The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1)(87)

“No way to know she was the firstwife,” the captain says. He sounds shaken. “So many women here, no way to know. That’s what we’ll tell him.”

“And the brat?”

“The Hetawa, where else? Do you want to be the one who explains to the Gatherers how he died?”

No one answers.

“We’ll deliver him on the way back to Yanya-iyan. As far as tonight is concerned, he wasn’t here.”

So they carry Ehiru outside and truss him up and strap him across a saddle like baggage, and once the killing is done they ride away with him into the desert night. And as they dump him on the Hetawa steps and leave him there for the Sentinels to collect, he recalls the old priest’s words and realizes that they were not an error, but a prophecy. Now, though he would never have chosen it, he is a child of the Hetawa. Now and forevermore.

*

Ehiru opened his eyes and lifted his head from his knee. Sunandi’s garden surrounded him, wilder and thicker than Gujaareen gardens tended to be, although no less beautiful. Straightening from the awkward posture, he stretched out his leg and sighed, looking up at the Dreamer through the graceful branches of a shimanantu tree. He’d come to meditate, but the humid warmth of Kisua’s nights had lulled him into sleep—and memories—instead. Not the wisest thing to sleep outdoors and without screening cloth; he scratched one leg and grimaced as he felt a four of insect bites beneath his fingers. Then he tensed, hearing a footstep behind him.

“Is your bed not to your satisfaction, Gatherer?”

He relaxed and turned to see Sunandi. She stood a few feet away on the porch that was the garden’s entrance. She wore only a light shift, momentarily throwing him back to the fateful night of their meeting in Yanya-iyan that now seemed so long ago.

“The bed is fine,” he replied. “Gatherers don’t sleep at night.”

“And yet you have the look of a man who’s just woken from a fine nap.”

I’m not quite a Gatherer any longer, he thought, but did not say. She probably knew it, anyhow.

“Where’s your little killer?”

Ehiru shook his head. “In Ina-Karekh, though his body is in your guestroom with my jungissa holding him in sleep. He would be awake too, if not for that, worrying over all our troubles.”

“Hmm, yes.” She sighed. “I’m glad to know that Gatherers, too, have sleepless nights. Makes you seem more human.”

“I could say the same of ambassadors,” he said, turning to look up at the Dreamer again. Waking Moon peeked around the curve of her larger sister, a signal of the coming dawn. “Someone in your profession must see so much evil, day in and day out. It surprises me to see that you can still be troubled by anything enough that it disturbs your sleep.”

“A matter of degree, Gatherer.” She walked down the steps, coming to stand on the grass beside him. “Everyday evils are nothing to me, true, but this war is so much more than that.” She hesitated, then added in a tone of resignation, “Perhaps I should be glad that I won’t live to become so jaded.”

He sighed up at the Moons. “You sought to prevent war. There’s no corruption in that.”

He sensed her surprise and sudden attention in the moment of silence that followed. “Even if my methods…?”

“Corruption is a disease of the soul, not the actions, Jeh Kalawe. And though the latter are often symptomatic of the former, it is a Gatherer’s duty to see beyond superficialities. When I return to Gujaareh, I’ll inform the Council of my judgment.” He glanced back at her. “See to it that you never grow corrupt enough to accept evil without losing sleep, however, or it will be dangerous for you to enter Gujaareh again.”

She exhaled, fourdays of tension released in that one sound, and closed her eyes for a moment—perhaps sending a prayer of thanks to whatever gods she respected, or perhaps just savoring life anew. But when she opened her eyes the old irreverence was there. “Be sure you tell your apprentice too, priest. He doesn’t like me.”

In spite of his mood, Ehiru smiled. “Nijiri has little experience with foreigners or women. You confuse him.”

“And that which confuses must be destroyed?”

“Or understood. But you, Sunandi Jeh Kalawe, are a difficult woman to understand under the best of circumstances. You can’t blame Nijiri for throwing up his hands and deciding to kill you as the simplest solution to the matter.”

She laughed, low and rich. He watched her, obliquely fascinated by the sound and the long graceful lines of her neck. “He wouldn’t be the first man to come to that conclusion,” she said, looking up at the Moons. “The Prince seems to have felt the same way. And Kinja often joked about it.” She fell silent then, abruptly, and he remembered that she was still in mourning.

“This Kinja,” he said. He gazed at the Dreamer as he said it, but he caught her look from the corner of his eye, sensed her sudden tension. He kept his tone soft, trying to convey that he meant only to comfort her. “Will you tell me of him? Since, it seems, he died trying to save both our lands.”

She was silent for a length of time. It was very Gujaareen of her, though Ehiru suspected she would not appreciate the description.

“He was…” she began, slowly, “Well. My father, officially, by adoption. But in truth he was more like you are to Nijiri—an older brother, a mentor, a friend. I loved him the same way that boy loves you.” She paused then, glancing at him. “Perhaps not in quite the same way, though. I never wanted Kinja as a lover.”