The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(49)

He felt no rage when he first drove his fist into the boy’s belly. It had been a way to distract himself, nothing more. But as the boy’s eyes opened wide, filling with shock and agony and the horrible sick awareness of what death might feel like when it came, something replaced the drumming, churning need: relief. The boy had never experienced such pain before. He was terrified. And at the sight of another’s fear and agony, the Gatherer’s own diminished. Just a little, but even that helped.

Oh, yes. And such lovely eyes the boy had. Like desert jasper.

So he lifted his fist and brought it down again, and again, soon finding himself delighted by the boy’s cringing, his whimpers, his hoarse garbled pleas. Eventually there was blood too, and that gave him the greatest pleasure of all.

*

Ehiru came awake with a gasp, his heart pounding in the cool darkness of Etissero’s house.

It could not have been a dream. He had hardly enough dreamblood to sustain his life at the moment, and even if he’d had more, it could not have been a dream. He had not dreamed in twenty years.

A vision, then—but a horrible, sickening one. Ehiru sat up, putting his forehead in his hands to dull the ache that was caused by exhaustion, sleeping outside of his normal pattern, and his soul’s growing need. He could barely think around that ache, but he knew his basic narcomancy well enough. Most visions were born from memories. Nijiri had never served him in the pranje, and therefore Ehiru had never beaten Nijiri. He couldn’t have. To deliberately inflict such pain on another was not just corrupt, it was alien to his very being.

Unless his memories were not so clear as he believed. Or unless the images plaguing his rest had been not a vision of the past, but a true-seeing of the future.

He moaned, too empty of peace even to pray.

“Ehiru-brother.”

His hands formed fists and his body swung upright, coiling itself to attack. But the figure that sat on the couch opposite Ehiru in the breezeway did not move, waiting for him to calm. That consideration cleared the sluggishness from his mind so that he could think at last. Nijiri.

Ehiru’s belly clenched. Did I ever hurt you? he wanted to ask, but he could not muster the courage to face the answer.

Nijiri’s dim form stirred and came over, crouching beside his couch in a pool of Waking Moon’s light. Ehiru’s fear eased at the naked concern on the boy’s face. Could someone he had used so cruelly still love him? Surely that was his proof.

“You’re not well, Brother,” Nijiri said. He spoke in the softest of whispers, as on a Gathering. “You need an infusion.”

“I need peace,” Ehiru replied, and winced as his voice cut the silence, hoarse and louder than usual. “But She denies me that even in sleep.”

Nijiri took Ehiru’s hand, fumbled with it, and lifted it to his face. He held the fore and middle fingers apart, trying to lay them on his own closed eyelids. An offering—

“No!” He jerked away; Nijiri frowned. “My control is weakening, Nijiri. I might not stop with just a little.”

“Then take it all, Brother.” Nijiri gazed up at him steadily. So trusting! “You know I’m not afraid.”

The words teased forth a memory of their first meeting: the bringer of death and the child who welcomed it. That memory had always brought Ehiru peace and it did not fail to do so now, pushing back the confusion and misery that the false-seeing had caused. He exhaled. “Hananja hasn’t chosen you yet, and I will not risk your death. I can hold for a few days more. There will be others who need Gathering. There always are.”

The boy scowled. “I don’t like that plan, Ehiru-brother.”

“Nor do I. But the only alternative is to return to the Hetawa, which we cannot do yet.” He paused as the implication of the boy’s presence finally sank in. “You should be there, though. Why aren’t you?”

“Sonta-i-brother and Rabbaneh-brother sent me to help you escape the Sunset Guard.”

“What?”

Nijiri squeezed his hand to silence him; Ehiru had been too shocked to keep his voice down.

“The Reaper is an abomination against the Goddess,” the boy whispered. “The Superior and the Prince have not done their duty in destroying it, therefore we—you and I—must hunt the creature down.” He hesitated, then added, “Doing so will also prove your purity, Brother. We’ll be able to return to the Hetawa then.”

Blessed Hananja, was I such a fool at sixteen? If so, thank you for letting me see forty. “Rabbaneh and Sonta-i should have known better than this. Even if we destroy the Reaper, we can no longer trust the Hetawa. Someone there created that monster.”

“And once we return to the Hetawa we will find that person, or persons,” Nijiri said, doggedly. “Easier from within the Hetawa than without. We can seek aid from the Council of Paths—”

“Whose members may themselves be involved in this nightmare—”

“Then we’ll purge them, too!” Startled, Ehiru looked at Nijiri and saw that his expression had gone fierce and cold. It was a fleeting glimpse of the Gatherer that Nijiri would one day become, and in spite of everything Ehiru felt his heart swell with pride.

“Sonta-i-brother reminded me of our path’s role,” the boy continued. “Must I remind you? If the Hetawa has become corrupt then it is our duty to purify it, under Hananja’s Law. It is that simple, Brother.”