"No, he does not," Brot'an countered, quiet and sharp. "Do you think an outsider could demand Cuirin'nen'a's freedom? To be an'Croan-to be of the blood-is all that matters to my people."
Magiere looked away The last thing Leesil-or she-wanted was to be snared even deeper among these people and their ways. What arrogance, what nonsense and superstition!
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean you no malice," Brot'an said. "And only wish you to understand what is truly at stake. There was no time to waste in arguing this, so I chose not to give you that chance. The only way Leshil will be seen as one of us is if he can step onto hallowed ground. That is as important as the reason he goes there."
"If?" Magiere snapped.
"Sgailsheilleache will guide him... teach him the words to ask entrance. There is no other way."
"Ask who? The ancestors?"
Brot'an shook his head. "None of us have seen what guards Roise Charmune, as no one has gone there before but a full-blooded an'Croan. And none have been rejected, to my knowledge. Leesil must gain entrance before he reaches it or the ancestors."
Gain entrance? What did that mean?
"What did you see at this Roi-say... this Seed of Sanctuary?" she demanded. "What's guarding it? Just tell me what you know."
"A sound," he answered, "something moving in the forest surrounding hallowed ground. I know no more than that. When I spoke the words my father taught me, all was silent again. I stood a long while before I tried to walk in. Even when I left, I neither saw nor heard anything more."
"What did you say?"
Brot'an hesitated. "A formal plea in my language. Nothing that would tell you more or ease your mind."
But it implied that if Leesil did not make it into the burial ground...
"For what it is worth," Brot'an added, "I believe Leshil will return."
"What did you... experience when you went for your name?" Magiere asked. She tried to remember what Wynn had said Brot'an's name meant. Something about a dog.
"That is an impudent question."
"Does it look like I care?" she hissed. "You think you'll walk out of here without answering?"
"I see that you love him," Brot'an said, "in some fashion, though I do not know if that is better or worse for him. I ask you again. Have you mated with Leshil?"
"That's still none of your business."
"No more than my naming is yours. I know the answer, but I would hear it from your own lips... now!"
Magiere saw Brot'an was as determined as she was to get answers.
"Yes," she said bluntly.
Brot'an slumped ever so slightly. "What do you know of Leanalham's mother?"
"She was never happy or at home here. She ran off when her husband abandoned her and Leanalham."
Magiere didn't care for the way Brot'an studied her.
"We have more than one word," he said, "for the degrees of what humans so casually call love. Only at its deepest do we bond... mate... for life. It is why we observe a period of boijt'ana boijt'ana before bonding, as en'nish did for Groyt'ashia." before bonding, as en'nish did for Groyt'ashia."
"Groyt brought on his own death!" Magiere countered.
"I agree, though you are not following my meaning. en'nish may look upon Leshil as the murderer of her 'betrothed,' you would say. But her obsession has taken her reason. Even Leshil's death may not end her suffering. My people bond for life."
Magiere knew of others who'd lost a loved one because of Leesil. "Grief never ends. It's just something you learn to live with."
Brot'an slowly shook his head. "Not for some... not for an'Croan. Mating is life-and death-and overwhelms all else. It is rare that we ever mate outside of bonding for that very reason. Do you not remember Leshil's words to me in Darmouth's crypt... when I stepped too close to you at the end?"
Magiere could never forget. Touch her, and I'll kill you and everything you love Touch her, and I'll kill you and everything you love.
Brot'an went on. "It was then I first suspected what lay between the two of you."
He had purposefully chosen not to kill her that night in the crypt. Magiere now suspected the reasons were more complex than some slip of compassion.
"Leanalham's mother did not flee this land," Brot'an said. "That is what the girl chose to believe. Gleanneohkan'thva and Sgailsheilleache chose not to correct her... to let time bring her more slowly to the truth with the maturity to face it. Her mother ran mad into the forest. Though her body was never found, I do not believe she survived."
Magiere tried to shut out mounting fear. "What of Leanalham's father?"
"He lives," Brot'an added coldly. "Life is not always lost in such matters. The young are the most vulnerable. He did not love the girl's mother, by your definition of the word, though he will still suffer. Gleanneohkan'thva was rash in bargaining to take Leanalham's father under tutelage... in exchange for a bonding he thought might ease the suffering of Leanalham's mother."
Brot'an got up, heading for the door. "Leshil is only half-blooded, with more years than Leanalham's mother had when she bonded and mated with the girl's father. Leshil knows none of what I have told you. It is important that you comprehend exactly what you have done with him."
He said this with no spite, but Magiere didn't wish to discuss her relationship with Leesil further.
"You still owe me an answer," she said quickly. "Your name... Wynn said something about a dog."
" 'Dog in the Dark,' in your tongue," Brot'an corrected. "Though 'mastiff would be more precise. Not wild but domesticated, like the ones humans use in war."
"Is that what you saw when you went for your name?"
Brot'an remained halfway to the door, his back still turned to her.
"It came in silence out of the night, straight from the shadow of Roise Charmune. It tore off its iron-spiked collar with its paws and bared its teeth, as if tuning upon its master."
He finally looked back, and Magiere's own spite faltered for an instant at the discomfort in Brot'an's lined face.
"At the time, I thought it a resentful shadow of arguing with my father over what I should do with my life. He did not wish me to take up service. Then later, when I joined Eillean, I thought it an image of the coming war. But I lost my taste for omens and portents over so many years. When Eillean died, it was a name and nothing more... until you appeared in our land."
Brot'an turned away to the door. "And now I stand before my people to pull down Aoishenis-Ahare for the sake of a half-blood and a dark-tainted human woman."
He was gone, leaving Magiere alone with mounting anguish growing upon an old forgotten fear.
Her memory slipped back to a tiny inn outside of Bela. She had waited there for Leesil. It had seemed almost better-safer-to let him go, before he fell prey to her dhampir side. In spite of all her fears, she wanted him too much.
What had she done to him?
Chap laid a ways off and watched the elm where Brot'an spoke privately with Magiere. Osha tried to occupy Wynn in learning to play Dreug'an. The sage relented but showed little interest and watched the curtained doorway.
Try as Chap might, he could not hear what was said. And without line of sight, he could not dip for memories surfacing in either Brot'an or Magiere. He snarled at one Anmaglahk guard just to see the man flinch.
Chap's ears stiffened when Brot'an finally emerged and walked on into the dark, not even stopping to tell Osha to return Wynn to confinement.
Osha quickly packed up the Dreug'an board and pieces and ushered Wynn off with the other two Anmaglahk close behind. Chap stayed a moment longer.
He reached out for Brot'an's memories.
Whatever the man discussed with Magiere had left him unsettled, for his mind was not the blank slate Chap had found upon other occasions. Memories flashed in his mind so quickly that Chap had to focus hard to keep up.
A mastiff stalked out of the shadow of a strange barkless tree amid a wet and barren clearing. It snarled silently at Chap as he watched it through Brot'an's memory.
Brot'an'duive-the Dog in the Dark.
This was the moment when Brot'an had gone to the ancestors for his name.
As the memory faded, Chap saw an image of Leesil traveling in the forest. And then again the image of the dog that appeared when Brot'an stepped onto hallowed ground.
The memory vanished. Brot'an's mind was as hidden as before.
Chap traipsed back to the elm, trying to fathom what he had glimpsed. He turned as Brot'an's tall form slipped away between the trees.
A naming-and Leesil.
Chap stood there... long enough that he grasped the connection.
Leesil was traveling to the place where all an'Croan took their true name, or so they believed. If he gained hallowed ground, it would be to plead for a branch from Roise Charmune. But Brot'an hoped Leesil might gain more.
Why would Brot'an'duive want this to happen? Why did an Anmaglahk master want to know Leesil's true name?
"I can't speak your language. I won't get it right."
Sgaile's throat closed at Leshil's panicked words. He stood shaking, and still could not open his eyes to this thing no one had ever seen, nor did they know where it came from or why it stood vigil over this hallowed ground.
His people only knew it by a name and the oath that spoke of its deadly nature.
"Aharneiv..." he began again, and then faltered as he felt its hissing breath upon his face.
Would it understand in any other tongue? And if it did, would it let him live, coming here with Leshil? All who came to Roise Charmune must come alone!
Sgaile began the litany once again, this time in words Leshil could understand.
"Father of Poison..."
He waited in tense silence for Leshil to repeat it.
"Father of... Poison..." Leshil whispered.
Sgaile took a quick breath. "Who washes away our enemies with Death..."
Leshil echoed him again.
"Let me pass by to my ancestors, first of my blood. Give me leave to touch the Seed of Sanctuary."
As Leshil repeated his words, the serpent's breath faded from Sgaile's face, and he waited long in silence.
He heard coils grating upon the earth... and then the softer wet sound of mulch beneath the trees somewhere ahead. Longer he waited with his eyes shut, until the sound nearly faded altogether.
Something dropped upon Sgaile's shoulder, and he opened his eyes, breathing so quickly he grew dizzy. He kept his eyes on the dark oaks ahead, afraid to catch even one more glimpse of Aharneiv.
It was gone.
Leshil's hand slipped off Sgaile's shoulder and fell limply at his side.
"We... are free... to go on," Sgaile whispered.
He almost did not believe the words as they came from his lips. Sgaile glanced sidelong at the half-blood-who had just changed his whole world, and perhaps that of Leanalham.
For more than two years, he and his grandfather had urged Leanalham to wait, to put off her name taking, though their arguments grew weaker with each passing moon. They feared that she would not return from this place, not with human blood in her.
Still, Leshil did not move.
"You have gained hallowed ground," Sgaile urged. "You are accepted as blood."
Leshil slowly turned his eyes toward Sgaile.
"I'm here for one reason," he snapped. "For Magiere, caught among your kind because of me. I don't care how you or your ghosts see me."
Leshil stepped on toward the clearing. Sgaile hung back, stunned back into silence.
Human blood, by any degree, was a baffling thing.
Leesil stood before the tree at the bare clearing's center and stared up at its wild branches filling the air above him.
It wasn't shaped like the tall and straight ash trees he had seen. Stout branches sprouting from its thick trunk curved and wound and divided up into the night. A soft glow emanated from its fine-grained wood to dimly light the clearing.
Leafless and barkless-yet somehow alive. From its wide-reaching roots lumping the earth to its thick and naked pale-yellow body and limbs, its soft rippled surface glistened beneath its own glow.
"You must touch it," Sgaile whispered from behind. "Roise Charmune will know why you have come, and the ancestors will decide.
Leesil shivered. The night was only cool, but it had suddenly grown crisp within the clearing.
This was what he'd come for, but after passing the guardian serpent, he wavered at touching this tree. He quickly slapped his hand against its bare trunk, just to be done with it, and shivered again as the temperature dropped sharply.
"Sgaile... ?" he said.