Page 24 of Fate's Bane
But even as she glared at me, even as my heart ached, my own fury built.
“You still don’t understand, do you, Hadhnri?” I hissed. “You’ve never wanted for a thing in your life. The love of your father is certain, your place in the clan fast. You can afford to throw that away. I could not. Icannot. Not even for love.”
It was like the days she begged me to run away with her as children, our love-locks a tight-clutched secret.
Hadhnri bit her lower lip and inhaled sharply. The silence grew until I did not know what could fill the chasmbetween us. Finally, she took a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t wait to see you today.”
My breath caught but I held back my tears. I couldn’t say which disgusted her more—my betrayal or her own naivety. She turned her back to me.
“Hadhnri, wait!” I called. Hadhnri looked over her shoulder and I held up the bracers she had Made for me. “I still wear them.”
Her gaze softened like wax and hardened again just as quick.
“You are not the girl I made them for.”
THEATTACK
“Did it not go well with your Aradoc girl?” Onsgar whispered when I rejoined the moot alone.
I glared balefully up at him, and the kicked-dog look of me hushed any jokes at my expense. I was glad it was just him to contend with and not Biudir as well. Biudir was clever for his age but lacked the wisdom of silence.
When Hadhnri rejoined her clan, I tried not to look at her. I felt rotted through, and I watched Pedhri Clan Aradoc with a new hatred that grew out of that rotten center.
The sun had begun its descent when Lidwul Clan Pall, host of the moot, called a stop to the discussions. The smell of roasting meat and baking bread had grown strong as the day stretched on; it was a relief to mask the tensions in food and drink, to trade boasting over clan lineage to the simple boasting of strength and skill. I cheered on Laudir-father-sister as she wrestled Soli Clan Elyin’s wife, and Modin-father-sister as she drank Erci Clan Hanarin to the ground. There was music anddancing in the thick green grass. There was Aradoc mutton, steamed fish, and baked fowl, and I ate to bursting. I could almost ignore the way Hadhnri and the rest of Clan Aradoc avoided me.
Then, with the sun low enough to bleed the sky, came the most important part of the moot: the exchanging of gifts between the clans. Fine weapons and leather goods, worked pelts and beautiful weaves, torcs and bands and buckles of gold and silver.
It all felt as hollow as my own chest. I went to bed early and let others keep the pretense of peace.
I woke on my pallet on the warm ground to an inhuman scream, my heart pounding in my ears. I waited for the fox-cry to come again, but the next sound was all-too-human: a roar of outrage that I recognized.
“Garadin Fein!” That familiar fury echoed through the starry night. “Come and face me, Garadin Clan Fein!”
Clan Fein roused around me and I heard in the distance the other clans rising to investigate the sounds coming from the area where Clan Aradoc had made their beds. My eyes adjusted as I followed my father to where Pedhri Clan Aradoc stood, flanked by Gunni and Lughir the weaponmaster. Hadhnri stood behind her brother, arms crossed just like his. They were a thick, broad family, standing like bears before my father, and I could see why they had claimed so much of the Fens.
“You slink like a coward in the night, Garadin Fein,yet you’ve nerve to claim Bannos the Bold as your line?” Pedhri Clan Aradoc spat at my father’s bare feet.
Laudir-father-sister bristled, but my father held her back with an open hand.
“What happened here?” Garadin Clan Fein asked, his voice low and calm. He crossed his arms over his own bare chest.
“You claim ignorance?” Pedhri Clan Aradoc stepped forward. “When this was found by my own son’s head?”
I checked my gasp as he held out a dagger in a beautiful sheath. I recognized it from the day’s gift-giving. It had been a gift to Clan Fein from Clan Aradoc, and I’d known the work immediately for Hadhnri’s. A deepening in the crease between his brows was the only sign my father gave. A silent look passed between him and Modin-father-sister as he took it.
“You claim an attempt on your son’s life, but where is the would-be murderer?” Fein-Father asked.
“Run away like a coward when I woke,” Gunni Clan Aradoc said. He spoke with a man’s voice now.
“Then you cannot insist it was Clan Fein to break the moot peace.”
“Only Clan Fein was given this blade, this sheath.” Pedhri Clan Aradoc looked to the clan leaders gathered about them. “Clan Aradoc demands payment for this offense.”
Suspicion tickled the back of my neck and I looked to Hadhnri, who would not meet my gaze.
Fein-Father scoffed. “I will not forfeit one of mine for an Aradoc trick.”
“You have forfeited your own before,” Aradoc-Father said. His regard swallowed me whole. “Left her like a snake at my breast, to poison my own heart against me.”
