The Duelist 11, page 3
“Right,” Sha-Kane muttered. “Alright. Well.”
He paused then and took a deep breath, and I could see him resisting the urge to cross his arms over his chest or clench his fists. He wanted to appear approachable.
“Archus Doler isn’t your real father,” he finally just blurted out. “I am.”
Horus’ ‘surly teenager’ act dissolved in an instant as he sat bolt upright and stared at the osprey-man. Shay’s green-gold eyes widened as she stiffened, but she didn’t move or speak.
I stayed very still and very quiet, because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself before Sha-Kane had said his piece.
“First of all,” the osprey-man hastily continued. “I would like to apologize to you both. I am truly, deeply sorry for the pain I caused you by leaving you with Doler. I had no idea the depths of his cruelty, and had I known what kind of man he was, I would never have left you there. Either of you.”
“You… you’re our father?” Shay asked in a small voice. “Our… blood father?”
I could understand why she was still stuck on that. It was a strange thing to have to suddenly reevaluate your entire life because one new piece of information changed everything.
“You are my blood relations, yes,” Sha-Kane said with a nod. He seemed a little less nervous now that he’d gotten the worst part over, and he looked more like the level-headed, steady-handed official I’d met. “Archus Doler may have raised you, but… he did not sire you.”
“Raised us?” Horus echoed, and I winced because I knew that tone in his voice. That was his ‘danger’ voice. His ‘don’t you dare fuck with my family’ voice. “That man didn’t ‘raise’ us. You’re telling me we didn’t have to stay with him? With the cruel, jealous, greedy bastard who forced Shaylee to be Culled too soon, who forced her into a marriage with a bastard who didn’t even care about her? Who exiled me when I dared to try and defend her, because I was the only one left who gave a shit about her wellbeing?”
“Horus…” Shay began in a calming tone, and she tried to lay a hand on his shoulder, but he batted it away.
“No!” the falcon-man said harshly, and he jumped to his feet and pointed accusingly at Sha-Kane. “You left us with Archus! You left us to be used and abused! You left us!”
“Horus,” Sha-Kane said, and his voice was pleading. “I know I’m in the wrong. You have no idea how much it pained me when I realized what Archus Doler had done to you both. I truly had no idea--”
“No,” Horus agreed in an acidic tone. “You didn’t. Because you weren’t there. You were off gallivanting around on ships and going to fancy dinners and living in luxury on Alem while your children, your own children, were suffering under a paranoid bastard’s greed and jealousy.”
“I know,” the osprey-man sighed and bowed his head. “That is guilt I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and into the next. Mercedes will judge me for my sins, and leaving the pair of you with Archus will be the largest and darkest of them all.”
“I don’t want to hear self-pity or self-punishment,” Horus snarled. “I don’t want anything from you. I want you off this ship, and I want you to stay far away from my sister and me.”
“Horus,” I then interjected, and the falcon-man turned to face me. His eyes were bright with a kind of furious pain, a kind of agonized rage, that he almost looked like a different person. Like a young boy who was forced to take on duties far too difficult for someone of his age, but he was the only one who would do them. “We’re not abandoning him here on the Island of Hearts.”
“Why the fuck not?” Horus spat. “He abandoned Shay and me! And he left us in a far more hostile environment than a deserted Island with a handsome temple. If he loves studying dead cultures like the Lakuna so much, he can spend the rest of his life down there trying to translate all the runes.”
“Horus!” I said again, louder this time, and the falcon-man glared at me.
This all felt so wrong. He was my friend, my best friend, and we were supposed to be on the same side. But right now, it felt like Horus was seeing enemies everywhere.
“No, Alex,” Sha-Kane said, still in that heavy voice. “Let him say his piece. He must have seasons’ worth of things to say to me.”
“You’re damn right I do,” Horus growled as he whirled to face his father again. “How could you leave us like that? How could you do that to us? To our mother? Fuck! Even to Archus himself. Did he know? Is that why he was such a bastard to us?”
“I agree,” Shay said, and her voice was such a sharp contrast to her brother’s. It was quiet, calm, and slightly quavering, and just those two words seemed to dispel a thin aura of calm over the room, because Horus suddenly seemed less furious. “I’d like to know why you did what you did. What your excuses are.”
Sha-Kane flinched slightly at the word ‘excuses’ even though it was the correct term. He might have believed he’d done the right thing, and maybe he had, but even so, he was still justifying his actions with excuses.
“Archus and I, we grew up together,” the osprey-man began with a sigh. “I know the man he became was cruel and bitter, but I also knew the child he was. When we were young, we were inseparable, the very best of friends.”
“I don’t care if you were friends,” Horus spat. “I want to know why you abandoned us to him, if you knew the shit he grew up to be.”
A small part of me was impressed by Horus’ ferocity, even as I was desperately hoping he would come around to Sha-Kane’s side, at least a little. If we ever had to interrogate someone, the falcon-man would make an excellent ‘bad cop’ figure.
“When we were young, I lacked the status I have now. I was not born an Asher, I had no family name or title. Archus did. The Doler line of Ashers was almost as old as the original sixty-four. But that didn’t go to Archus’ head. He was a man of honor.”
“Was, past tense,” Horus muttered. He’d sat down again by this point and had his arms folded in what mostly looked like sulking. But it was fair enough to be a bit sulky when you learned the abusive shit you’d grown up with had actually not been your father, and your real father had, in fact, left you with that abusive shit.
“Archus’ father disapproved of me as a friend,” Sha-Kane went on. “But Archus stuck by me. He didn’t care about status. At least… not until we met your mother, Alana.”
“You knew our mother?” Shay asked, and her eyes widened again.
“Of course he did,” Horus said flatly. “Unless you mean to tell us she wasn’t our real mother, either.”
“No, Alana is your mother,” Sha-Kane confirmed with a nod, but then his expression grew wistful. “And she was the most incredible woman I or Archus ever met. We were both utterly smitten with her. But even though I eventually won Alana’s heart, her father couldn’t bear to see her married to a man with no position when she also had the sole heir of an ancient Asher bloodline vying for her affections. So, she married Archus, and Archus believed that would be the end of it-- he’d ‘won’ because of his status.”
“And you, what?” Horus then asked, and I could see this was the true moment of fear for him. Not learning that Archus Doler wasn’t actually his father, but learning precisely how Sha-Kane had become his father.
“I courted her,” the osprey-man answered simply. “Even though she was married. Even though it was to my best friend. I courted her and encouraged her to break the vows of her marriage. We carried on an affair, and then you were born, my boy.”
Horus flinched at the words ‘my boy’ in a way I’d never seen him flinch before. Maybe because, for the first time, he realized they were the truth.
“But you took after Alana,” Sha-Kane went on. “You have her eyes, you know. Has anyone ever told you that?”
The falcon-man swallowed hard and looked away from Sha-Kane. I supposed no one had ever told him that, because who would have? Not Archus Doler, who’d always suspected Horus wasn’t really his son, and not Alana, because she’d died when Horus was far too young. Horus had spent most of his young adulthood exiled from his home, far away from anyone who’d ever known him or his mother. No one would have seen the resemblance. Maybe Horus himself hadn’t even known about that resemblance until this very moment.
“So, Archus didn’t have any proof, though I’m sure he had his suspicions when he saw how close Alana and I continued to be. But it wasn’t until you were born, Shale-Lea, that Archus began to really consider you were not his children, and Alana had not been faithful.”
“Our mother died when we were young,” Shay said, still in that tremulous voice. “Our father-- Archus, he… he didn’t have anything to do with that, did he?”
“No,” the osprey-man said quickly. “No. I swear to Mercedes, Archus would never have harmed Alana, no matter how jealous he became. He adored her as fervently as I did-- perhaps even more, considering he loved her despite receiving nothing in return. Your mother died of a natural illness, and it broke my heart when I heard the news. I wept for days and refused to eat or sleep or come out of my rooms. I would have wasted away with the express purpose to be reunited with her, if I hadn’t been reminded of you, my children.”
“So, what?” Horus asked. “You encouraged our mother to break her wedding vows and abandoned her once you could no longer bed her in secret?”
He was refusing to give the Councilman an inch, and I admired it as much as I was slightly exasperated by it now.
“Horus,” Shay said, and clearly she was a little frustrated with her brother, too. “You don’t… we don’t know what it was like. Mother, she was kind and good. She wouldn’t have loved someone cruel.”
“She fell in love with a man who abandoned his children to a vindictive bastard,” Horus scoffed as he continued to glare at the osprey-man. “That’s pretty cruel, in my eyes.”
“I only left to protect you both,” Sha-Kane insisted. “Archus confronted me after you were born, Shale-Lea. We’d all seen how special you were, that you were destined for great things, and some paranoia must have entered Archus’ mind, and twisted him to his worst impulses. I lied, for the sake of Alana, for the sake of the pair of you. I swore I would stay away from Archus and his new family, and I truly believed it was best. I had no power to protect you, no status to protect myself, no gold to sway judgment in my favor. I believed you would grow up affluent and cared for, able to choose any life you wanted.”
“Instead, our mother died, I was exiled, and Shay was shoved into a marriage with a man who barely gave her a second thought,” Horus spat.
“And that is a mistake I will carry on my soul forever,” Sha-Kane said gravely. “I traveled to Alem in the hopes of gaining status, so I could protect you all if the truth ever came to light. All I have ever done is for the protection of my family. And I know I have made errors, and they will haunt me, but I have only ever acted out of love for the two of you, and your mother.”
There was a long moment of silence. It stretched into a minute, then two, until finally, Shay spoke.
“So, that was why Father-- Archus was so unconcerned with exiling Horus,” the phoenix-woman said in a soft, mournful voice. “Horus was never truly his heir and would never have been able to inherit Asher abilities. The Passing Rite wouldn’t have worked.”
“So you just gave him license to be even more of a shit to us.” Horus scowled bitterly.
“Horus,” Shay said to her brother, and when she put a hand on his shoulder again, he didn’t bat it away this time. “I’m not saying everything Sha-Kane did was… was right, but… he was acting in our best interests. You can acknowledge someone’s intentions while still holding them accountable for their errors.”
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Horus demanded, and he glared at the osprey-man. “We met at my Trial, and you could have come to Nata any time after Shay and I left our home. You could have come to me when I was living with the Wolfmen Tribes. Or Shay when she married Bala Ren, or Alex! Why stay so far away?”
“I didn’t want to put you at risk,” Sha-Kane sighed. “Until your father died, it would have been dangerous to expose your true parentage, even after I had my Asher status. I feared what he might do to you or Shale-Lea in retaliation.”
“And after we killed him?” the falcon-man asked.
Sha-Kane said Horus had Alana’s eyes, and I wondered if she’d ever looked at Sha-Kane like Horus was looking at him now. Did it hurt the osprey-man to see the eyes he’d loved staring at him with so much disgust?
“I owe a blood debt,” Sha-Kane answered simply, and I had to commend him for at least being upfront about it. “And I didn’t want the pair of you to get tangled up in my own mistakes, not if I could help it. If it became public that you were my children, then my debt would become yours.”
“But we’re not children,” Shay said gently. “Not anymore. We’re adults, capable of dealing with our own problems, and the problems of those we care for.”
“But I was meant to be your father,” Sha-Kane insisted, and for the first time since I’d entered this room, I heard bitterness in his voice. “I was supposed to be the man you come to when you need help and support, someone you know will always help. And I cannot offer that if I am asking you to clean up my own messes.”
“You haven’t asked us to clean anything,” the phoenix-woman pointed out. “You’re only telling us all this now because of what we found out in the cave, about the Council. You’re trying to protect us, as best you can. But you need to recognize we are grown adults, and we can help you if you have problems, just like you can help us.”
Sha-Kane pursed his lips, and I could see he knew Shay was right.
“Maybe,” my wife went on, and she reached across the couch to take my hand and squeeze it, even though she kept her eyes fixed on Sha-Kane. “Maybe ‘father’ doesn’t need quite so rigid a definition in this case. I’d just be happy to have a father who is kind.”
Sha-Kane finally smiled at her, and that made him look older than anything else. I could see the age in his eyes, the tiredness, but also the immense relief. He hadn’t destroyed this tenuous relationship with his daughter by telling her she was his daughter.
“A blood debt?” Horus then asked, and he regarded the osprey-man skeptically, but I wasn’t surprised the falcon-man was going to be more difficult to win over. “Who did you kill?”
“Shaw Aras,” the osprey-man said. “He was my… I suppose you could call him my mentor. Or perhaps an adoptive father. He was on the Council before me. When I left Nata, to protect you two and Alana, I ended up on Alem, and… something about me interested Asher Aras. He took me in, trained me in the ways of the Council and the Duelists. But since I was not his blood son, there was only one way to guarantee his Asher status would pass to me when he died.”
“If you killed him yourself,” Horus finished grimly. He was looking at Sha-Kane with slightly less apprehension now, though he was still clearly angry. Maybe Shay’s words had gotten through to him.
“Exactly,” Sha-Kane said with a nod. “Aras believed the Council was too set in its ways-- which, of course, it would be, seeing as its members are supposed to be the descendants of the original sixty-four Ashers. He believed it needed some ‘new blood’ to push it into the modern age, members who are representative of Aventoll as a whole, and not just its elite.”
I kind of thought the concept of an Asher Council was inherently contradictory, if Shaw Aras and Sha-Kane wanted a ‘representative’ Council. Only a tiny fraction of Aventoll were Ashers, and those people were much richer and had far higher status than non-Ashers. If the Council was interested in fair government-- and I knew it wasn’t, even if Shaw Aras himself had been-- then the idea of Ashers-only would need to go.
“So you… mercy-killed him?” I asked. It was the first time I’d spoken since I’d had to chastise Horus for wanting to leave Sha-Kane on the Island of Hearts, and the three Natavians all stared at me for a moment, like they’d forgotten I was even there.
“I suppose you could call it that,” the osprey-man said with a nod. “He was old and frail. I know how to kill so it is quick and almost entirely painless. He said the words, he ‘wagered’ his status, but it wasn’t a true Duel.”
Maybe not, but it was more of a Duel than what people like Dagmar had done. He’d challenged the aging Asher Kel to a real Duel and basically stolen the old man’s Rank Three status.
“You did it for the betterment of the Council, and Aventoll as a whole,” I said. “It has more honor to it than you might think.”
“Well, the Asher Council didn’t think it had honor,” Sha-Kane sighed. “Since I was not born into my seat, and killed a Councilman to get it-- and an aged Councilman, at that-- I am viewed as… something of a pariah within the Council. It’s part of why I spent so much of my time traveling and learning about other cultures. I cannot hope to improve Aventoll if I do not know the issues the Peoples face, and what they need to not just survive, but to thrive.”
“I agree the Council needs to change,” Horus said. It was the first thing he’d said for a while. “But to think you could do that all by yourself is just foolish.”
“Perhaps, but there are times in which we must all rely on foolishness when we have nothing else in our arsenals,” Sha-Kane said a little sharply. It was the faintest hint of a father warning his son to be a bit more respectful, and it was both funny and a bit of a relief.
If Sha-Kane could say something like that, and Horus could just scoff a bit and roll his eyes, then maybe they would be okay.
“How fortunate, then, that it’s no longer your only tool,” Horus answered in the exact same tone, which was quite funny. “Now, you have allies. Including one who also has a seat on the Council.”
Horus mentioned down in the Cave of Hearts that there had been two other ‘usurpers’ in the Council since it had been founded. But the falcon-man also said those two Ashers would have been fully brought into the fold in the intervening generations, and would be as steeped in prejudice as the original families.
