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In spite of the circumstances, Dom loosed a rare grin. “Oh, believe me, I know about your tryst with the mortal. So does half of Iona.”
“I’m not the only woman, Veder or mortal, to have lain with Cortael of Old Cor.” She laughed, though the sound was hollow. Cortael’s death was not only Dom’s to bear. He could see that clearly: the weight of loss hanging oddly about her shoulders, like an ill-fitted suit of armor. She was not accustomed to it. Most Vedera weren’t. Most Vedera did not know what it was to die or to lose the ones they loved to death.
He jumped when her hand touched the unmarked side of his face. Ridha’s fingers were cool and gentle, despite the calluses born of centuries. He felt another pang of sorrow, not for his plight, but for his cousin, who would be riding the Ward alone.
“Take heart, Domacridhan,” she said, misreading his woe. “The Vedera are not the only ones who trace the lines of Old Cor.”
Ridha had always been quicker than he in the library, beneath the tutelage of scholars and diplomats alike. He stared into her dark eyes for long seconds before the wave of realization crashed over him. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, feeling his stomach churn at what she was implying.
“That’s idiotic,” he crowed.
She held firm, her back to the mare. “Well, then it’s a good thing we aren’t idiots. Or at least I’m not.”
“I won’t do it.” He shook his golden head. “I don’t trust them.”
Her eyelids fluttered in exasperation.
“We didn’t know about Taristan, and look where that left us,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “You can search every scroll in the library, you can crack Cieran’s own head open and pour through the contents, but you won’t find another Corblood in time. And you won’t find Cortael’s child. He made sure of that.”
Dom’s stomach churned again.
“A child,” he forced out in disbelief.A bastard,he realized.Cortael was unwed—or was he? Is there more I did not know about my friend? More he did not see fit to tell me, either for abundance of shame or lack of trust?Though the mortal was dead and gone, left to rot, he felt a new wave of sadness, and bitter anger too.
“None of that—we don’t have time for your brooding,” Ridha said sharply.
He pulled a painful scowl. “I don’t brood.”
“You brood foryears,” she snapped. “Cortael was working his way through the wine cellar when he told me. And it happened when he was little more than a child himself.”
“I wish I had known.” Again, Dom wanted to believe in ghosts.
Ridha bit her lip. “You remember how he—was,” she said, struggling to name him dead. “A man who thought himself a Veder and did all he could to convince the rest of us. It was not in him to admit such mortal mistakes. He wanted to be like us so terribly.”
Indeed, Dom did remember. Even as a boy, Cortael set against his own nature. He would try to ignore wounds or cold or hunger. Refuse to sleep, because Vedera often did not have the need. He spoke Vederian as well as any in the enclave. So much so that he’d once told Dom he dreamed in their language and not his own.We were brothers, mortality aside.But for his blood, his cursed blood, which was his ending.
“That’s all I know.” Ridha laid a hand on his arm, drawing him out of his memories. “But rest assured,theywill know more.”
Like a child scolded into eating something good for him, Dom acquiesced. “Very well. I’ll do it.”Already I tire at the prospect of such an endeavor.
She angled an eyebrow, examining him as she would a century adolescent taking his first turn in the training yards. “Do you have any idea where to start?”
Dom drew himself up to his full, menacing height. His bulk filled the stall door. “I think I can track down a single assassin and beat an answer out of him well enough, thank you.”
“Good, but perhaps visit a healer first,” she said, picking at his shirt in disgust. Then she sniffed for good measure. “And have a bath.”
He replied with a wry smile, allowing her to attend to the sand mare. Ridha had her saddled and ready in what felt like a blink of an eye. Too quick for Dom’s taste, even now. He watched his cousin through it all, and she stared back, determined beyond measure. He did not ask if she was riding off on her mother’s secret orders, despite the proclamation in the throne room. Or if this was disobedience, if not betrayal. He did not want to know either way.
“Ride well, Cousin,” he said. All the horrors of the world, all he had seen just days before, rose up in his mind, their hands and jaws reaching for dear Ridha.She will not fall as the others did. I won’t lose another,he promised himself.
But you won’t be with her,his own voice answered. It shuddered through him.
Either Ridha did not notice or was good enough to ignore his fear. She swung herself onto the antlered saddle with ease, the sand mare shifting beneath her, eager to run.
“I always do,” she answered, her dark eyes bright with the prospect of her journey. And their great purpose.
Again Dom wished he could express himself as mortals did. Embrace his cousin, tell her how much her belief and action meant. Emotion rose up in his throat, threatening to strangle him dead. “Thank you” was all he managed.
Her response was as sharp as her sword. He expected nothing less. “Don’t thank me for doing what is right. Even if it is quite stupid.”
