Bloodstone Part 4

A few children scampered past, heading home for supper. The usual group of old women sat outside Jurl's hut, sc.r.a.ping hides and gossiping. Old Erca looked up as he walked by, and, in her penetrating screech, demanded to know if he'd been wrestling with a gorse bush.

"For shame. Scampering around the hills instead of welcoming your father home."

"Darak'll take his belt to him."

"More likely Griane. She'll have to mend the tunic."

"Boys are so hard on their clothes. I could scarcely keep up with my two when they were that age."

"My Jurl-thank the Maker he's settled down now-but the sc.r.a.pes that rascal used to get into! I still remember that Midsummer . . . oh, he couldn't have been more than ten or eleven . . ."

Mercifully, they lost interest in him, chuckling and nodding over the oft-heard tales of their own children and grandchildren.

He'd have to find a way to get Callie and Faelia out of the hut. It would be bad enough to break the news to his parents without Faelia rolling her eyes and Callie interrupting with a hundred questions.

His footsteps slowed, stopped. He scuffed his big toe in the dirt.

Just get it over with, Keirith.

As he strode toward the hut, he heard his father shouting. When he recognized the Tree-Father's voice, also raised in anger, the wave of nausea made sweat break out on his forehead. He took one step forward, then another, determined to ignore his pattering heart and churning stomach.

A hand lifted the bearskin. The Tree-Father ducked outside. His expression grew even grimmer when he saw him. "Callum came to my hut to fetch you."

His parents knew. And because of his stupid, endless delays, they'd had to hear the truth from the Tree-Father.

"Forgive me," he said. "I failed you."

"Talk to them, Keirith."

Expecting a stern reproof, the sympathy on the shaman's face brought a thick clot to his throat. He swallowed it down as the Tree-Father walked away. All his life, he'd heard the slighting comments about Gortin, how he was a "good man" but a far cry from Struath. That had only convinced him of their kinship; Keirith, too, knew what it was like to live in the shadow of a great man-the one who was waiting inside for him now.

As he reached for the bearskin, his father shouted, "Why didn't you just get down on your knees and kiss his a.r.s.e while you were at it?"

"You and your pride! You'd attack Gortin for-"

His mam broke off. Had she seen the bearskin move? Resisting the urge to slink away, Keirith slipped inside and found his father watching him with eyes as cold as storm clouds in winter.

He'd smacked their bottoms a few times when they were little. Occasionally, he raised his voice. But when he went quiet and cold like this, they knew he was really angry.

"I'm sorry."

His father just stood there, watching and waiting. If he no longer hunted, he still possessed a hunter's patience.

"I was going to tell you."

"When?"

His mam tugged on his father's arm. "I think we should sit."

"When were you going to tell us?"

His father's voice was flint grating on bone. Keirith told himself it was the smell of the stew that made his gorge rise, but he knew it was fear. "I tried. I did." G.o.ds, he sounded like a whining child. "Right after the Tree-Father dismissed me from my apprenticeship."

"d.a.m.n your apprenticeship."

"Darak . . ."

"I'm talking about the other. This . . . power . . . to communicate with the eagle."

"Oh. That."

"Aye. That."

The savagery of those two words made him wince. Perhaps his mam saw; she clutched his father's arm with both hands. "Enough."

He yanked his arm free without deigning to look at her. "How long have you had it?"

He could lie. Tell them only the part about flying with the eagle and hide the rest. But sooner or later his father would realize the truth. "The wood pigeon," he whispered.

His father went very still. His mam's gaze darted back and forth between them. "What wood pigeon?"

For some reason, his father refused to look at her. "Keirith brought the bird down with his sling. When he went to finish it off, it . . . he said it screamed."

"Screamed?"

"Aye."

"When was this?"

His father hesitated. "Seven years ago."

"Seven years?" his mam echoed.

"Griane . . ."

"And you never told me?"

"I thought-"

"I had a right to know, Darak!"

"You'd just lost the babe!" In a much softer voice, he added, "I didn't want to worry you."

The same day he had heard the wood pigeon scream, he and his father had returned from the forest to discover Ennit waiting for them. Faelia was too young to understand, but his father's stark expression told Keirith something was terribly wrong. He'd waited and waited in Memory-Keeper Sanok's hut until the tension became unbearable. Then he ran to the birthing hut.

He saw his father pacing in the moonlight. Heard his mother's anguished cry, as terrible and shrill as the wood pigeon's. His father caught him up in his arms, held him so tight the breath was squeezed out of him. Then the Grain-Mother came out of the birthing hut and told them the babe was dead.

Ennit tried to stop his father from going inside. That was the first time Keirith had seen that cold rage on his face. He waited with Ennit, listening to his mother's sobs and the low murmur of his father's voice.

Later, after his father had tucked Faelia under her wolfskins, he asked if it was his fault, if the G.o.ds were angry because of what had happened in the forest. His father grabbed his shoulders, the thumbs digging in so hard it made tears come to his eyes, and said his little brother had come into the world too soon. Too small to live, his spirit would fly to the Forever Isles to be reborn in its proper time.

Two moons later, when he heard the rabbit scream, he had offered prayers and sacrifices to avert another death. Later, he realized his ability to feel an animal's pain did not foretell a death in the village, but he still couldn't bring himself to speak of his power; in his mind, it would always be linked with the death of his baby brother.

He wished he could explain that now, but his parents seemed to have forgotten him. His mother was staring at the rushes. His father kept reaching for her, then letting his hand drop to his side.

"And later?" she finally asked.

"I thought he imagined it. I was wrong. I'm sorry, girl."

She held his gaze a long while. Then, as if they exchanged some signal he couldn't see, they both turned to him.

"I thought it would stop. If I didn't hunt. And it wasn't always bad. Sometimes I could make things better."

"How?" his father demanded.

"The ewe. Three springs ago. It was her first lambing and she was having trouble. And I helped her."

"So it's not just birds."

He shook his head.

"But you didn't tell Gortin that."

"I couldn't. Not the way he was looking at me. Like I was . . . something awful."

He waited for one of them to tell him he wasn't awful, that he'd done nothing wrong, but his mam only said, "And you use this power to touch their spirits."

"I don't hurt them. I would never hurt them. I'm not like Morgath."

His father's breath hissed in. "Do not speak that name in my home."

"That's what you're thinking, isn't it? That I'm like him. An abomination."

"If I thought you were anything like him-"

With an effort, his father choked back his next words, but Keirith knew what they were: "I would kill you as surely as I killed him." "I would kill you as surely as I killed him."

He must have made some sound, for his mam stopped chewing her upper lip and said, "Struath always claimed magic was neither good nor evil. It was what people did with it. And Morgath-aye, I will say his name if only to curse it and condemn him to Chaos for all time-he used his power for evil. I know . . . we both know . . . you're not like that."

She paused, glancing at his father, waiting for him to speak. But he didn't. He hesitated. And finally nodded. And in that terrifying pause-only the s.p.a.ce between one heartbeat and the next-something inside Keirith died.

"You should have come to us," his mam said.

His father refused to look at him.

"You should have told us the truth."

His father loathed him. His father thought he was as evil as the man who had tortured and mutilated him.

"I thought . . . I hoped it would go away."

Finally, his father looked up. "And when it didn't?" His voice was hoa.r.s.e, as if it hurt him to speak to the abomination he had sp.a.w.ned.

"I don't know. I just . . ."

"You lied."

"Darak . . ."

"You lied to the Tree-Father when you told him that you'd only flown with the eagle a few times. You lied to us every day you sneaked out of this house and pretended to go to your lessons."

"I tried-"

"Gortin dismissed you a fortnight ago. You could have told us then. You could have told us years ago. Instead, you hid this power. Because you knew it was wrong."

"It's not wrong. It can't be."

"So now you know more than Gortin," his father said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Maybe he's just jealous. He can only fly with his spirit guide, and half the time it doesn't come to him. Besides, he hates you." Keirith overrode his mam's vehement denial. "That's what you say. I've heard you. Both of you."

"Gortin does not hate your father. What happened with Struath . . . that was a long time ago. And whatever flaws Gortin may have, he would never punish you because of his . . . differences with your father."

Again his mam's eyes sought his father's for confirmation.

"We're talking about your behavior," he said, "not the Tree-Father's. You think we'll shrug this off because you're too young to know better? When you heard the wood pigeon, aye. Even when you helped the ewe. But you're supposed to be a man now."

He was a man. It was his father who insisted on treating him like a child, who stubbornly refused to understand. "You think I asked for this power? That I want it?"

"Don't you?" his father shot back. "It's one thing to help with the birthing of a lamb. It's another to fly with an eagle. That you did for your own pleasure."

And because he knew it was true, Keirith lashed out. "At least the eagle welcomes me! He wants me. Which is more than you do."

His father's head snapped back. "Stop talking nonsense."

"Do you know what it's like? Everyone watching you, tallying every mistake, every failure. Shaking their heads and thinking 'He'll never measure up to his father.' "

"That's not . . . no one says that."

"You think I don't see the way they look at me? The way you you look at me? Your firstborn son who can't make a kill without puking up his guts. Who can't keep his apprenticeship with the Tree-Father. Who's as evil as Morgath!" look at me? Your firstborn son who can't make a kill without puking up his guts. Who can't keep his apprenticeship with the Tree-Father. Who's as evil as Morgath!"

He felt the power roaring through him. Not the gentle unfurling that came when he sought the eagle's spirit, but a wild, uncontrollable current that left him breathless. He spun around, but before he could reach the doorway, his father caught his arm. Even with only three fingers, it hurt.

He didn't mean to do it. He only wanted to free himself from that punishing grip, to escape his father and his accusations. He only wanted to get away.

The energy poured out of him, a raging torrent that slammed into his father's spirit and sent him reeling backward. Too late, Keirith pulled it back, gasping as the unleashed power crashed into him, gasping again as he careened into the wall of the hut. From a great distance, he heard his mam cry out. There was a brilliant burst of light-red, orange, gold-that faded into shimmering black dots. Had he done that, too? Or was it because he'd hit his head against the wall?

His legs folded under him, and he slid to the ground. Something glinted among the rushes. Callie's quartz charm, the one he had mislaid a sennight ago. He'd snapped at Callie for going on and on about it and felt awful when tears welled up in his brother's eyes. He reached for the charm, but his hand was shaking so badly that he dropped it. The charm lay there, mocking him. Even this one simple act he couldn't do right.