Full-Blood Half-Breed (27 page)

Paladin was miserable. How could one little punch cause such misfortune? “I’m sorry to have caused all this trouble, Papá.”

“As am I,” Rebelde said. He sighed. “I wish you had heeded my warnings about Torneo, but wishes are wind. We must prepare for what is to come.”

“Urbano and I are younglings,” Paladin said hopefully. “Young men fight all the time. Surely Don Efraín will not take such great offense at a squabble between boys. Perhaps we are overreacting.”

Mbarika cronked, “Would you trust your life to a murderer’s mercy?
Eres ingenuo?
Well?”

“Mbarika, as always, speaks the ugly truth,” Rebelde said. “We will hope for the best, boy, but plan for the worst. Don Efraín is a proud, petty murderer. Thousands bore witness to his shame in the arena. Until we know differently, we must expect an attack from House Próspero. Wherever we go, we will do so armed and in numbers. Jambiax, Mbarika, and I have some skill at using the soul element to sense threats. At least one of us will always be in the presence of the others.

“I do not believe they will attack during Torneo, but the three of us will be in the arena, using animancy to detect any hostility directed at Paladin. It is not an infallible technique, but it is better than nothing.”

“Perhaps I should avoid the arena, Papá. Better to forfeit the Melee trial than place you all in jeopardy.”

“Is that what you want, boy?” Rebelde said.

“What I want is beside the point. It’s foolish to needlessly place ourselves in peril.”

Rebelde eyed him, smiling. “Is it what you want, son?”

Paladin shook his head. “Of course not. I do not want to forfeit, Papá. But it seems unwise to—”

Rebelde raised his hand, silencing him. “We will all go to the arena. We will watch and protect you. And you will teach that wicked little Nordling the price of treachery against Kamau—
the Silent Warrior
.”

Jambiax nodded. He placed his fist over his heart. “We Speak Steel.”

Paladin grinned and returned the salute. “We Speak Steel.”

“No,” Rebelde said. “Not yet we don’t.”

He got up and left the room.

Pía was stronger than she looked.

Fox was covered in a dense layer of muscle that made him heavy for his size, yet Pía threw him to the floor as if he were a sack of feathers. A single candle’s flame cast just enough light in the room for him to see the hungry look in her eyes as she pinned him like an Eisenfaust grappling meister and covered his face with kisses. Occasionally she murmured dreamily, “
Mi caballero
. The One God has sent me a
caballero campeón
.”

The meeting with the Prophet had left them too exhilarated to sleep. They were thrilled that the War of Judgment would begin in but a few short hours, but people died in wars, and though they had absolute faith, the only thing the Prophet could promise was that The One God’s will would be done. Not even the Prophet could say with absolute certainty what that will might be. They could all perish in the flames of war.

So tonight, they would live.

Fox placed his hands on Pía’s cheeks and met her hungry lips with his own. Their needful hands grabbed and groped until they were hopelessly tangled in an exquisite knot of arms and legs. The temperature in the room was cool, but their passions scorched them from the inside out. They were feverish. Their clothes sopped with sweat. Fox half expected they would spontaneously combust. It was as if The One God Himself sanctified their coupling with divine heat. Their union was providence. They were inevitable. “I love you, Pía. Marry me.”

The words had leapt from his lips as if independent creatures of willful mind. He had not planned to propose marriage, but there were times when rightness occurred of its own volition, and this was one of those moments.

At least he thought so.

“But we have known each other only a scant few days,” she said.

Her words speared holes through his heart. He had come to believe their few days
together were the beginning of forever. “I—I—did not mean—I just thought …”

“You thought correctly,” she said. “You are
mi querido
. And I would marry you this very moment if that is your wish. But I fear that you, as a young man, may want to … know other women before settling on just one. I want you to be sure of me.”

He stood up and lifted her with him. “Pía Ximena Del Whitewraith, I have never been more sure of anything in my life. You are the only woman I will ever want. Yours are the only children I will ever father. I swear it on my life, my honor, and my devotion to The One God. May the Three take my soul if I lie.”

She giggled. “Sí, sí, and yes. Of course I will marry you.”

He took her into his arms and whirled her around the room, smothering her lips with his. She moaned with delight as his hands moved over the contours of her femininity. She wore a lusty mischievous grin as she pulled out of his arms. He reached for her again, but she slipped out of his grasp, giggling, teasing. Her hips swayed like a Kusini Watu veil dancer’s as she sashayed over to stand in a wash of amber candlelight. Her fingers moved deftly to untie her sash. “Tonight, I will make you a man,
mi prometido
.”

Her robe fluttered softly to the floor. She turned slowly, the light illuminating every supple curve of her red-brown body, allowing him to scrutinize every inch of her, at least every inch not covered by her underthings. “Am I not beautiful, beloved?”

“Ja,”
he whispered. “I mean, yes. Sí.”

And she was beautiful. More than beautiful. She was flawless.

Except for a single, glaring bruise tarnishing the flesh covering her ribs.

He pointed at the violet mark. “What happened?”

She blushed. “It is nothing,
mi querido
. I told you how we tried to give holy attestation to the blended boy, Del Darkdragón …”

“What?”
Raging war-drums pounded in his chest. “That pagan touched you?”

“Do not vex yourself,
mi querido
.” She fluttered her long lashes at him. “You may kiss it well if you wish …”

“I wish to know what happened,” Fox insisted, all thoughts of romance driven from his brain. “Why have you not told me of this before?”

She sighed. “He was only defending himself …”

“You attacked Del Darkdragón?”

“Several of us cornered him in an alley to attest to The One God’s truth. He said something blasphemous and Claudio attacked him. Del Darkdragón was only defending himself. He was frightened, I think. Old Señora Del Fishgutter was with us. May The One God forgive me for saying so, but that woman is a dreadful terror. She even frightens me sometimes. Please, let us not spoil this moment by worrying over Del Darkdragón. Come. Kiss me,
mi querido
.”

She was right, of course. This was the greatest day of his life, the day he would become a man. It would be foolish to let his hatred of the pagan ruin it. But every time his gaze settled on the angry purple smudged across Pía’s ribs, his fury heated. That something as repellent as the pagan had dared lay hands—or in this case his filthy foot—upon something as precious as Pía was an abomination to The One God.

The pagan had cheated and humiliated him at Temple Seisakusha. The pagan had stolen half of his archery victory. The pagan had assaulted Urbano, shaming him before the eyes of his father and the world. And, with the Prophet’s holy love in his heart, Fox might have forgiven Del Darkdragón all those acts, as offensive as they were. But the pagan had touched Pía, hurt her, and that was unforgivable.

“
Mi querido
,” Pía said, “please, forget Del Darkdragón. Think of me and the life we will share, the children we will raise.”

He tried.

He took her into his arms and kissed her, but it was no use. He kissed her again, though his mind was far away. His desire was only for vengeance. “I am sorry, Pía.”

She snatched her robe from the floor and dressed in a huff. She took her cloak down from where it hung on the wall and strode toward the door.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“Out.”

“Pía, I—”

She waved him silent. “You must choose, Fox. Your love for me or your hatred of Del Darkdragón. Which is more important to you?”

With that, she stormed out of the apartment, leaving Fox alone with his ever-growing fury.

He cursed the pagan to hell.

Del Darkdragón had sullied Pía with his filthy touch, ruined Fox’s chance to become a man, and tainted the occasion of his marital engagement. But this would be the last time he ruined anything in this life. Come the morrow, Fox was going to kill the stinking pagan. By The One God’s will, Paladin Del Darkdragón of House Kamau was a dead man.

Rebelde returned bearing the sheathed sword he had repossessed after the fiesta de cumpleaños. A smile broke across Paladin’s lips. Rebelde’s eyes darted from the sword to him and back again, apprehension furrowing his heavy brow. Taking slow, deliberate steps, he marched around
the hearth and table, approaching Paladin hesitantly, like a man going to the gallows.

Paladin thought his papá might change his mind again and take the sword back. The others in the room silently observed the impromptu exchange with the solemn manner of folk at a knighting ceremony.

When Rebelde stood before him, Paladin forced his eyes from the handsome scabbard of black leather, embossed with an ornate letter
P
, and met his papá’s stare. The image of a black, serpentine dragón clutching silver thunderbolts—Rebelde’s totem—appeared in Paladin’s mind as his papá’s pneuma entered his soul and slithered about, probing.

After a moment Rebelde nodded, satisfied. Whatever he had sensed within Paladin met his approval. He released the spirit energy and handed Paladin the sword. “On your birthday I feared you were too foolish to have such a weapon as this. But now I fear House Próspero’s retribution more than your recklessness. It is a manced sword of my own devising, though I am not certain the elemental properties will work.”

Paladin carefully, reverently took the sword from his father.

“Now,” Rebelde said, “We
all
Speak Steel.”

The first thing Paladin noticed about the sheathed weapon was the encircled Kamau thunderbolt within its simple cross-guard. But his eye was pulled almost immediately to the silver-blue mist swirling within the almazi crystal set in the pommel of the sword’s sculpted metal hilt. He leaned in close to study the tiny crystal and the mist swirling within. It beckoned him to touch it, an unspoken call to his soul he could not help but heed. He moved his finger toward the almazi, transfixed by the mercurial haze inside. It responded with a blinding burst of mance-lightning.

The thunderbolt flashed from the sword, lancing through him with such power it rattled his teeth and dropped him to his knees. Everyone else in the room screamed, blinded, surprised, and afraid. Everyone except Rebelde. His was a roar of pain, greater even than Paladin’s. And even though Paladin could not see the path of the manced thunderbolt, he sensed the energy slamming into Rebelde before returning to the almazi crystal in the sword with enough force to knock him back on his culo.

“Paladin?” Rebelde called in a weak, pained voice. Rebelde grabbed at him clumsily and yanked him to his feet. “Boy! Are you hurt?”

Paladin blinked and tried to rub sight back into his eyes. His body still tingled from the thunderbolt, but he was unharmed. “I am fine, I think.”

“No thanks to that Muumban witchery of your father!” Suki shrieked. “Were you trying to kill the boy, Rebelde? And us with him?”

Paladin rubbed his eyes and squinted at his papá. “What else does it do?”

“Niño,” his mamá said, “perhaps you should put the sword down for now. I would like to
speak privately with your papá …”

“Fret not, Walli,” Rebelde said. “That was supposed to happen. I think.”

Paladin chuckled. The bright white afterimages of the lightning began to fade from his vision, and he noticed Walküre glaring at Rebelde, a rebuke on the tip of her tongue, then her expression changed. She rubbed her eyes and moved closer to scrutinize Rebelde, her face a mask of shock. “Rebelde! What has happened to you?”