Blood Father

  Kagen hoisted his heavy pack onto his shoulders, careful to check once more around the ravine, to make sure they had left no trace whatsoever of their passing, and then he turned to glance at Arielle. She was kneeling over her bedroll, rolling it up into a neat, even trundle, and her wild copper hair hung loose about her shoulders, several errant strands of red highlights framing her vivid eyes like a crown. She smiled at him and then quickly glanced away.

  And his breath caught in his throat.

  While the beautiful warrior had not been exactly inviting since their intimate exchange by the larch tree, the change in her otherwise impervious demeanor had been palpable.

  Endearing.

  She blushed whenever she looked at him, and her heart could only be described as soft…pliable…open. The kindness that was rooted at her core, the compassion that defined her true nature, was no longer locked up in a vault, so carefully protected. It was responsive, available…and subtly exposed.

  Kagen smiled inwardly, grateful to have made even the smallest inroads with the beautiful native.

  “Are you ready, healer?” Marquis’s voice cut through the silence, bringing him back to the present moment.

  “As ready as I can be,” Kagen said.

  Marquis grunted. “What we will see today, at the slave encampment; do not let it linger in your mind. We can’t afford to be distracted or off-balance as we head to the arena. We will need all of our faculties, our full concentration, to map a final strategy, to execute as we must tomorrow.”

  Kagen nodded. Now this was a moment worth noting, indeed, Marquis Silivasi warning his brothers not to be irrational. “Whatever I see today, Master Warrior, will only fuel the fire that burns inside of me—my determination to see our father freed.”

  Nachari sauntered up to the two other vampires. Although his gait was casual as usual, his face betrayed his angst. “Then you do not believe there is any chance our father is still there?”

  “No,” Marquis said gruffly. “The games are at three o’clock tomorrow, and the arena is at least ten hours away from the slave encampment. Thane would be a fool not to have moved Keitaro already, and while I do believe Thane is a worthless pile of mongrel shit, he is not a stupid adversary.”

  “No,” Nathaniel chimed in, his normally placid features hardening with resolve. “Just a dead one.”

  Marquis met Nathaniel’s stare and sniffed. “Indeed.”

  Nachari licked his lips involuntarily, his inner panther demonstrating his assent. He purred deep in his throat, and they all took notice.

  When Arielle padded silently up to the others, all three of Kagen’s brothers turned to glance at her, and then Kagen, appreciatively. He smiled—what else was there to say? “Good morning, Miss Nightsong.” He practically hummed the words.

  She bit her bottom lip, looked down at the ground, and then deliberately lifted her head to meet his eyes, her cheeks flushing a beautiful pink. “Good morning, healer.” In an effort to distract herself, she started fussing with her arrows; counting the brightly colored fletchings; checking and rechecking her bow.

  “Is everything in order?” Kagen asked. He couldn’t help but rib her just a little.

  She smiled so sweetly that her teeth nearly sparkled, and then she simply rolled her eyes and walked away, hurrying to catch up with Marquis.

  Kagen chuckled aloud. What an enigma, he thought. The female could release three arrows faster than most people could notch a bow; she could hit her chosen target with unerring precision; and she wasn’t a rival to take lightly. Yet, she blushed like a teenager in response to a male’s attention. To his attention. “Arielle,” he called after her, unable to resist the urge to needle her some more.

  “Yes?” She tried to appear relaxed.

  “If there’s anything you need”—he narrowed his eyes and then winked, his mouth turning up in a devilish grin—“you know where to find me.”

  She huffed in exasperation, smoothed the front of her parka—as if an animal hide could be smoothed into place with the swipe of a hand—and turned on her heels. “You are incorrigible, Mr. Silivasi. And I am fine for the moment.”

  He took a deep, appreciative breath. “Oh, believe me; you are that.”

  Utterly flustered, she scurried away.

  The group traveled quickly, making exceptionally good time. They arrived at the outskirts of the slave encampment in less than an hour, and it took only mere moments—listening, feeling, directing their heightened senses toward the hut Keitaro used to occupy—to recognize that it was indeed empty.

  Marquis had squatted down on the ground, careful to remain out of sight should any lycans pass by, as he had struggled to control his rage. Fortunately, all of the Silivasis had come to realize by this, their fourth day in Mhier, that emotions did not have the same effect in this strange new land that they had in Dark Moon Vale: While tree branches might sway or rustle, and while the air might grow thicker, the earth did not rumble or split open beneath their rage, and the skies did not open up and pour down sorrow as buckets of rain. And it was a good thing, too, because Marquis had been simply murderous after seeing the conditions of Keitaro’s slave hut, even from a distance, after recognizing on a visceral level that this was how their father had lived…for centuries.

  Nathaniel, on the other hand, had reacted just the opposite: He had been eerily casual and far too calm. It wasn’t that the ancient vampire didn’t feel Keitaro’s pain, or even his own: Quite the contrary; it was that he could not allow himself to process any of it just then. The weight of it would have been too heavy; the breadth of it would have been too vast. So he had locked it up, somewhere inside, relegating his emotions to some internal box, to be accessed and fed upon at a later date and time—undoubtedly, he would draw upon it in the arena, when they finally faced the lycans for the first time.

  Nachari had been the only one to face the horrors with open sensitivity, to allow himself to cry, even if he had only shed a half-dozen tears. He had bowed his head, retreated for a time in prayer, and then gone about the business of checking his weapons and consuming a quick repast of bagged blood in order to fortify his body for the rest of their journey. He had chosen to prepare himself for the voyage yet to come, the longest trek of their day, a ten-hour hike beyond the Royal District to the gates of the arena.

  Kagen had quietly slipped away, retreating back into the thick of the forest, into a small, circular clearing that stood no more than one hundred yards from the outskirts of the slave huts. Despite its proximity to the encampment, the clearing had afforded him some much-needed privacy—it was isolated like his pain, concealed by a large, U-shaped hedge of towering conifers. The trees looked like they had been planted eons ago for just this purpose, perhaps by the gods of the lycans, if in fact, such beasts had gods…

  Or souls.

  He ran his hands through his hair and tried to focus on his breathing, to simply draw air in…and then slowly let it out. Not only had he gazed upon his father’s crude, unimaginable prison, but Arielle had pointed out a similar hut about five hundred yards away, the place she had grown up as a teenager.

  The idea of it all—that beautiful little girl, along with their proud, invincible father, being stored away like so much garbage beneath the tyranny of a lycan king—sickened him to his core, and he had just needed a moment…alone.

  Now, as he padded softly through the clearing, listening to the discreet snap of branches, the delicate rustle of leaves beneath his feet, he thought he sensed Arielle beside him. He turned to greet her, hoping she had come to be with him in this solemn, intimate moment, only to find that there was no one there. He wrinkled his nose in confusion and turned his head to the left, then the right, in an effort to make sense of what he was detecting.

  He drew in a deep breath and discreetly scented the air.

  He repeated it a second time…and then a third.

  He stooped down on his heels, placed his hands in the dirt, and felt the earth for subtle vibrations: the clea
r, unmistakable imprint of the energy he was sensing.

  Arielle’s...

  Her distinct genetic footprint was everywhere around him. He tasted it on his tongue, felt it in the soil beneath him, scented it in the air. And just to be sure, he scanned his surroundings once more, half expecting to see her standing right beside him.

  She wasn’t.

  He was still alone.

  Kagen sat down on the ground and sought to quiet his mind. He was an Ancient Master Healer, and he had taken Arielle Nightsong’s blood. He could track her anywhere—detect her fear, sense her distress, and dial-in on her whereabouts with finite precision—just by homing in on her blood, because he knew her DNA. He knew the unique genetic code that made her distinct, that made her Arielle, and the taste of it, the feel of it, the knowledge of it was all around him in this meadow, embedded in the circular clearing itself.

  But how could that be?

  True, she had lived in the encampment for years, and perhaps she had visited this site several times; but what he was feeling was so much stronger than a passing foray over ten years ago. It was a joining, a cohesion of elements, a fundamental oneness with the chemistry of the land itself.

  And then he suddenly understood.

  Kagen was picking up on a genetic code so similar to Arielle’s that it almost had to be hers—because it was. It was an identical pattern of fifty percent DNA, and that meant it belonged to one of three persons: her mother, her father, or a sibling. And it was deeply embedded in the clearing, not a passing impression, not a subtle imprint, but a permanent part of the land itself.

  And that meant he was reclining on a grave.

  He let out a contemplative sigh. By all the gods, Arielle didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and her mother had been killed on the southern end of Mhier, in General Teague’s encampment, over a day’s travel away. So this could only be one thing. It could only be one person.

  Kagen had stumbled upon Ryder Nightsong’s grave.

  And that meant her father had been within five hundred yards of Arielle’s slave hut, at least once. For what purpose? Kagen didn’t know. But perhaps Nachari could shed some light on the subject.

  He rubbed his forehead in consternation. This was a delicate matter at best, and he needed to proceed with caution. Legend had it that Arielle’s father had been killed trying to rescue her from slavery, but the story had only been a rumor, a fable. Now, one way or the other, the information Nachari could divine might be healing…or devastating. Yet he couldn’t keep it from Arielle.

  Mustering his courage, he called out to his brother on a private, telepathic bandwidth, needing the wizard’s help: Nachari, I am in the thick of the forest, in a circular clearing. I need you to come to me…and bring Arielle with you.

  Nachari’s response was immediate. Is something wrong, Kagen? Is there danger?

  Not of the corporeal kind, Kagen said. I believe I’ve stumbled across a grave, and it may belong to Arielle’s father. However, I have no way of knowing how he came to be here, how he came to rest here, and I may need you to try and read the energy. See what you can see.

  Nachari was quiet for a moment. When he finally replied, his psychic voice was cautious. I assume Arielle doesn’t know.

  She knows nothing. But the decision will be hers.

  As you wish, brother. She just finished eating. I’ll bring her to you now.

  It felt like an eternity before Nachari and Arielle emerged through the thicket, although it had probably been less than five minutes. Arielle’s expression was eager, and her eyes were alight with curiosity. “Kagen? Nachari says you want to see me?”

  Kagen rose to his full height and held out his hand. “Yes, sweeting. Come to me, please: There is something I need to tell you.”

  Arielle paused, as if she sensed something amiss in his voice, and then she slowly stepped forward and took his hand. “What is it?”

  Nachari followed in her footsteps, stopping several feet away to stand unobtrusively at her side.

  “This clearing,” Kagen began, “when I first got here, I thought you were right behind me, perhaps beside me: I felt your presence very strongly in the air, in the flora, in the ground.”

  Arielle frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  Kagen tightened his grip on her hand. “Remember when I took your blood?”

  She nodded. “Of course. I don’t think I will ever forget.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “No, I don’t suppose you will. But this is not about our connection…or my insanity.” He gently massaged her palm with his thumb, hoping to somehow soften his words. “It is about something much more important.”

  When she looked up into his eyes, her gaze was so filled with trust—yet foreboding—that it tugged at the strings of his heart. He forced himself to continue. “Arielle, I took your blood in order to have a way to track you, in an effort to keep you safe. As my brothers and I explained that first night in the cave, your specific genetic imprint acts almost like a GPS system—”

  “A GPS system?” She frowned, confused.

  “A homing or tracking device—information encoded in your specific DNA that allows us to sense you, to find you, to recognize you wherever you may be.” He gestured broadly at the clearing. “In a sense, it’s like your name or your fingerprint, something that only belongs to you. However, parts of that code, elements of that fingerprint, were given to you by your parents. You share at least half of the same…material.” He frowned. “I know it isn’t easy to understand. I can only ask that you trust me in this.”

  Arielle nodded gravely, and her soft aquamarine eyes turned a much deeper opal-blue. “Of course…I do.”

  Kagen smiled warmly then. Her trust was a newfound and welcoming gift. “At first, I didn’t understand how I could have such a powerful sense of you all around me when you weren’t, in fact, here. But then I realized that the code I was reading, the fingerprint that I was seeing, actually belonged to someone else. Someone who shares your unique information, at least in part.”

  Arielle sighed. “I still don’t understand.”

  “You had no siblings, correct?”

  “No.” Arielle shook her head emphatically. “No brothers or sisters. My mother swore to that fact.”

  “Then it belongs to your mother or your father.”

  Arielle took a moment to process his words. When, at last, she answered him, it was with a simple, reasoned argument. “But my mother has never traveled this far north, and she died in Teague’s encampment.”

  “I know,” Kagen said softly. He drew in a deep breath and waited for her to make the connection.

  “My father?” she said calmly; and then her forehead creased with confusion. “But how can that be? You can sense his…fingerprint…that clearly? Simply by passing by, standing somewhere he may have once been? I…I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense…” Her voice trailed off, and he could almost see the wheels turning in her mind: Ryder had been in this clearing before. He had been this close to the slave encampment.

  Still, she hadn’t fully connected the dots.

  She still didn’t grasp the full measure of what he was trying to say.

  “I could not—or perhaps it is better to say I would not—sense his presence that clearly if he had just passed by so many years ago, not from a fleeting moment in time. But if your father were still here, if he had somehow…become…a part of the land, than that would be a different matter entirely.”

  Arielle released Kagen’s hand and gradually turned around, rotating in a slow but steady circle. She gazed up at the trees and then down at the ground. She peered between bushes and scrutinized shadows, searching for something she still couldn’t name. “You’re saying my father is here?” She chewed on her bottom lip. “That’s not possible. Legend has it that he died many years ago, when I was still a teenager; and I’m certain that, even if he never wanted to know me, he would not have turned his back on the resistance, not all this time. If he were still
alive, the rebels would know.”

  Kagen nodded, and Nachari looked away.

  Her face grew ashen. “What are you saying, Kagen?”

  Kagen held her gaze in an unyielding stare. “I believe this is your father’s final resting place.”

  She took a step back, her face still blank, as if his words and her hearing had yet to cross paths—she understood the syntax and even the connotation, but the meaning eluded her because her mind wasn’t ready to grasp it. Finally, she spoke softly, in an eerily dispassionate voice. “So…you believe this is Ryder’s grave?”

  “Yes,” Kagen whispered.

  “You believe this, but you don’t know for sure?”

  Kagen closed his eyes, just for a moment, in order to muster his courage. “I am absolutely sure.”

  “Hm,” Arielle intoned, as if she had just learned that clothes were made from cotton. “But why…when…how?” She stumbled to the side and Kagen reached out to steady her, but she quickly pulled away. She turned to face the direction of the larger slave encampment and clasped her hands over her mouth. “This can’t be more than a hundred yards from my slave hut, the place I was kept all those years. Why would Ryder have been here?”

  Kagen felt his heart constrict in his chest—from my slave hut—the words made him sick. “I don’t know, Arielle, but I think it’s an awful strange coincidence, don’t you?” He reached out for her hand, pulled her forward beneath him, and then encircled her shoulders with his arms. “You were always told that Ryder left this world trying to find you, to rescue you, but you never had any proof. We know one thing for certain: He left this world only a hundred yards away from you, and that certainly lends credence to the stories.”

  Arielle choked back a sob. She wrested her body out of Kagen’s arms and stared absently at the ground, her face a mask of both astonishment and dread. “We’ll never know.”

  “Perhaps not,” Kagen said gently. “There’s no way to retrieve the full memory; however, I asked Nachari to accompany you because he is a wizard with exceptional skill.”

  Arielle glanced at Nachari and furrowed her brow.