Page 15 of Fate's Bane
Abruptly, Hadhnri stood to riffle through our discarded clothing. Then she returned, shifting from foot to foot, staring down at me, at turns impish and shy, hiding her hands behind her back.
“What?” I lay back on my elbows, smug. “What have you done?”
“I made these for you,” she blurted.
Hadhnri thrust two leather bracers into my face. They were tooled in a simple, elegant pattern of knotted bramble. She must have made them without me. I took them carefully.
“I don’t have—”
Hadhnri waved my words away. “They’re to protect you. As long as I live, no harm will come to you.”
I froze. “A Making?” Then I concentrated, and I could feel Hadhnri in it, the way I could in every Making. “You did it alone?”
Hadhnri nodded, her bashfulness returned.
To say I was not frightened would have been a lie. I should have reminded her of her promise. They were beautiful, though, and Hadhnri would never Make malice toward me.
“I love them. Help me put them on.”
THERAID
We walked back toward the Aradoc hamlet hand in hand, drunk on pleasure, weaving crooked through the wet grass.
The bonfire had dimmed, no longer a beacon in the night, but the shouting had not faded with it; instead of one single point of light, there were many, erratic and flickering, and the cadence of the cries was wrong.
“Agnir, what’s happening?” The bleariness vanished from Hadhnri’s voice.
I had never heard brave Hadhnri afraid before.
She began to run, my stubborn Hadhnri, even as my steps faltered.
My body remembered the feel of this moment in a way that my mind could not. I felt the heat of fire licking red-tongued against the black night, smoke choking out the moon, and my father screaming to rally the clan—
“Raid!” Pedhri Clan Aradoc bellowed. He stood outlined against the doorway of the roundhouse, his hips girded in a woven blanket and a sword in his hand. Gunni burst into the night just behind him, dressed in the samefashion, his chest pale and hairless compared to his father’s.
Hadhnri pulled up sharp, clutching me close behind her. I thought he would pass us by, but our motion snagged his attention and he slowed. He pointed his bare blade at me.
“Is this your doing, Agnir Ward-Aradoc?”
“No, Father!” Hadhnri cried, placing herself between me and the sword.
“Then explain why Clan Fein has come on the night of your brother’s wedding!”
The answer was simple, though fear clamped my throat shut so the words couldn’t slide from my mouth. All the clans celebrated their weddings on Ha’nights. Things in common, the rituals of Ha’night and Sunstead. Our shared blood, our shared history, our shared customs. It was not hard to know when and where to plunge the knife.
In his anger, he wouldn’t see that. I remembered knuckles like rocks against my jaw. I could form no words, my mouth dry and open with the deer’s terror, waiting to be spitted through. Hadhnri held my hand, and even she could not hide her fear.
Later. Later, we both knew, our reckoning would come. But for now, he turned to rally the clan, and the rest took up the cry.
“Raid! Raid!”
While Hadhnri sighed in relief, a light of eagerness inher eye, I stood paralyzed. Hadhnri took both my hands in hers. “This is not your trueborn home, Agnir Clan Fein, but will you not defend us?”
Will you not defend me,she was asking.
Trembling, I stared at the bracers Hadhnri had given me, remembering her promise. All about us, people were yet shadows, lit against flames as red as memory, and they burned just as bright when I closed my eyes. The enemy howled wolf-sharp to the sliver of the moon as they ran through the hamlet. Gone were the shrill pipes and the wedding drums. The new rhythm of the night was fear and fury.
I thought first of the Queen-Beyond-the-Fens. It had been some time since I saw the men she chose to speak for her, and perhaps she was no longer satisfied sending representatives who returned only with leather pouches and wagons of fuel. Perhaps those were not wergild enough for a murdered man. Perhaps she wanted more.
