Markswoman (Asiana #1)(45)

“They left Yartan, thinking perhaps to make for the small mountain villages farther northwest. For two weeks, they must have known love, sweet and delirious. Despite the hunger, fatigue, and fear, they must have known happiness. For a while, they were free from the anger and envy of those they had left behind.

“But eventually, they were found. They were caught in a pass in the Spirit Mountains, trying to cross into the Skyol Highlands. It was the girl’s clan that found them. It might have gone better if the Order of Khur had reached them first.”

“The headwoman was angry with her daughter?” guessed Kyra.

“There is justifiable anger, and there is blind rage—two entirely different things,” said Astinsai. “The headwoman was fierce and proud. She had sent her sixteen-year-old daughter with a few trusted companions to Yartan to select a mate from the clan of Kushan. She was not merely angry; she was ready to kill the daughter who had caused her to lose face among the clans of Asiana. Faced with this rage, the girl betrayed her lover to save herself. An old story, but we never tire of it, do we? Life is a series of patterns, ugly and scarred. What would you have done in her place, child?”

Kyra flushed. “I would never have run away from my duty in the first place.”

“Is that what you think?” said Astinsai. “Or is it what you have been taught to think by your Order? No, you don’t have to answer me. But ask yourself this: Where do your loyalties lie? I will not make a prophecy for you, but I can see that your way is unclear. Doubt and misgiving will follow you no matter which path you take.”

Kyra felt a chill creep up her spine. “If that is so, all I can do is try my best and pray to Kali to protect my soul.”

“I too pray for you,” said Astinsai. “I pray that you find what you are looking for, and that you do not meet an untimely end, like your—like the young girl of my story did.”

Kyra sensed the barb in her too-sincere words. The story was about to end with a painful twist that her inner eye could almost see.

The Old One gave a deep, theatrical sigh. “There is not much more to add. The girl told her mother that she had been kidnapped by the young Marksman and forced to lie with him. It was easy to believe—especially because her mother wanted to believe it. The headwoman had the Marksman flogged in the main square of Yartan, as was her right by law. The young man protested his innocence with every lash and called in anguish to his paramour to declare the truth of their love.” Her face darkened. “I watched, helpless to intervene. I hoped that pity and shame would move the girl to beg for clemency on his behalf.

“But the girl was silent, her face hidden by a veil. Perhaps she regretted her lie? I do not know. I only know what happened next. The headwoman and her daughter returned to the Valley of Veer, where they dwelled, and the whole sordid tale was never referred to again.”

Shock coursed through Kyra’s veins, ice-cold, numbing. The Valley of Veer? “No,” she stuttered. “That can’t be true.”

“Save your distress,” said Astinsai. “I am not finished yet. The girl—your mother—was married off a few months later to a suitable young man from the clan of Tenaga. Meanwhile, her lover escaped from the Order of Khur the night before he was to be executed. He went on to form a clan of his own, an outlaw clan, vicious and violent, that has grown in strength and cunning until it is now the most powerful one in southern Asiana. You know which one I mean.”

A roaring filled Kyra’s ears. Astinsai was talking of the Tau clan. Kai Tau and her mother. Her mother and Kai Tau . . . no, it was impossible.

“The past is past,” said Astinsai softly. “We cannot change it. We can only change our own perception of it. For years, I blamed myself for what happened. Then I realized it would have happened anyway. Kai would have found his path to evil with or without me.”

Kyra’s mouth was dry, her throat tight. “You helped him to escape, didn’t you?” she said in a ragged whisper.

Tears glimmered in Astinsai’s eyes. “Kai was always my favorite. I believed in him. I knew he was telling the truth and that he had been terribly wronged. Yet, had I guessed the carnage he would wreak in the name of vengeance, I would have cut my own throat before I freed the bonds that had been laid on him.”

The firelight flickered, casting shadows on the tent wall. Kyra’s hands were like stones on her lap, her katari cold within its sheath. “You have not told me why I was spared.” Her voice sounded flat, distant to her own ears.

“I made a prophecy to Kai before he left that he would die by the hand of a daughter of Veer, and no other. This is his penance and his destiny. He waits for you, all these long years, to free him from the evil he has done. Not until you kill him will he know any rest.” The Old One closed her eyes. “That is all I have to say. Go now, for I am tired and can speak no more.”

*

Kyra stumbled out of the tent and into the cold, quiet night, her mind full of tortured images. Her sweet-faced mother, in the willing embrace of the brute who would destroy the Veer clan. The blood-soaked bodies littering the streets of her village. The broken limbs and the stench of death. The circling vultures and the darkness behind the door. Except that the darkness was inside her now and there was no escaping the horror of it.

Was Kai Tau her father? Had she killed her own half brother in the name of vengeance? And if so, what kind of monster did that make her?