Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles 4)

“I told you, that’s not my territory and my contact won’t go after that ship.”

“Get someone else.”

“There is nobody else. That playing field is a monopoly.”

“The deal’s off,” she said. “I’ll find someone else.”

She flicked the screen blank, severing the connection, and looked at Arland and Soren.

“House Serak is pirating that quadrant,” Arland said. “Independent pirates are too fragmented and too weak to monopolize a star system. Of course, they wouldn’t pirate their own traders.”

“And Kozor is in on it,” his uncle added. “Alone, neither House has sufficient resources to pirate and to hold the other at bay. They are evenly matched. If they were still at war and either Kozor or Serak devoted part of their fleet to piracy, the other would seize the opportunity to attack.”

“I wonder how long ago they formed an alliance,” Arland said.

“At least ten years,” Soren said. “That’s when they had their last serious battle. They bad-mouth each other at political gatherings in front of other Houses and they have small skirmishes from time to time, but nothing serious enough to really bloody each other’s noses.”

“Their combined fleet isn’t enough to get close to our nose, let alone bloody it,” Arland growled.

“So why House Krahr?” Maud asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to go for a smaller House?”

“They’re pirates,” Soren said, “and we are the richest prize.”

“If they’re going to expose themselves as pirates and allies, they want to reap the greatest benefits,” Arland said.

“How?” Maud asked. “There are only two hundred of them.”

“I don’t know,” Arland said. “But I will find out.”

“It’s a fun game they’re playing.” Soren bared his sharp fangs. “I welcome the challenge.”

Teeth. Running. Running so fast. Big ugly shape behind her. Footsteps stomping.

Dad stepping into her path, his innkeeper robe solid black, his eyes and the broom in his hand glowing with turquoise fire.

Teeth. Right behind her.

Maud opened her eyes. Another nightmare, the same one, muddled and odd, as if it were less a dream and more a memory.

This place is driving me crazy.

She turned to check on Helen.

Her daughter’s bed was empty.

Panic stabbed her. Maud bolted upright and saw the open door to the balcony. Sunlight sifted through the pale gauzy curtains, painting bright rectangles on the floor. As they parted, coaxed by the breeze, Maud glimpsed a small figure sitting on the stone rail.

Maud picked up a robe off the chair, pulled it on, and walked onto the balcony. It stretched along the entirety of their quarters, thirty feet at the widest part. On the right, a fountain protruded from the wall, shaped like a flower stalk with five delicate blossoms that reminded her of bell flowers. A man-made stream about a foot wide stretched from the fountain’s basin, meandered in gentle curves along the perimeter of the balcony and disappeared into the wall. Both the stream and the fountain had run dry. A couple of benches had been set up, inviting a quiet conversation. The balcony begged for plants. It seemed almost barren without them.

Maud crossed the parched stream and leaned on the stone wall of the balcony next to Helen. The ground yawned at her, far below, hidden by the breezeways, towers, and finally trees. A normal mother would’ve pulled her daughter off the rail, but then there was nothing normal about either of them.

Helen had found a stick somewhere and was poking the stone wall with it. Something was bothering her. Maud waited. When she was little, she used to sit just like that, sullen and alone. Eventually Mom would find her. Mom never pried. She just waited nearby, until Maud’s problems finally poured out of her.

For a while, Maud just stood there, taking a mental catalogue of the aches and pains tugging at her. Her ribcage hurt. It was to be expected. She should’ve spent yesterday in bed, not hiking up a mountain and dodging vampire knights who tried to throw her off the path. The booster had taxed her body further and exacted its price. She’d slept like a rock for over twelve hours. The sun was well on its way to the zenith. Soon it would be lunchtime.

She had to have missed breakfast. There were probably messages on her harbinger. She would check them, but not yet.

The breeze stirred her robe. Maud straightened her shoulders, feeling the luxurious softness of the spiderweb thin fabric draped over her skin.

Seeing Renouard last night had dredged up the familiar paranoia. It had hummed through her like a low-level ache, a wound that bled just enough to make sure you couldn’t ignore it. She fought it for a while, but eventually it won, as it always did, and she’d excused herself, picked up Helen off the couch, and carried her to their room, driven by the urgent need to hole up behind solid doors.

Arland seemed to sense that she needed it and he hadn’t offered to take Helen from her. Instead they walked in comfortable silence to her room.

Feeling Helen’s weight draped across her chest and shoulder and the familiar scent of her hair had soothed her a little. Helen was safe. They were both safe.

Once at her door, Maud had stepped inside and carefully put Helen on her bed. She put her daughter’s daggers next to her, tucked her in, and straightened. She’d left the door open and Arland waited at the threshold.

Last night, she turned and saw him standing there, in the doorway, half hidden in shadows, tall, broad-shouldered, his armor swallowing the light. His hair had fallen over his face, the line of his chiseled jaw hard against that backdrop, and when the light of the two moons caught his eyes, they shone with blue green. He took her breath away. He looked like an ancient warrior, a wandering knight who somehow found his way out of a legend and into her room, except he was real, flesh and blood, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw heat simmering just under the surface.

She had forgotten what it felt like when a man looked at her like that. She wasn’t sure Melizard even had, although he must have. Every nerve in her body came to attention. Her breath caught. All she wanted to do, all she could think of in that moment, was closing the distance, reaching up, and kissing him. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to drop her armor, to see him abandon his, and to touch him, body to body, skin to skin. Even now, as she remembered it, her heartbeat sped up.

Helen had fallen asleep. Arland’s quarters were only a short hallway away.

One step. One word. That was all it would’ve taken. A tiny, minute sign, the faintest expression of desire.

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. Instead she stood there like a statue, as if she had been frozen. He told her good night and she just nodded.

He’d left.

The door slid shut.

She let him go. She let him slip away and then she had stripped off her armor, pissed off, and climbed into bed. The booster kept her up for another half hour and she lay on the covers, mad at herself, trying to figure out what happened and failing.

She’d never had problems with intimacy. Melizard wasn’t her first, and whatever problems they had in their marriage, sex wasn’t one of them. Bodies spoke their own language, in love and in war, a language Maud innately understood. A blind woman could’ve read Arland last night, and if Maud told herself she didn’t know what she wanted, she would be lying.

What’s wrong with me?

“Am I a mongrel?”

Helen’s question caught her off guard. Maud blinked, trying to switch mental gears.

“It’s fine if I am,” Helen said. “I just want to know.”

“Did someone call you that?”

Helen didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

“Did they use that word?”

“They called me erhissa.”

Maud’s hands curled on the stone wall. Helen must’ve plugged the word into her harbinger, and the translation software spat out the closest equivalent: mongrel. They called her that, those assholes. In that moment, she could’ve hurt whoever said it and she didn’t particularly care if it was an adult or a child.

Maud gripped her anger with her will and bent it until she was sure her voice would sound calm and measured. She had to explain. Hiding the truth wouldn’t serve either of them well.

“Touch this.” She held out the sleeve of her robe. Helen brushed her fingers over the smooth material.

“The vampires breed a special creature, a type of strange-looking snake. The snakes secrete long threads of silk and spin their nests from them. The vampires collect these nests and make them into fabric. There are two main types, kahissa, which make very thin, light fabric like this one, and ohissa, which make stronger fabric that’s warm and durable. Both are useful. Sometimes kahissa and ohissa breed and they make a third kind of snake, erhissa. Erhissa don’t make nests. They’re poisonous and they bite.”

Helen flinched.

“To vampires, erhissa have no purpose,” Maud said. “But the erhissa knows the world doesn’t revolve around vampires. It doesn’t care what vampires think. It just keeps doing its own thing.”

“So, I’m a mongrel.”

“On Earth, that’s a word people use when they don’t know what breed a dog is. You know who you are. You are Helen.”