One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles #3)(59)

“You!” Arland roared. “Fight me, oryh. Fight me!”

“No,” Sean said and dropped his knife.

I took a step forward. Sean shook his head.

I could stop it, but if I did, it wouldn’t be resolved. They had to fix it themselves.

“Fight me or die!”

“You’re my friend,” Sean said and raised his hands.

Arland swung his mace. Sean didn’t dodge. The blow took him in the stomach. Sean flew back.

Arland charged after him, his eyes berserk and hot with unstoppable fury.

Maud lunged into his path and threw her arms around him. “Stop!”

He plowed on, carrying her as if she weighed nothing.

“Stop, Marshal!” Maud’s voice rang. “He’s unarmed. He’s your friend. There’s no honor in this kill.”

Arland slowed.

“Honor,” Maud repeated, her hands around his face, looking straight into his eyes. “He who sheds his blood to defend my back in battle is my brother. I shall watch over him as he watches over me.”

Reason crept into Arland’s blue eyes. He pulled away from her, raised his head to the night sky, and roared.

“Innkeeper,” a familiar voice called.

I turned. Kiran Mrak stood at the boundary. Behind him his clansmen waited, some with black feathers, some with bright blue, and vibrant red and rich cream. They stared at me with open hatred.

“I didn’t give the order for the missile,” he said.

“You fired a nuclear weapon,” I said. “You broke the treaty. There will be repercussions. There is no turning back.”

“There was a dissension in my ranks. It’s something you and I have in common.” Kiran Mrak raised his left hand. He was holding a severed Draziri head. “I’ve dealt with mine. It is your turn.”

I turned my back to him. He laughed.

“I don’t kill those I care about,” I said over my shoulder.

“You’re weak.”

“You murder your own family. Loyalty is a two-way street.”

He laughed again.

I kept walking.

Wing marched to me, stared at the Draziri behind me, turned and deliberately kicked dirt in their direction.

Sean rolled to his feet and picked up his knife.

Arland lifted his mace and stomped toward the house. Maud walked next to him, her arm wrapped around his.

Sean was waiting for me. I hurried over to him. “Are you hurt?”

“A cracked rib,” he said. “It will heal. He held back.”

It didn’t look like he held back from where I was standing. “Come on. I’ll help you with your rib. We need to talk.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We do.”

When I walked into the kitchen, Caldenia smiled at me, clearly delighted. “Very good, dear. Just the right thing to say.”

“I’m glad you approve, Your Grace.”

“A creature like Kiran Mrak rules because he has the mandate of his people. His followers are his base. Crack the base, and he will come crashing down.” Caldenia put the fingers of her hands together. “This will be delightfully entertaining.”

I turned to the two Hiru. Sunset stood in front and the newcomer behind, as if Sunset was shielding the new guest. I had a feeling that if the Hiru weren’t so bulky, the new arrival would be peeking out at us over his shoulder. It would have helped to know that the second Hiru was coming prior to the battle. I opened my mouth to tell them that.

The new Hiru pointed at me. “Is this her?” Its voice was soft, sad, and feminine.

“This is her,” Sunset said. “This is Hope.”

*

I stood in the middle of the empty room. A six-foot-wide circle of soft turquoise light marked the floor around me, identifying the boundary of the recording area. I wore my blue robe with the hood down and held my broom in my hand.

It took some time to settle the two Hiru. I wasn’t sure if the Hiru had genders, but if they had been human, I would’ve guessed our new guest to be female. She was smaller than Sunset, her sad voice was higher pitched, and when the other Hiru spoke of her, his translation software used “she” as the identifying pronoun.

However, the galaxy was a big place. While dual sexes and sexual dimorphism occurred often enough, it was only one of the myriad of configurations for procreation and sex. The Garibu had three sexes and six genders, the Allui males were smaller and more fragile than females, and the Parakis formed a mating ball, where everyone went through a three-stage molting process, during which they changed sex twice. When one of these beings visited Earth, their translating software struggled to assign gender to make alien speech palatable to humans, often with hilarious results. So, I wasn’t sure if the new Hiru was truly female, but since Sunset referred to her as she, I referred to her so as well. After I took her to see the Archivarians, she told me her name. She was called Moonlight-on-the-Water.

Moonlight loved Sunset’s room. She walked over the threshold and gave a little gasp. He reached for her, and they walked toward the pool together, their metal arms touching. That’s where I left them, floating in the basin and staring at the clouded ceiling.

The Hiru settled, I went to look for my sister and found her in the kitchen carefully spooning coffee she’d brewed into a mug half-filled with eggnog. She shrugged and told me Arland needed it. And then she took it up to his rooms. I thought about telling her that the last time the Marshal of House Krahr had coffee, he stripped off his clothes and ran around my orchard in broad daylight, flaunting the gifts the vampire goddess gave him until Sean finally tackled him, but she did make fun of me when I’d called for Sean, so I decided to let her discover the wonder that was drunk Arland on her own. She had measured that coffee very carefully, so maybe Arland would manage to keep his clothes on.