Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(206)

Balendin grimaced.

It’s not working, Valyn realized. Kaden doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel the fear, the anger. He had no idea how it was possible, but his brother didn’t seem to feel anything.

Then, in a flash, he understood what had to happen. “Kaden!” he began, “you have to—,” but his brother had already pivoted toward him, drawing that short knife of his, raising it in a quick motion as Balendin started to shout. Valyn met his brother’s eyes, those icy, distant flames, as Kaden closed on him. He doesn’t feel love, either, he realized as Kaden hammered the knife down with a savage thrust straight at Valyn’s head, or sorrow, or regret.…

*

Kaden glanced down at his brother’s body, bleeding and crumpled at his feet. Deep in the vaniate, everything the Shin taught him seemed so much easier, more natural, as though this final skill enabled all the rest. He had wanted to know the leach’s well and so he had cast his mind into the youth’s head, abandoning himself to the beshra’an as he listened to the conversation hum around him. It hadn’t been difficult then, to determine that he drew his power from emotion. It almost seemed obvious. Then it was just a matter of knocking Valyn unconscious. Some distant part of his mind hoped he hadn’t killed him, but that, too, would serve the purpose.

Kaden raised his eyes to the leach once again.

“I’m going to murder you,” Balendin panted, eyes desperate, darting.

Kaden remembered what it felt like to be afraid, but only vaguely, the way you remember a story from your childhood, events so distant, they may not have really occurred.

“Unlikely,” he replied, hefting his flatbow and leveling it at the youth’s chest. He’d never used the weapon before, but the saama’an of Valyn’s mimed instruction filled his head, and he released the catch and slid his finger onto the trigger.

“Even without my well, I’m still Kettral. You’re just a f*cking monk. You don’t know shit about—”

Kaden squinted and pulled the trigger. The mechanism worked as he had anticipated. The bolt tore into the leach, and with a shriek of rage and pain, Balendin Ainhoa tumbled from the low ledge into the vast darkness of the night.

Kaden turned back to the crumpled form of his brother, knelt down, and pressed a finger firmly to his neck. He hadn’t known how hard he had to strike—he’d never knocked someone out with the pommel of his knife before—and so he’d erred on the side of caution, hitting him as hard as he could.

“Valyn,” he said, his own voice cold and distant in his ears. He slapped his brother roughly on the cheek. “Valyn, wake up.”

It took longer than he would have expected, but after thirty breaths, Valyn’s eyes flashed open. He lunged forward, snatched Kaden by the wrists, and hurled him backward onto the scree. Kaden went limp. He couldn’t fight a Kettral, not hand to hand, and he could only hope that Valyn understood the situation before he killed him. His brother was snarling, forcing him down, reaching for his belt knife, his eyes inches from Kaden’s own.

His eyes, Kaden realized, staring. Someone burned away all the color in his eyes. He hadn’t noticed before, not in the darkness, not with his focus on Balendin and the approaching Aedolians, but Valyn’s eyes, eyes that had always been oddly dark, had grown darker still. They looked like holes burned into nothingness.

“Balendin’s gone,” Kaden said, his voice calm despite the blade suddenly pressed up against his throat.

“Kaden,” Valyn gasped, searching the surrounding darkness, groping in the dirt for one of his blades. “Where? Where did he go?”

Kaden gestured to the flatbow. “I shot him. He went over the cliff.”

For a long time Valyn just stared, then he nodded, then laughed. “Holy Hull,” he breathed, rocking back onto his heels, freeing Kaden. He let out a loud whoop. “Sweet ’Shael on a stick! How did you do it?”

“I aimed, then pulled the trigger.”

Valyn shook his head. “No, the emotion thing. I’ve been training for battle for years, and I was drowning in anger, and fear, and shit, Kaden … even now you look like you’ve been reading a somewhat dull book.”

“The Shin. They taught me … some skills.”

“I guess they f*cking did!” Valyn burst out, catching his brother in a huge hug. Kaden did not return the gesture.

“Don’t we need to be moving?” he asked instead. “I’m not clear on the tactics here, but haste seems at a premium.”