Warrior's Touch (Deadly Touch book 2)

Braph peered at where his hand should have been. He flexed the elbow resting on his thigh a couple of times. It felt for all the world as though his hand and forearm were still there. In fact, sometimes, he thought he could even see the fingers move. Like right then. He could picture his hand, palm towards him, fingers in a relaxed curve. He flexed one, touching the non-existent tip to his palm that wasn’t there and he laughed – he could feel the movement, both the fingertip touching his palm and his palm being touched. He could feel it, but it wasn’t happening. The hand wasn’t there. The finger wasn’t there. The palm wasn’t there. His right arm, from below his elbow: gone. He considered pumping magic through his veins, regrowing his arm and hand. Ah, but he couldn’t do that because the device wasn’t there, either. Besides, regrowing limbs wasn’t something Aenuk magic could do. Still, he would love to try. Aenuks couldn’t fly, either. But with their magic, Braph had.

Inclining his head, he tried a different tack. His imagination came to life, picturing not just his hand and device back, but a replacement hand and a replacement device, all one; pistons, cogs, and springs, working together to flex metal fingers, articulated on metal hinges, iron and copper, brass, and steel; stronger than his original hand, better than his original hand. A smile touched his lips. He could do it. He had the skills. He had the tools. He could build himself a new hand … When he got his home back. It would be a challenge one-handed, but he could do it.

The main door to the cells opened and Braph looked up. Ah, Jonas. He’d wondered if his brother would come. He’d assumed so, but this was Jonas, after all. Braph didn’t really know him anymore.

More than a day, by Braph’s guess. Not that he could tell for sure down here. The rhythms of changing guard and small meals gave him some clue.

Part of him was surprised to see Jonas at all, half-expecting him to be a good ways across Turhmos by now. But he couldn’t do that and leave his little Syaenuk behind.

Perhaps he knew Jonas well enough, after all.

Jonas strode down the corridor, grabbed a wooden chair, planted it before Braph’s cell and straddled it, a stern look on his face. His short hair still made Braph take another look. He’d worn it long as far back as Braph could remember. In fact, it had still been long when Braph had killed him back in Turhmos. It suited him short. Brought out the family resemblance.

Braph watched from where he sat at the back of his cell. Jonas toyed with something in his hands. It was too dark to see properly at first, but after the item did a couple of rotations, Braph recognized the wooden toy gryphon he’d swapped for Jonas’s knife many years before. His brother had always been sentimental. It was his soft spot, his weakness. Why had Jonas brought it with him now? It was probably meant to make him feel bad about killing Jonas’s wife simply because they were brothers. Jonas should’ve known Braph would never forget. When everywhere you turned you saw your brother showered in glory, you never forgot. But Jonas wouldn’t understand. He brushed off the worship, the pandering, as nothing; never realizing how much others craved it and that his demeaning of it only made it worse. Maybe if he’d celebrated it. Maybe if he’d shared it with Braph. Maybe they could have been a team.

“What did you call him?” Jonas asked without meeting Braph’s eyes, his voice thick with emotion.

Ah, of course. Jonas didn’t even know his own son. Braph supposed it would weigh heavily on his mind. “Joelin. After …”

“Grandpa.” Jonas nodded, looking at Braph then, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease. The wooden gryphon continued its steady rotation through and around his fingers. He watched Braph a few moments more. Braph found himself wishing his cell were a little deeper. Not that he feared his brother. Well, maybe a little. He was at a distinct disadvantage for the time being, after all.

A deep shadow settled over Jonas’s features. “Why?” His voice rattled around the word. One word. And only one incident he could have been asking about.

“Would it truly make a difference for you to know?”

Jonas’s eyes flashed. He stood and swung the chair into Braph’s cell bars, wood fragments flying. The gryphon fell, skittering along the floor. “Why?! If you wanted to kill me, you could’ve waited!”

Braph nodded. “I don’t think you could ever understand what it’s like to both love and loathe someone so much, only to realize you fear them, too.”

“I got a taste of that when you had Anya stick a knife in Emylia on the boat.”

Braph couldn’t suppress a smile. Jonas had feared him.

“I guess I was just feeling impulsive that day,” Braph shrugged. A nonchalant manner seemed to wind his brother up the most. “What can I say? You and I both inherited our father’s temper. I was … disappointed by your absence.” Looking back now, Braph suspected that had been the plan the whole time. He’d been told Jonas would be there. Of course, Aris hadn’t been ready to give up his Syakaran pet for the baby. But Braph had been too eager. And it had cost him. Now he had an extra mouth to feed, and he still hadn’t fought Jonas in a fair fight. Oh, they’d fought, but with Llewella in the picture, it hadn’t been the one-on-one Braph desired. He was somewhat pleased the girl had managed to heal Jonas. It meant there was still a chance to do it over. Braph just needed his magic back.

Jonas fidgeted while he processed that, drawing a smirk from Braph. They sure were quick to fire in their family. Although, Braph had to admit, Jonas’s military training did him well. Still angry, yes, but the reactions were slower, more purposeful. For a Syakaran, anyway.

“Why do you do Turhmos’s biddin’?”

“I don’t. I do my own. Why do you do Quaver’s?”

“We’re Quavens. We’re Kara.” Jonas’s voice rose in pitch, weakened by confusion.

“We’re Kara,” Braph agreed. “That we were born in Quaver was a mere consequence of geography. But have you ever stopped to wonder whether Quaver really is better than Turhmos? Have you ever asked yourself, are you fighting for the right side?”

Jonas shook his head. “You swapped sides to prove a point?”

“I didn’t swap sides.” Braph snarled. “I went where I could pursue my goals. I picked me, which is all any of us can do. You chose your country over yourself, and where has that got you? Working for you, is it?”

“You come in here, talkin’ all pious … righteous. But a man’s gotta stand for somethin’ besides himself.”

“What about his future, his sons?” Braph stood from the bench seat, approaching the bars, stopping a little over an arm’s length back. “Don’t you want your son to grow up in a world free from wars?”

“Don’t you talk about what I want for my son.” Jonas’s knuckles turned white around the bars. “You gave up what rights you might’ve had when you kidnapped him, leavin’ me homeless and believin’ him dead.”

“Ah, now, that last part wasn’t me.”

Jonas rocked back, head down, eyes and weight shifting. “I know.”

“But you haven’t known long.” Which would go some way to explaining why Jonas hadn’t come looking for Joelin. Jonas was meant to have come looking for him so Braph could prove to the world where their family’s true strength lay. And Braph had been stronger. When they’d finally met for that glorious showdown, Braph had what it took to bring Jonas down, if it hadn’t been for Llewella’s condition. He hadn’t accounted for her, although the crystals he’d attained from her had powered some addictive magic. For a short while. Now she lay bedridden, clearly no longer pregnant.

“What happened to our Llewella?”

Jonas looked for something else to throw, but there were no more chairs in this section and, otherwise, the corridor was bare. He gripped the bars. “She doesn’t exist for you. The next time you even think about her, I will kill you.”

“Now, now. Let’s not be unreasonable.”

Jonas rattled the bars, but they didn’t bend. He was capable. So restrained. Trained, at least.

“To be honest, I’m sorry if I spoilt her for you.”

“Nothin’ you could do would ever ruin Llew for me.” Jonas turned from the cage, took the two strides to cross to the opposite wall, then turned back to Braph. It seemed he had more to say, or ask, but he had yet to shape his thoughts into something coherent.

“Not that I did much.” Braph feigned examining the quicks of his fingernails. The more relaxed he appeared, the more fired up Jonas became. “Everybody knows you can’t rape an Aenuk.” Of course, Braph knew that statement to be utterly false. Partly it depended on how much pain the transgressor was willing to accept in return for the attack – and Braph had met plenty of people who would add that to the pleasure. And, of course, Turhmos with their years of breeding Aenuks for their military had come up with ways to impregnate unwilling Aenuk women while reducing the risks to the men, but none of the gratification. Oh, there were ways that removed risk altogether, but Turhmos had found a drop in male volunteers, and it didn’t increase the women’s inclination to offer their wombs to the nation.

If he was honest with himself, Braph supposed that was why he had subdued Llewella with his magic. He supposed she wouldn’t have volunteered her body to him. But she was so like her mother, and it had been too long.

“If it makes you feel any better, I was thinking about someone else at the time.”

Jonas held Braph’s gaze with a flat one of his own.

For a moment, Braph considered picking the scab once more, seeing how much it would bleed. But sometimes it was best to let things fester. Besides, Braph really had no interest in the girl, and there were other matters to dig into.

“What does Aris have to say about all the goin’s on, eh?” Urgh. Five minutes with his brother and he’d already slipped back into the clodhopper tongue of which he’d spent years cleansing himself. Regardless, it pleased him to see he’d hit another nerve. There was something in the way Jonas’s eyes twitched, the way he grimaced, a clear sign of another wave of anger swelling, but not quite breaking. “What did he do, then?”

Jonas looked like he might fire up again, but suddenly relented. “He killed our babies.”

That was unexpected. Braph had known Aris all his life. Aris, who’d dedicated his life to preserving Syakara, to nurturing Jonas’s bloodline, had killed Jonas’s child? Wait …

“Twins?” Braph asked. A great-aunt had had twins, so it wasn’t unheard of. Still a surprise.

Jonas’s face screwed up. He’d said too much? Then he nodded. Braph got the feeling Jonas wanted to talk to his brother about it … but perhaps not Braph. Such a shame they were one and the same.

Still, Aris killing Jonas’s children didn’t make sense. He loved their family for reasons only he knew. Even when he’d declared disinterest in the fate of Kierra, he’d insisted Jonas’s child live. But these children hadn’t only been Jonas’s. They had been Llewella’s too. And Aris had never made excuses for his loathing of the Aenuk race.

“Always fathering, never a father, eh?”

“That ain’t never been what I wanted!” Jonas clenched his fists.

“So, why did he do it?”

Jonas folded his arms, evidently still struggling with his desire to open up to Braph. “We think it made him Immortal.”

Braph felt his face slacken. This was a situation that required careful consideration. Aris had killed Jonas and Llew’s children. Simply ridding the world of a future Aenuk might have been enough for the old man, although it would have put Jonas’s loyalties to the test. Would Aris risk that simply to eliminate Aenuks? Unlikely. Much more likely if he were to gain from the exercise.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. He stabbed her—”

“With a Syakaran knife …” Braph nodded, his mind chugging over like the wheels of Turhmos’s new steam engines. Llewella couldn’t heal from the wound, that much was clear. The true origins of the knives less so.

“With a Syakaran knife.” Jonas’s lips curled.

“Then what?” The Immortal hypothesis seemed sound, but Braph wanted more. If Aris could become an Immortal, could anyone? Could, say, a Karan?

Jonas shrugged.

The memory of Llewella’s blood pulsing through his veins made Braph salivate. “With a Syakaran knife? I wonder if that was relevant …” Braph nodded again, the pieces coming together. A child of Jonas and Llewella could contain the powers of the Immortals. Such powers couldn’t be contained by just any vessel. “Assuming Aris has always been an Immortal and had somehow lived all this time, though powerless, it seems he has his powers back.”

Jonas gave a grim nod.

Braph stepped away from the bars, feeling the familiar warmth that came with deep thought. At the same time, he wondered if his own son to Orinia could be Immortal as well. Highly possible by the sound of it. “Interesting. So, he’s got the Karan internal magic, and Llewella’s external magic combined …” Jonas looked at him like he was speaking another language, but Braph continued. “He’ll be fast and strong, but he’ll also be able to heal …”

“But he don’t drain.”

Braph’s eyebrows rose of their own accord. “Huh. Interesting. I wonder what other advantages he has. For instance, does he need to eat as well as you to support all that magic? I can’t imagine him not needing to, but I can’t get my head around healing without draining, either.” Braph took a moment to think about it. It would take something to heal at an accelerated rate. Maybe Aris would need to eat even more than the Kara. Or would he take his energy from somewhere else? “Regardless, he’ll be close to invincible. And with that will come the assumption that he’s better than everyone. The world, brother, is about to get a reminder of what it’s like when immense power is wielded by the arrogant.”

“Someone like you?”

“Now, now. I worked hard for my power,” Braph said, playing up his hurt. “Unlike you, I wasn’t born with it; not enough of it, anyway. It’s easy for a man given immense power to think he deserves it just because he has it. He can think it is his right to laud it over others, as if by some godly decree. I’ve only ever wanted to make the world a better place.”

“Aris probably thinks so, too.”

“There’s no convincing some people, is there?” Not that Braph had expected Jonas to see his side of things. To date, his brother had never swayed from the straight and narrow set down by his lineage and upbringing, unless you counted his relationship with the Syaenuk girl. Braph had come to assume he and Jonas would be on opposite sides of any argument. This Aris issue was looking set to change that. Braph had no doubt the return of someone of such power was bad news for both of them. “This does put a dampener on our plans, doesn’t it?”

“Not mine,” said Jonas. “I just want my son back. Tell me where he is.”

“At a cost to everyone else?” Huh. Braph had to stop and take stock of his own feelings for a moment. The possible return of Aris’s powers scared him. Really scared him. He was here to bring Jonas and Llewella back to Turhmos, and yet he found it necessary to advise his brother to take care of Aris first. How strange.

“Everyone else ain’t my problem,” Jonas rumbled. “Llew, my son; they’re all I got. I ain’t losin’ no one else.”

Braph was almost hurt that he wasn’t on that list. Almost. But most importantly, he couldn’t let Jonas rescue his son without going along with him. It would defeat his whole purpose of coming to Quaver. “And Llewella’s mother?”

“Her, too.”

“I think you need a plan. There is too much at stake to simply go racing across Turhmos. Let me think.” He gripped the iron bars while he contemplated all of Jonas’s issues, not least of all his most trusted guardian’s sudden conversion into a dangerous enemy. “Your son is there. For now, I have no reason to believe he is unsafe. Your lady-love’s mother is there. Now, her health I can’t vouch for, I’m afraid. Llewella’s father suffered even in my care, and I put only a fraction of the demands on him that Turhmos will have put on her.” Saying it aloud meant thinking about what Orinia could be going through, considering how many half-siblings his own son might have by now, and how many times Turhmos might have drained her, either to create new crystals they still didn’t understand how to use or to heal their soldiers. Braph didn’t like how it made him feel. He drew scant comfort from the knowledge the Quaver-Turhmos border had been quiet of late. “Might I suggest, then, that you consider a future mother-in-law rescue before going in to reclaim a small child that would only hinder you in your other rescue efforts?”

“You might.”

“And might you take such a suggestion into consideration?”

“I might.”

“Then that will leave Aris out there. Doing, or at the very least planning to do, whatever it is that he will be inclined to do. And on that score, I must admit, I have no notion, other than that he will no doubt wish to assert himself as a power to take seriously. What he will do with that we can but wait and see.”

“What would you do with it? What were you gonna do with the power you took from Llew?”

“My goal was simple, brother. I wanted my love back.”

“Your love …?” Jonas looked at Braph sharply, a brief query instantly quelled by disgust. “Llew’s ma.”

“You judge me for my heart’s desires? You? The Quaven who fell for an Aenuk?”

“There’s a difference between a captive and a lover.”

“As there may be between organic and arranged marriages, wouldn’t you say? And yet you would proclaim you loved … What was her name?”

“Kierra.” Jonas’s inability to leave the woman unnamed was somewhat endearing.

“That’s right. Kierra.” Jonas’s face darkened at Braph’s use of the name. He was fun to play with. “You loved her, did you not? And yet what was she to you?”

“She was my wife.”

“By whose decree?”

“She was my wife!” Jonas slapped a hand against one of the cell bars, rattling the entire row of cages with a deep thrum. He glared at Braph, top lip curling like he was going to say something else, but instead he turned and left without a backwards glance.

Braph grasped a couple of bars and pressed his face into them to watch his brother go.

“Let me help you!” But Jonas neither faltered in his step nor acknowledged Braph in any way.

Braph’s eyes fell to where the discarded carved gryphon still lay on the concrete floor.

“Huh.”