A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 20
Many steps stood between her and ascending, but it was not impossible. If she managed it, she knew that Teirsan would support her in many of her aims. Perhaps if she acquired enough strength, Xetsu might stand with her as well. With such an alliance, all would have to acknowledge them. And then...
And then.
All her fantasies fell apart against memories of the Hero's pale madness. Alongside it, the incomprehensible dictates of a Dark Lord she had never met and wasn't sure existed. She realized that it was idle foolishness to even dream of such things. Not when she had been sent away on a suicidal task.
"He's overwhelming, isn't he?"
The words pulled her from her thoughts. Celivia realized that Yelaan stood nearby, smiling down with false understanding. She had no idea what her face had looked like, but apparently he had been able to interpret it as awe.
"Don't worry, Naena, you're not the only one to be overcome. You did better than most. I've seen grown men piss themselves and warriors pass out the moment they stepped from the throne room. I felt his presence from here, and he wasn't holding back... there must be something special about you, which explains why he gave you this."
As Celivia struggled to her feet, Yelaan handed her a square of paper. It was artfully inlaid with silver in a similar style to her chit, except the words were in Futhik. Her eyes flickered over it and she realized that it was the invitation.
Before she returned to the mountains, she might face something worse. Celivia walked back carrying the paper as if it was a poisonous serpent.
Chapter 15
-
"The Bonewalker clan is often neglected when considering the most powerful clans, as they raid primarily south of the Sotunns. However, it must be noted that they appear to be the most organized, with a formal hierarchy and division of roles unlike the extemporaneous systems of many clans. More information about the warriors of the Chorhan Expanse would be helpful in determining whether or not the Bonewalker clan is militarily engaged or could become a threat further north."
- Scholars of the Blue Mask
-
When the time finally came for the raid on the mansthein, Slaten was more annoyed than impatient. During the days he trained himself and he spent his nights with Natala. He thought that he understood the core of the Bloodskin art, though of course he couldn't match those who had spent a lifetime using it on their bodies. At least not yet.
"A toast to the lowlander Hero!" Denugo was incredibly drunk, which made him surprisingly jovial. He wrapped an arm around Melal's neck and shook him fiercely. "The Deathspawn will fear our blades across the entire world!"
Some answered the toast with raised mugs, though Slaten wondered if some of them wouldn't have answered a toast to anything. Not that they needed an excuse to drink, with the clan's grand table filled to bursting with food and alcohol. It seemed that since they planned to begin a raid the next day, they were eating all their supplies first.
"To the Legend!"
Melal wrestled free of Denugo's cheerful grasp and stood. Slaten noticed that he held a large drinking horn like the chief, which he hadn't possessed before. His simple toast got a much louder chorus of responses, and after everyone drank, there was a moment of silence in which Melal spoke up again.
"Tomorrow, we will go to mock your enemies, slay Deathspawn, and plunder their goods. But this is only the beginning! Once we forge a way to Mount Tmil and find the true path of the Legend, you will have so many riches that these will look like children's toys!"
Nearly everyone cheered in response, though it was unclear which part they cheered. For some, it didn't really matter.
Instead Slaten watched those few who didn't cheer, which included Chief Bufogu and Patule. The latter merely sat back with reserve, but the Chieftain of the Bloodskins watched grimly. Slaten realized that there was an odd similarity between him and Natala, both of them always watching with dark brown eyes that absorbed everything.
As usual, Slaten didn't participate in the toasts, but everyone was accustomed to that by now. He fulfilled Bloodskin expectations simply by eating as much as he possibly could. He wasn't even sure about the nature of many of the meats set before him, but he ate them all. Since he'd begun training in Bloodskin arts, he found himself ravenously hungry at all times.
Eventually the feast had progressed far enough. Several men remained, loudly singing off key, but others began to disperse. So long as he wasn't the first to leave, Slaten thought that no one would care, so he rose to his feet.
"That one has the right of it." Denugo gestured at Slaten while stumbling to his feet and rearranging his pants. "This is the last night we'll have warm beds and women to cool off our blood! We shouldn't let any time go to waste."
"Aye, you're right." Melal got up beside him, copying his movements. "I'll be sure to show Bihuna a good time."
Surprisingly, Denugo burst into laughter. "Fuck her good, Hero! Plant a strong son in her belly!"
As the two of them staggered out, Slaten wondered if that was possible. From Natala he'd learned that the Bloodskin women ate several herbs to discourage childbirth, though Laeri seemed concerned about the practice potentially being harmful. There was a chance that Bihuna had been taken in by the Hero, however, and would stop taking them.
Pushing such things out of his mind, Slaten emerged from the great hall to return to his own room. He might not be returning for the same reasons, but he was just as eager. If this would be his last chance to speak to Natala, he wanted to make the most of it.
First, however, he saw a pale figure in Melal's path. Laeri clutched her staff tightly as she tried to stay close to Melal while keeping her distance from Denugo. "Melal... if you're leaving tomorrow, may I come with you? The journey sounds so difficult..."
"Stay here, Laeri." Melal tried to put a hand on her shoulder but ended up shoving her a step. "This one won't be safe."
"But I want to help. I... I can help..."
"She still wants you!" Denugo burst out laughing, pulling Melal away from her. "You'd better not push away my Bihuna for some lowlander girl!"
The two of them went off, still laughing, and Laeri stared after them. Slaten came to stand beside her, but from her gaze he immediately realized that she didn't want to speak to him. He couldn't provide the type of comfort that she wanted.
"This is only a short journey," Slaten said eventually. "They estimate as many as forty days, though it may be as few as twenty if the dangerous clans aren't nearby. When we leave for Mount Tmil, you'll definitely come with us."
"Are you sure? What if Melal... what if he...?"
"It won't be only his decision, Laeri. When we leave the Bloodskin village, we'll meet Tani and Veron again. They'll need you too."
She nodded slowly, thoughts of the others leaving her slightly less sad. Slaten noticed that Laeri wasn't sniffling the way he would have expected. Her time in the Bloodskin village seemed to have hardened her somewhat, though he wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
Perhaps he could have done more to help her, perhaps not. Either way, Slaten left her to go to his own room, abruptly tired of everyone. All he wanted was to spend the night talking with Natala. It was truly remarkable how perfectly she matched him, providing everything he couldn't get from the Bloodskin warriors. He hoped to invite her to leave with them, once they journeyed to Mount Tmil.
As usual, he found Natala waiting for him. She had the Neyet board with her, but the pieces remained in their box in one corner. Judging from her quiet smile, she was well aware that this was their last night before the raid.
"How dangerous do you think this raid will be?"
Slaten sighed and sat down on the fur opposite her. He'd hoped for a conversation that would range from random philosophy to jests, but couldn't blame her for her concern. "More than most. All the village's strongest warriors will join us, but we have no specific target and the Deathspawn we find might have Catai with them. If we actually meet Stormpeaks in any great numbers, that will go poorly for us as well. The plan is to avoid them, but..."
"I worry. If you die, I don't know what I'll do..."
"I won't feed you any false promises, but I intend to stay alive. Thanks to your help with Bloodskin arts, I'm in less danger than I would have been before." A different thought occurred to Slaten and he frowned. "Will everyone here be safe, with most of the warriors gone?"
"If another clan learned we were vulnerable, it might go poorly for us, but they should have no reason to know of this raid." Natala shook her head and shifted to sit beside him. "I'm more concerned about you. The men deny it, but the Bloodskins are far from the most powerful clan in the mountains. I've seen so many men not return from raids..."
"Focusing on it won't help. Instead, let's go over what we've learned of sein one more time. I will have time on our journey to practice, so I need to gain the clearest possible understanding first."
Usually Slaten found that offering practical solutions to mental concerns wasn't appreciated, but it seemed to help Natala. He thought he saw her brush away a tear, but then she eagerly helped him. She had developed as well, the natural defensive arts she already possessed strengthening as she applied her new understandings to them.
When they finished the training, Natala remained beside him. She let out a deep breath, then shifted to lean against his side, her hand on his knee. Slaten froze, both because her touch shot through his body and for a reason he struggled to identify. Natala had always been vulnerable, but she seemed even more so that night.
"Slaten... I have never known a man quite like you." She looked up at him and he sank into her dark brown eyes. "At first, I feared all that you could take from me, but instead you've given me so much. I... for the first time, I want..."
"Natala..." He breathed her name and her face moved so close that he could easily have kissed her. Her hand slid along his thigh, not far from his aching manhood. She seemed to be waiting for him, but... "Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Of course it is, Slaten." She leaned in, brushing her body against his, her lips whispering against his jaw. "I've been trapped here my entire life, but you can free me from this hell. We can live free of them and you can be my chief, my savior..."
A cold spike of understanding speared through his mind. Despite the parts of him that screamed to accept her offer, something deeper grimly realized that the whisper of discomfort was founded on something. Natala had never been so desperate before. He wanted to believe that she was merely concerned about the raid, yet now that his mind had engaged, it refused to let go.
"Slaten? What's wrong?" There were glimmers of tears in her eyes now and he desperately wanted to kiss them away.
"After everything you've seen from Bloodskin chiefs, do you really want another one? We should be able to live without warriors ruling by strength."
"I didn't mean it that way, Slaten." Natala drew back slightly, attempting to smile but with tears fully formed in the corners of her eyes. "I've been a Bloodskin woman all my life. As much as you've taught me, as beautiful as those visions seem, I need more time. I want to be with you so that you can teach me gentleness and pleasure..."
Moments ago, he might have accepted her words, but now it was the wrong thing to say. Slaten found himself fixing his attention on every minute detail of her expression even though she reacted with obvious pain. "Natala, why are you trying to manipulate me? If you wanted to sleep with me, all you would have needed to do was ask."
"I'm not!" She shuddered in a barely suppressed sob and shifted back, wiping away a tear. "I just... I just wanted you to know how much you mean to me! I wanted this night to be special, so that you wouldn't leave me here."
"You lived in this village for your entire life without being this helpless. You've seen men and women who are in love. Why are you flattering me?" Now that he was looking, he felt certain that she was acting. She was good, somehow managing to summon authentic tears, but her emotions were crafted for Bloodskin men, not the subtle interactions of Oken culture.
"Slaten, why are you doing this? Why w-"
"Natala." He spoke her name sharply, louder than he intended. She shrank back in fear... and then her face went blank.
Utterly blank. Natala stared at him without expression, and when she wiped away the tears with one hand it was as if the emotion had never been. He stared back, for a moment horrified, then saw in truth. She watched him with the cold spark of intelligence he had always seen in her eyes, everything else stripped away. Her eyes slid between his posture and his face, dispassionately analyzing.
"Did someone send you to test me?" He hated the question as soon as he spoke it, but pressed on. "Have we misunderstood the Bloodskin clan entirely?"
She let out a snort, almost exactly like the one that preceded her old laugh. All his mind could do was wonder if that was another false emotion as she answered. "No. Don't be absurd. We're a band of savages leeching off real clans."
"Then what is this? What are you trying to accomplish?"
"Are you going to harm me? Cast me out or punish me for the deception?" She cocked her head as she looked at him and he realized for the first time that it was an exact mirror of his own movements. From the beginning, she had taken what he showed her and fed it back to him. And he thought they had shared something true.
Anger surged through him, but it left nothing behind. Slaten answered in a flat voice. "I have no reason to do that. But I need you to be honest with me. All these nights, what have you been doing?"
"You're the first real chance I've had to leave this village. I needed you to value me enough that you'd take me when you left." Natala shifted and he saw a flicker of annoyance on her face. Or perhaps merely the semblance of annoyance, mimicked to manipulate him. "Most of our men are simple creatures. You were more complex, but it seems I wasn't careful enough."
"But why go to all this trouble? Why manipulate me like this?"
"Because you could kill me in a heartbeat." The abrupt response made him rock back, staring at her with new eyes. He saw no overt emotional fear in her face, but her gaze held a grim calculation.
"I wouldn't hurt you."
She waved the statement aside as if it was a child's babbling. "You could. You have more strength in one hand than I do in my entire body. You could swing your sword through my neck before I noticed you were moving. Those facts hang over every conversation between us, regardless of what you say."
Slaten took a deep breath, coming to grips with the truth of her. Though a hot core of anger still burned within him, he accepted the reality of what she said. If her entire life had been lived within the Bloodskin village, she had very limited examples of how people interacted. From that perspective part of him could understand, yet another part remained fixated on the deception.
"You're frustrated because you believe you're a good man and I'm not giving you credit for it." When Natala spoke up, he realized that she was speaking much more quickly than before, no longer including any pauses awaiting his words. "You might be. But when you noticed, I wondered if you wouldn't cut me down because of my deception. You should understand that: you've seen good men do terrible things."
"Very well, I understand. But why try to sleep with me now?"
"You should have figured that part out, Slaten. Men grow attached to things they can fuck. I'll grant you that you never wanted to force yourself on me. I saw that it wouldn't work to throw myself at you, so I let us grow closer first."
"But that would have been enough. We were close, or at least I thought we were. You didn't need to do that."
"I do not believe you." Her statement hit all the worse for the utter lack of hesitation, in her words or in her eyes.
There was nothing he could say to that, so Slaten merely stared at her for a time. She stared back, though now he thought he saw a bit of her old curiosity in her expression. Faked just as effectively as before. "You've done nothing but lie to me since the moment I walked in that door, haven't you? From the very beginning, you saw how I acted and what I wanted and you mimicked it."
"Slaten, I..." He saw pain in her face and struggled to believe it wasn't false. Natala observed his response and her face went flat again. "From before that moment, actually. I spoke with Laeri about you and used what she said to set my tone. It was more difficult than I expected, because you hide so many of your thoughts. You're a much more complex man than those in the Bloodskin clan."
"Don't try." Slaten knew she could read his expression easily, so he didn't attempt to hide anything, merely stared back at her. "Maybe I'm a simple fool who can be manipulated with flattery, but you aren't stupid enough to think that it will work after you've been revealed."
"Perhaps I'm intentionally angering you with obvious flattery to goad you into doing what I really want."
"I considered that. The fact that you raised the issue yourself suggests you have a different motive. Perhaps you mean to paralyze me with indecision so you can try again on someone else."
"Perhaps I considered that you considered that." Natala smirked at the convolution of their conversation and he very nearly smiled in response. For a brief moment, the comfort of their old relationship almost returned, before he cut it away.
Seeing the change in his face, Natala lowered her eyes. Sadness, perhaps.
The silence extended between them until she finally spoke again. "What now?"
"Isn't that up to you? You're the one who's been manipulating this from the beginning."
"And you know how little those manipulations are worth now, when you could kill or ruin me." She tilted her head again, like before, and he had to wonder if she could still be trying that deception. "I still want you to remove me from this village. I've been honest about every Bloodskin art I've taught you, but I can show you others. You can still fuck me, if you want."
He stared back at her, incredulous. Part of him wondered if he actually could, having seen what she really was. The tender emotion she had faked turned his stomach, but the idea of being with her in this cold state, as nothing but a transaction... part of him felt that it had been a very long time. Slaten gave up on maintaining his mask and just slumped back with a sigh.
