year ago.”
The Sorqan Sira gave Rin a long, suspicious look, but released her.
“Impossible. The Mugenese were supposed to have killed you off, but you Speerlies keep turning up like rats.”
“Chaghan has always drawn Speerlies like moths to a candle,” Bekter said. “You remember.”
“Shut up,” Chaghan said hoarsely.
Bekter smiled widely. “Remember what you wrote in your letters? The Speerly has suffered. The Mugenese were not kind. But he survived, and he is powerful.”
Was he talking about Altan? Rin fought the urge to vomit.
“He has his mind for now but he is hurting.” Bekter’s voice took on a high, mocking pitch. “But I can fix him. Give him time. Don’t make me kill him. Please.”
Chaghan jammed his elbow backward into Bekter’s stomach. In an instant Bekter seized Chaghan’s bound wrists and twisted them so far behind his back that Rin thought surely he’d broken them.
Chaghan’s mouth opened in a silent scream.
A sound like a thunderclap ricocheted through Rin’s mind. She saw the riders wince; they’d heard it, too.
“Enough of this,” said the Sorqan Sira.
Bekter released Chaghan, whose head lurched forward as if he’d been shot.
