Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,11

waited years so we could meet.

He let her go. She picked up her sword and walked back to the practice weapon rack.

Arland loved her. And she loved him too. She had known it the moment he asked her for the Liturgy of the Fallen, because it felt like the fear that he would die would wrench her heart out of her chest. But then he ruined it all and asked her to marry him.

Maud dropped her sword and her buckler onto the practice weapon rack and pulled on the inn’s magic. The inn obeyed, parting the floor under the rack and letting it sink down into storage, but it responded sluggishly, almost as if it was confused by her directions. The response at her parents’ inn had been instant. Here, it was like giving commands to a sibling’s dog. It obeyed her because she was family and a human, but it knew she was not its human.

It would get better with time, if she stayed. And staying at the inn made all the sense in the world. She and Helen would be safe here. Dina could use the help, and Helen loved it. The inn responded to her much better than it did to Maud. All inns instantly took to children.

But what would happen when her daughter realized she couldn’t have friends?

What would happen when he left?

That last thought gave her the shove she needed. Maud turned to Arland.

“I love you,” she told him. “But I can’t marry you.”

His handsome face stayed perfectly neutral, but she caught the splash of happiness in his eyes. It dimmed instantly, but she caught it.

“May I ask why?”

“Because love is simple, but marriage is complicated.”

“Explain.”

She crossed her arms on her chest, using them as a shield. “When you look at Helen, what do you see?”

“Potential.”

She could’ve kissed him for that, but that wouldn’t help. “If you didn’t know her background, would you say she’s a human or a vampire?”

“A vampire,” he said without hesitation.

“Because of the fangs?”

“Because of her predatory drive. Fangs make her look like a vampire. They can be obtained by surgical means, but the instinct to identify and strike at the opponent’s weaknesses can’t be fabricated or learned. One either has it or doesn’t. She has it.”

That was her assessment as well. “If I stay here, in my sister’s inn, Helen would have to confine herself to the grounds. She can’t attend a human school. Other children wouldn’t be safe around her. They wouldn’t know what she was but they would know she was different. They would ignore her or torment her, and she would retaliate.”

Arland’s expression hardened. “I have no right to offer my opinion, but would imprisoning her in the inn be the best thing for Helen?”

Imprisoned. That’s how he saw it. That’s how she saw it too.

Within the inn, the innkeepers possessed almost god-like power. They built rooms for a hundred different species in minutes. They bent the laws of physics and opened passages to planets thousands of light years away. They saw the oddities and wonders of the galaxy pass through their doors.

But the human world of the innkeepers was small, the friends few, and even though the galaxy lay at their door, most of them rarely stepped over the threshold. Outside of the inn, they were vulnerable. The children of the innkeepers grew up at home, apart from human society, and when they grew up, they became innkeepers or the ad-hal, the enforcers of the innkeepers. Sometimes they left Earth the way she and her brother had. Almost none of them entered human society. Once they learned to use their magic, there was no putting it back into a box.

“What would happen to Helen if we took her to House Krahr?”

Arland frowned. “She would run wild around the keep with other children like her. I’d like to see the Sentinels try to wrangle her into a classroom. In fact, I would pay good money…” He caught the expression on her face. “That is, she would receive a fine education in line with the other scions of House Krahr.”

“You once told me that she should be a rassa in the grass, not a goren on the porch.”

Rassa were fierce ambush predators, while gorens, smaller and tamer, served vampires like dogs served humans.

Arland cleared his throat. “I may have been too blunt.”

“No, you were right. Helen is a rassa and at House Krahr she would be among other rassa. It would be more dangerous, but she could find