Brothers In Arms - Chapter 11
Table of contents
Chapter 11
Nhedra Auberlane hummed along with the music in her head as she rolled the reed mat back and forth across the table. It was a rhythmic kind of work. It always brought music to mind. Lean and push and stretch and pull. Weight on the heels of her hands, fatigue pulling across her shoulders. Her hands stung despite the lanolin she'd rubbed on them before beginning; soapy water and the dry air of winter would have their way eventually, and there was only so much one could do about it.
Feltmaking was traditionally a summer activity, an outdoor activity. A social activity as well, something to do while gossipping and minding children. Nhedra had never let that sort of tradition stop her. So what if there was dye-tinted foam dripping down the table legs onto the floor? So what if the wagon was now thick with the smell of wet wool and vinegar? She'd had an idea for a rug, and that was that.
On the northern Sei, everyone had to cope with winter in their own way. Some few dealt with it by clinging to social correctness, true, but most people got a little eccentric sooner or later. And when age started to creep up, making the colder days not worth braving, making a serious journey of the half-hour walk from one's own wagon up to the cave city of Winter Camp where people gathered to drive out the dark with storytelling and songs... well, that was when one simply had to let go of expectation. Making felt by lamplight was one of the more normal things she'd done lately.
She unrolled the mat to check her progress. Not properly solidified yet, but the edges were migrating and needed pressing back. It was a point of pride not to have to cut the edges of a felt piece to make them straight. And then -- time for the next layer? Yes, if she was going to use spun yarn she'd want it well bedded in. She reached for her jar of assorted yarn-ends. Why had she put it on such a high shelf?
There was a glassy little crack from behind her.
She spun around, breath caught. She already knew what she would see, what she feared most: the watchover charm she'd made for Charis tumbling to the floor, the amber drop in the center broken clean in two.
But Charis's charm still stood on its shelf, in the center of the row of watching charms. All of them still stood. One, though, was shivering. Silver wire and black feathers, fine black baby-hairs spun with the wool of a stillborn lamb and knotted into a web. In the middle of the web was a river-smoothed oblong of gray quartz. Still in one piece, but with a flaw shimmering deep into it now like a sliver of ice.
She swept mat and rug onto the floor. Her hands trembled as she opened the cabinet where she kept her divining materials and gathered what she needed.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. She knew that. The way Kastor lived, it was a wonder he'd survived this long. And she knew how likely it was that the flaw in the stone would keep running, that the charm would fall. Any moment or hours from now. Her son might very well be lying mortally wounded, hundreds of miles away, and there was probably nothing she could do to save him.
It would not break her heart. She was resolved on that point. Kastor was a warrior. He was Kyri to the bone. He was not fated to die of old age.
But he'd mixed himself up in the plans of gods and monsters, which meant his troubles could have implications for his family or even his nation. Nhedra couldn't let her anxiety over his plight blind her. She had to set it aside long enough to do her duty. She had people to protect.
* * *
The lake hadn't seemed such a long way from the stables on the way out, but it was taking forever to get back. Charis wasn't sure he was going to make it. The ferrule of his cane kept skittering on slick footprints in the path, and he lurched every time.
"You can ride on my sled if you want," Aslahara offered.
"I'm fine," Charis gritted.
"I can pull you no problem."
"I don't want to ride!" It came out whiny instead of vehement, but she dropped it anyway. That was the great thing about her. She understood how sometimes pride was the only thing that kept him going.
A few minutes later, she said, "Is that your grandma? She's in a hurry. I hope you're not in trouble."
"Yes, that's Shaman Nhedra," Serifar confirmed.
Charis lifted his head. He could just make out the figure striding toward them. It was too dark to make out faces now, but he recognized his grandmother's gait. He was impressed Aslahara had too. "Hide the broken sled!" he suggested.
Aslahara snorted. "Where? Anyway, she's seen us."
"I don't think she's upset about the sled," Serifar said meekly. Charis gave him a curious look. He wondered if maybe Nhedra would know what secret Serifar wanted to tell him.
"Charis!" Nhedra called as she came into speaking range. "Serifar! Come with me."
"What's going on, grandma?" Charis said. He kept on plodding at the same pace; he couldn't have sped up to save his life.
Instead of answering, Nhedra gave Aslahara a sharply studying look, then beckoned her. "Aslahara Davath, isn't it? Youngest daughter of Oerwin, the previous Thane of Davath, sister of the Gethanein's mother."
Aslahara stood up straight, meeting her gaze levelly, and almost matched her height. "That's right, Shaman. My mother gave place to my eldest brother two years ago."
"She's my cousin Hara," Charis put in, a little offended. "I told you about her."
"You have quite a number of cousins, though," Nhedra said mildly. "How old are you, Aslahara?"
"I'll be sixteen in the spring."
"Do you plan to serve a defense term?"
"Yes, Shaman. More than just a term, gods willing. I'm told my archery is coming along well."
Charis gave an impatient grunt and tried to go past his grandmother, but Nhedra caught his arm. "You come with us as well," she said to Aslahara. "Leave the sleds. Serifar, carry Charis. There's no time for pride," she added sharply as Charis opened his mouth to protest.
Serifar dropped the sled rope with a shrug. He turned his back and knelt down. Grumbling, Charis looped his arms around Serifar's neck and let himself be picked up piggyback. Nhedra whirled and hurried away, and Serifar and Aslahara trotted after.
It was full night now, and the stars gleamed hard above. A knife wind was coming up. Lights shone warm in the many small windows carved into Winter Camp's cliffs, a mile or so distant, and spread like the foam from a waterfall across the sloping plain below where wagons and tents sheltered in the cliffs' lee. By day the outer camp looked orderly, squared rows of shelters widely spaced within a fishnet of cleared paths. By night, that order was invisible. Stars above, stars below.
Nhedra's wagon stood lonely at the edge. She claimed to need quiet. Charis knew she also couldn't afford to buy a better spot from the early arrivals, and would never stoop to calling in favors from the Gethanein to get one. Pride ran in the family.
Her whole wagon was smaller than his playroom. Serifar had to put him down before they could go in, the roof was so low. When they were all inside, there was barely room to move; any careless gesture might knock something off one of the shelves that lined the two long walls. At the forward end, a box bed with a storage loft above it spanned the width of the room. At the rear, beside the door, a little soapstone stove smoldered. Charis wrinkled his nose at the smell of dung fuel. In the royal apartments they burned wood.
Nhedra sat down in the sole chair at a tiny table. The table was littered with witchy clutter. She gestured Serifar toward the bed end: "Get down a seat for Charis."
Once Serifar had fetched a folding stool from the loft and installed Charis on it, Nhedra frowned at the things on the table. "What do you see?"
Charis studied the arrangement. A shallow bowl of ink, rune-painted stones scattered on a felt mat, a tiny silver knife, an incense burner, and a leather braid studded with carved bone beads that he knew were ghost traps. There was also an item that usually stood on the shelf nearest the bed, a delicate arrangement of wool and wire with a stone hanging in it. He glanced back to check -- yes, the rest of them were still there, including the one she'd told him was his own. This one was...
"Is this Da's watchover?" He bent to study it more closely. The light wasn't very good. "There's a crack in it." He looked up in sudden fear. "What's happened to Da?"
Nhedra nodded grim approval. "We'll make a shaman of you yet."
"Grandma!"
"Ssh, Charis. I'm not testing you. I just wanted you to see for yourself. He's been badly wounded. The crack hasn't widened since I went to fetch you, so we can hope he'll recover. But his danger is still very great. His enemies are powerful, and his friends few and far."
Charis sat up straight, wide-eyed. He no longer felt his aches. "We have to help him."
"We cannot. We --"
"We have to!"
"Charis. We can't." Her eyes softened. She came around beside him, sank to one knee, and pulled him against her side. "We're too far away and not strong enough. All we can do is pray the Hunter still watches over him, and try to keep ourselves safe."
Charis stiffly resisted being hugged for several seconds. In the stuffy silence, the watchover charm gave a tiny ping as the crack moved another hairsbreadth through the stone. Charis gave in and buried his face in his grandmother's woolen robe.
Serifar made a soft, dismayed sound. "I've more bad news for you, Shaman Nhedra. But it... may be a secret."
Charis lifted his head to see Serifar and Nhedra both glance at Aslahara. His cousin spread her hands, her expression eloquent: Nhedra had demanded she come along, and she had no idea what they were all talking about.
Nhedra gently disengaged herself from Charis and went back to her seat. "I scryed Charis next, to see whether his father's enemies might have their eye on him as well. It seems they do not, but some danger clings around him nevertheless. He, however, has strong allies, and much closer. You, Aslahara Davath, are one of them. You wish to protect your cousin, do you not?"
Aslahara nodded. To Charis, she said, "You're a good kid, and you've had a rough time of it. Wish I got to know you sooner so I could've helped more."
It was an effort not to let his chin crumple. "Not your fault," Charis muttered. "Mother kept me stuffed in a sack, pretty much." He looked to Serifar. "You know Hara's okay."
"But can she --" He turned to her. "Can you keep a secret?"
Nhedra sniffed. "It's never any good asking people that. Everyone always says yes whether they can or not. But I've never heard it said she's a braggart or a gossip."
"If you ask it of me, Shaman," Aslahara said, "I'll swear hand and hoof."
Nhedra nodded. To Serifar, she said, "Tell us."
Serifar looked down at his hands, which were twisting together in anxiety. Then back up at Aslahara. "I'm a Mara," he began.
Aslahara just looked puzzled. "Say again?"
"A Mara. An immortal. But my power was bound by my -- my father, I think you could say. The Mara who made me. He bound all his children. He wanted us to learn how to be people before we started acting like little gods. When a Mara is bound, he can't do any magic at all, not even the tiniest bit."
"So you're safe," Aslahara suggested uncertainly. "I mean... you're... tame?"
Charis gave a scornful laugh. "He's not a dog, Hara."
"I'm safe," Serifar promised. "Even though... well, the thing is..." He looked to Nhedra with worried eyes. "My power just came back."
Aslahara took a step back. Charis gawked at him. "That's why you crashed the sled!"
"And how I kept you from being hurt in the crash," Serifar nodded. "But I don't know why it happened. Stiaan should've had to be present to remove the binding, and even if I'm wrong about that, why would he? Why would he bind me for fifty years, then change his mind less than a year later? I think... I think something's happened to him."
Nhedra's brows drew in, and she beckoned, taking up her knife. "Come here." Serifar went trustingly to her, and she grasped a lock of his hair and sliced it free.
Then she went to work with her witchery, wrapping the lock with thread, murmuring over it, introducing one of her captive ghosts to it, stirring the ink in the divining bowl with it. She bent over the bowl, scowling in concentration.
Suddenly she grunted and reared back. With a sharp report, the bowl cracked in half, leaving the ink standing in a solid disc, frozen through.
"And that," she said distantly, "is why we scry through devices rather than direct seeing whenever possible." She groped behind her without looking and produced a rag from the cubby beside the stove. She picked up the frozen ink with it and held it out to Aslahara. "Toss that outside."
While Aslahara did that, Serifar reached out to touch one of the halves of the bowl. It stuck to his finger. "What happened?" he demanded, holding up his hand to look at the shard of crockery dangling from his skin, steaming with cold. "What did you see?"
"He's been hidden. And the spell shielding him is brutally strong. I can't tell you more than that."
"Has he been killed?"
Aslahara shut the door. "I thought you said he's a Mara too."
Serifar blinked at his hand. The piece of bowl fell off. He looked to Nhedra with begging eyes. "We can be killed, we just come back. Has he? Please!"
"I don't think so," Nhedra said slowly. "Why would you put such a strong barrier around a corpse? But then, you do come back, so maybe someone thought it worth the trouble. I don't know."
Charis took Serifar's hand and squeezed it. Serifar looked down at him, clearly on the verge of tears. Charis squeezed again. "We have to help our dads."
"Don't be stupid," Nhedra snapped. "Neither of you is going anywhere. You're staying right here where I can keep an eye on you. Both of you are tempting hostages to be used against your fathers, and from the look of things that's the last kind of trouble they need. Aslahara Davath, by my authority as personal shaman to the Gethanein, I command you to protect her only son by making sure he doesn't run off on some idiotic rescue errand. He is eight years old."
Serifar began, "But I --"
"And you are four."
"It's different for us."
"Yes, I would credit you with the maturity of a ten-year-old. Neither of you is going anywhere, do I make myself clear?"
Aslahara looked Serifar over warily, then deliberately moved behind him to put a hand on his shoulder and one on Charis's. "I'll watch over them, Shaman. Think it through, Charis," she added softly. "You told me your Da is tough, right? I bet you being in trouble is the only thing that could defeat him. Let's make sure that doesn't happen."
He hung his head. He curled his hands into fists, stretched them, fisted them again. "Okay," he ground out. "All right. I understand already. But there has to be something we can do."
Slowly, as if testing his footing on thin ice, Serifar said, "I think I might sort of have an idea."
Next chapter
Chapter 11
Nhedra Auberlane hummed along with the music in her head as she rolled the reed mat back and forth across the table. It was a rhythmic kind of work. It always brought music to mind. Lean and push and stretch and pull. Weight on the heels of her hands, fatigue pulling across her shoulders. Her hands stung despite the lanolin she'd rubbed on them before beginning; soapy water and the dry air of winter would have their way eventually, and there was only so much one could do about it.
Feltmaking was traditionally a summer activity, an outdoor activity. A social activity as well, something to do while gossipping and minding children. Nhedra had never let that sort of tradition stop her. So what if there was dye-tinted foam dripping down the table legs onto the floor? So what if the wagon was now thick with the smell of wet wool and vinegar? She'd had an idea for a rug, and that was that.
On the northern Sei, everyone had to cope with winter in their own way. Some few dealt with it by clinging to social correctness, true, but most people got a little eccentric sooner or later. And when age started to creep up, making the colder days not worth braving, making a serious journey of the half-hour walk from one's own wagon up to the cave city of Winter Camp where people gathered to drive out the dark with storytelling and songs... well, that was when one simply had to let go of expectation. Making felt by lamplight was one of the more normal things she'd done lately.
She unrolled the mat to check her progress. Not properly solidified yet, but the edges were migrating and needed pressing back. It was a point of pride not to have to cut the edges of a felt piece to make them straight. And then -- time for the next layer? Yes, if she was going to use spun yarn she'd want it well bedded in. She reached for her jar of assorted yarn-ends. Why had she put it on such a high shelf?
There was a glassy little crack from behind her.
She spun around, breath caught. She already knew what she would see, what she feared most: the watchover charm she'd made for Charis tumbling to the floor, the amber drop in the center broken clean in two.
But Charis's charm still stood on its shelf, in the center of the row of watching charms. All of them still stood. One, though, was shivering. Silver wire and black feathers, fine black baby-hairs spun with the wool of a stillborn lamb and knotted into a web. In the middle of the web was a river-smoothed oblong of gray quartz. Still in one piece, but with a flaw shimmering deep into it now like a sliver of ice.
She swept mat and rug onto the floor. Her hands trembled as she opened the cabinet where she kept her divining materials and gathered what she needed.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. She knew that. The way Kastor lived, it was a wonder he'd survived this long. And she knew how likely it was that the flaw in the stone would keep running, that the charm would fall. Any moment or hours from now. Her son might very well be lying mortally wounded, hundreds of miles away, and there was probably nothing she could do to save him.
It would not break her heart. She was resolved on that point. Kastor was a warrior. He was Kyri to the bone. He was not fated to die of old age.
But he'd mixed himself up in the plans of gods and monsters, which meant his troubles could have implications for his family or even his nation. Nhedra couldn't let her anxiety over his plight blind her. She had to set it aside long enough to do her duty. She had people to protect.
* * *
The lake hadn't seemed such a long way from the stables on the way out, but it was taking forever to get back. Charis wasn't sure he was going to make it. The ferrule of his cane kept skittering on slick footprints in the path, and he lurched every time.
"You can ride on my sled if you want," Aslahara offered.
"I'm fine," Charis gritted.
"I can pull you no problem."
"I don't want to ride!" It came out whiny instead of vehement, but she dropped it anyway. That was the great thing about her. She understood how sometimes pride was the only thing that kept him going.
A few minutes later, she said, "Is that your grandma? She's in a hurry. I hope you're not in trouble."
"Yes, that's Shaman Nhedra," Serifar confirmed.
Charis lifted his head. He could just make out the figure striding toward them. It was too dark to make out faces now, but he recognized his grandmother's gait. He was impressed Aslahara had too. "Hide the broken sled!" he suggested.
Aslahara snorted. "Where? Anyway, she's seen us."
"I don't think she's upset about the sled," Serifar said meekly. Charis gave him a curious look. He wondered if maybe Nhedra would know what secret Serifar wanted to tell him.
"Charis!" Nhedra called as she came into speaking range. "Serifar! Come with me."
"What's going on, grandma?" Charis said. He kept on plodding at the same pace; he couldn't have sped up to save his life.
Instead of answering, Nhedra gave Aslahara a sharply studying look, then beckoned her. "Aslahara Davath, isn't it? Youngest daughter of Oerwin, the previous Thane of Davath, sister of the Gethanein's mother."
Aslahara stood up straight, meeting her gaze levelly, and almost matched her height. "That's right, Shaman. My mother gave place to my eldest brother two years ago."
"She's my cousin Hara," Charis put in, a little offended. "I told you about her."
"You have quite a number of cousins, though," Nhedra said mildly. "How old are you, Aslahara?"
"I'll be sixteen in the spring."
"Do you plan to serve a defense term?"
"Yes, Shaman. More than just a term, gods willing. I'm told my archery is coming along well."
Charis gave an impatient grunt and tried to go past his grandmother, but Nhedra caught his arm. "You come with us as well," she said to Aslahara. "Leave the sleds. Serifar, carry Charis. There's no time for pride," she added sharply as Charis opened his mouth to protest.
Serifar dropped the sled rope with a shrug. He turned his back and knelt down. Grumbling, Charis looped his arms around Serifar's neck and let himself be picked up piggyback. Nhedra whirled and hurried away, and Serifar and Aslahara trotted after.
It was full night now, and the stars gleamed hard above. A knife wind was coming up. Lights shone warm in the many small windows carved into Winter Camp's cliffs, a mile or so distant, and spread like the foam from a waterfall across the sloping plain below where wagons and tents sheltered in the cliffs' lee. By day the outer camp looked orderly, squared rows of shelters widely spaced within a fishnet of cleared paths. By night, that order was invisible. Stars above, stars below.
Nhedra's wagon stood lonely at the edge. She claimed to need quiet. Charis knew she also couldn't afford to buy a better spot from the early arrivals, and would never stoop to calling in favors from the Gethanein to get one. Pride ran in the family.
Her whole wagon was smaller than his playroom. Serifar had to put him down before they could go in, the roof was so low. When they were all inside, there was barely room to move; any careless gesture might knock something off one of the shelves that lined the two long walls. At the forward end, a box bed with a storage loft above it spanned the width of the room. At the rear, beside the door, a little soapstone stove smoldered. Charis wrinkled his nose at the smell of dung fuel. In the royal apartments they burned wood.
Nhedra sat down in the sole chair at a tiny table. The table was littered with witchy clutter. She gestured Serifar toward the bed end: "Get down a seat for Charis."
Once Serifar had fetched a folding stool from the loft and installed Charis on it, Nhedra frowned at the things on the table. "What do you see?"
Charis studied the arrangement. A shallow bowl of ink, rune-painted stones scattered on a felt mat, a tiny silver knife, an incense burner, and a leather braid studded with carved bone beads that he knew were ghost traps. There was also an item that usually stood on the shelf nearest the bed, a delicate arrangement of wool and wire with a stone hanging in it. He glanced back to check -- yes, the rest of them were still there, including the one she'd told him was his own. This one was...
"Is this Da's watchover?" He bent to study it more closely. The light wasn't very good. "There's a crack in it." He looked up in sudden fear. "What's happened to Da?"
Nhedra nodded grim approval. "We'll make a shaman of you yet."
"Grandma!"
"Ssh, Charis. I'm not testing you. I just wanted you to see for yourself. He's been badly wounded. The crack hasn't widened since I went to fetch you, so we can hope he'll recover. But his danger is still very great. His enemies are powerful, and his friends few and far."
Charis sat up straight, wide-eyed. He no longer felt his aches. "We have to help him."
"We cannot. We --"
"We have to!"
"Charis. We can't." Her eyes softened. She came around beside him, sank to one knee, and pulled him against her side. "We're too far away and not strong enough. All we can do is pray the Hunter still watches over him, and try to keep ourselves safe."
Charis stiffly resisted being hugged for several seconds. In the stuffy silence, the watchover charm gave a tiny ping as the crack moved another hairsbreadth through the stone. Charis gave in and buried his face in his grandmother's woolen robe.
Serifar made a soft, dismayed sound. "I've more bad news for you, Shaman Nhedra. But it... may be a secret."
Charis lifted his head to see Serifar and Nhedra both glance at Aslahara. His cousin spread her hands, her expression eloquent: Nhedra had demanded she come along, and she had no idea what they were all talking about.
Nhedra gently disengaged herself from Charis and went back to her seat. "I scryed Charis next, to see whether his father's enemies might have their eye on him as well. It seems they do not, but some danger clings around him nevertheless. He, however, has strong allies, and much closer. You, Aslahara Davath, are one of them. You wish to protect your cousin, do you not?"
Aslahara nodded. To Charis, she said, "You're a good kid, and you've had a rough time of it. Wish I got to know you sooner so I could've helped more."
It was an effort not to let his chin crumple. "Not your fault," Charis muttered. "Mother kept me stuffed in a sack, pretty much." He looked to Serifar. "You know Hara's okay."
"But can she --" He turned to her. "Can you keep a secret?"
Nhedra sniffed. "It's never any good asking people that. Everyone always says yes whether they can or not. But I've never heard it said she's a braggart or a gossip."
"If you ask it of me, Shaman," Aslahara said, "I'll swear hand and hoof."
Nhedra nodded. To Serifar, she said, "Tell us."
Serifar looked down at his hands, which were twisting together in anxiety. Then back up at Aslahara. "I'm a Mara," he began.
Aslahara just looked puzzled. "Say again?"
"A Mara. An immortal. But my power was bound by my -- my father, I think you could say. The Mara who made me. He bound all his children. He wanted us to learn how to be people before we started acting like little gods. When a Mara is bound, he can't do any magic at all, not even the tiniest bit."
"So you're safe," Aslahara suggested uncertainly. "I mean... you're... tame?"
Charis gave a scornful laugh. "He's not a dog, Hara."
"I'm safe," Serifar promised. "Even though... well, the thing is..." He looked to Nhedra with worried eyes. "My power just came back."
Aslahara took a step back. Charis gawked at him. "That's why you crashed the sled!"
"And how I kept you from being hurt in the crash," Serifar nodded. "But I don't know why it happened. Stiaan should've had to be present to remove the binding, and even if I'm wrong about that, why would he? Why would he bind me for fifty years, then change his mind less than a year later? I think... I think something's happened to him."
Nhedra's brows drew in, and she beckoned, taking up her knife. "Come here." Serifar went trustingly to her, and she grasped a lock of his hair and sliced it free.
Then she went to work with her witchery, wrapping the lock with thread, murmuring over it, introducing one of her captive ghosts to it, stirring the ink in the divining bowl with it. She bent over the bowl, scowling in concentration.
Suddenly she grunted and reared back. With a sharp report, the bowl cracked in half, leaving the ink standing in a solid disc, frozen through.
"And that," she said distantly, "is why we scry through devices rather than direct seeing whenever possible." She groped behind her without looking and produced a rag from the cubby beside the stove. She picked up the frozen ink with it and held it out to Aslahara. "Toss that outside."
While Aslahara did that, Serifar reached out to touch one of the halves of the bowl. It stuck to his finger. "What happened?" he demanded, holding up his hand to look at the shard of crockery dangling from his skin, steaming with cold. "What did you see?"
"He's been hidden. And the spell shielding him is brutally strong. I can't tell you more than that."
"Has he been killed?"
Aslahara shut the door. "I thought you said he's a Mara too."
Serifar blinked at his hand. The piece of bowl fell off. He looked to Nhedra with begging eyes. "We can be killed, we just come back. Has he? Please!"
"I don't think so," Nhedra said slowly. "Why would you put such a strong barrier around a corpse? But then, you do come back, so maybe someone thought it worth the trouble. I don't know."
Charis took Serifar's hand and squeezed it. Serifar looked down at him, clearly on the verge of tears. Charis squeezed again. "We have to help our dads."
"Don't be stupid," Nhedra snapped. "Neither of you is going anywhere. You're staying right here where I can keep an eye on you. Both of you are tempting hostages to be used against your fathers, and from the look of things that's the last kind of trouble they need. Aslahara Davath, by my authority as personal shaman to the Gethanein, I command you to protect her only son by making sure he doesn't run off on some idiotic rescue errand. He is eight years old."
Serifar began, "But I --"
"And you are four."
"It's different for us."
"Yes, I would credit you with the maturity of a ten-year-old. Neither of you is going anywhere, do I make myself clear?"
Aslahara looked Serifar over warily, then deliberately moved behind him to put a hand on his shoulder and one on Charis's. "I'll watch over them, Shaman. Think it through, Charis," she added softly. "You told me your Da is tough, right? I bet you being in trouble is the only thing that could defeat him. Let's make sure that doesn't happen."
He hung his head. He curled his hands into fists, stretched them, fisted them again. "Okay," he ground out. "All right. I understand already. But there has to be something we can do."
Slowly, as if testing his footing on thin ice, Serifar said, "I think I might sort of have an idea."
Next chapter