A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,79

give you your flesh tithe,” Erdene said.

Bleda walked into a large chamber, Ellac and Ruga either side of him, as befitted his rank. A fire-pit in the centre of the room crackled with hungry flames, spreading a welcome warmth through the stone room. It was part of a building large enough to pass for a keep at any other fortress, but here at Drassil it was just one of many buildings built by giants so long ago which still stood empty. Kol had given it to Erdene as quarters for her and her retainers for the duration of her stay in the fortress.

Erdene was seated in a high-backed chair close to the fire, her first-sword Yul behind her, a table at her side with jug and cups.

Kol was standing before Erdene, Lorina at one shoulder, Riv at the other. Bleda’s step faltered at the sight of her.

Riv looked at Bleda as he approached, her face mottled with bruises and cuts from her fight in the weapons-field.

She smiled on seeing him.

He felt something shift in his belly at that, like the fluttering of a moth’s wings, and at the same time he was painfully aware of his mother’s gaze upon him. With an effort he kept his face emotionless, saw Riv’s smile wither and fade.

He stopped a few paces from his mother and dropped to one knee before her, his head bowed. He heard the scuff of Ellac and Ruga’s knees scraping the stone floor behind him.

A silence.

“Rise,” his mother grunted, and the three of them stood before her. She looked older, deep lines in her brown-weathered face, a white scar standing stark across her shaved head. Her warrior braid was curled across one shoulder like an iron-grey serpent.

She studied Bleda with her dark eyes, then stood and held her arm out, offering him the warrior grip.

He stood as still as stone, frozen with surprise, then reached out and took the offered embrace, felt the corded muscle of her arm through her wool deel. Inside, his heart was soaring.

She recognizes me as a warrior, no longer a child. He wanted to laugh and dance, to lift his mother up and spin and squeeze her.

Instead he stared at her, his face an emotionless mask.

Erdene released his arm and nodded a greeting to Ellac.

“The moons since I last laid eyes upon you have treated you well,” Erdene said, looking Bleda up and down. She prodded his belly. “Though a little too well, perhaps.”

Bleda blinked at that. He prided himself on his fitness. He trained with his honour guard each morning, where Ellac put him through his paces, and through his pouring sweat and pounding heart Bleda had regularly cursed the old man for having no heart or compassion. And then after a meal break and his lessons Bleda trained in the weapons-field each afternoon, learning Drassil’s many varied military disciplines. He didn’t think there was an ounce of fat on his body, but he wasn’t going to point that out to his mother.

He looked down at her bony finger poking his belly, felt it digging into the washboard-hard ridges of his abdominal muscles.

A moment’s thought. Is my mother making a joke?

“I will watch you train in the weapons-field, and make sure that life here is not too soft for a Sirak prince,” Erdene said.

Kol smiled. “You will not be disappointed,” he said. “Bleda excels in the field at most disciplines. His body and mind are strong. Honed. As is his aim.” Kol didn’t smile at the last remark.

“I will be the judge of that,” Erdene said. “So—” she looked at Kol—“much has changed here, since my last visit.” Her gaze moved pointedly to Riv.

“Aye, betrayal and tragedy has struck us, with the death of Israfil,” Kol said. “But the light behind the clouds is that we are moving into a new age. A more tolerant age, which should bode well for all peoples in the Banished Lands, the Sirak included.”

Erdene looked at Riv, her thick musculature, her wings, her bruises and scars.

“Tolerant? I suppose she is still breathing,” Erdene said. “Your Lore spoke of abomination and execution where half-breeds are concerned, I am told.”

“Riv is no abomination,” a voice said. When Bleda saw that all were staring at him he realized it had been his voice.

A flicker of something across his mother’s face, too fast to read.

“I am not an abomination,” Riv growled, “and any who wish to execute me—” she looked at them all, slowly, one by one, then gave a shrug