The First Kaiaru (3 page)

“
I
’m a what?” Enashoma asked.

“A Kaiaru inheritant,” Hannya said. “I am sure you know by now that we Kaiaru aren't just immortal. If we are killed somehow, our power and personalities continue on and can be reborn into new bodies. The most common way is through a volunteer. The volunteer, preferably a direct descendent of the Kaiaru, adopts their kavaru through a complicated magical ritual, during which the identity of the Kaiaru subsumes them. Bits and pieces of the volunteer's personality or memories sometimes linger on, but nothing more.”

Enashoma’s heart came almost to a stop. She had a feeling she knew what Hannya was about to say. And as much as she wished she was more than just a scared baojendari girl, Enashoma did not want to be anyone or anything else either—especially a Kaiaru. Chonda Lu may have founded her clan, but he'd done a lot of terrible things, too. And Hannya, the only decent Kaiaru she'd actually met, had betrayed them to the Blood King. Kaiaru were almost always bad news.

“Sometimes, however, a Kaiaru's descendants chose not to bring them back or forgot the rituals to do so. Sometimes, a Kaiaru's enemies kept their descendants from volunteering themselves. In these cases, if the Kaiaru's will to live remained powerful enough, they could be reborn through an inheritant. The inheritant is born, indistinguishable from any other infant, to one of their direct descendants. Until the inheritant touches their kavaru, they have no idea what they are and appear in every way to be completely normal, albeit unusually talented in the magical arts—like you, Enashoma. This rebirth can take days, years, or even centuries. I know all of this is confusing. No one completely understand the inheritant process, not even Lord Gyoroe.”

“I’m…I’m an inheritant?” Enashoma choked down a sudden wave of nausea. Her head spun. This couldn't be true. “Like—like Sobei….”

Hannya flinched. “Like Turesobei…how do you know about that?”

“I’m not clueless when it comes to magic. I did grow up with a wizard brother and grandfather. I can read between the lines when you, Lord Gyoroe and Lu Bei talk about his special destiny. Besides, once I started learning to read kenja signatures, it was kind of obvious. His patterns are like yours, like a Kaiaru’s.”

“Does anyone else know?”

Enashoma shook her head. “I don’t think so. I just pieced it together recently. And I didn’t have a name for it.”

“Say nothing to your friends. It is better that away. And obviously, telling your brother is pointless.”

Enashoma nodded as her mind raced through the implications of being a Kaiaru inheritant. Nāa’s amethyst kavaru: she had never seen one like it before. If she had to touch it to turn into him, then all she had to do was make sure she never came anywhere near it. That way, she would never turn into him. Problem solved.

“Wait. You said an inheritant transforms after touching their kavaru.”

“Correct,” Hannya replied.

“But Turesobei has had Chonda Lu's kavaru for as long as I’ve been alive. Why is he still himself?”

“Your brother is not a normal inheritant. Truthfully, we are not certain exactly what your brother is. Chonda Lu went to great lengths to ensure that no one interfered with his destiny, shrouding it in layers of magic.”

“So that’s why Turesobei passes out or can’t understand when anyone tells him anything about his destiny and being an inheritant, but I can?”

“Indeed.”

Enashoma took a deep breath and tried to relax. “Being an inheritant doesn’t sound too bad. All I have to do is make sure I never come anywhere near Nāa’s kavaru.”

Hannya smiled sadly. “A kavaru has a habit of finding its way to its inheritant, regardless of distances or circumstances.”

"Oh." The fragile wall of hope Enashoma had constructed to help her process the disturbing news collapsed into a pile of rubble. Tears welled in her eyes, and she choked back a sob.

Hannya wrapped an arm around Enashoma’s shoulder. “But that is not always the case. Sometimes an inheritant will die without ever coming into contact with the kavaru, in which case another inheritant will later be born.” Hannya pulled her arm away and wiped a tear from Enashoma’s cheek. “Regardless, you are not going to transform today. You are safe within the Nexus. Nāa’s kavaru is far from here.”

Enashoma gathered her composure and thought about everything Hannya had told her so far. “Why did you say it was inexplicable that I was an inheritant? Since Sobei is, wouldn't that make me more likely to be one, too?”

Hannya's worried frown sent chills down Enashoma's spine. “The opposite, actually. The odds are far and away against you both being inheritants, because inheritants are only born into their own direct bloodlines. You and Turesobei are descendants of Chonda Lu.”

“Couldn’t I be a direct descendant of both Nāa and Chonda Lu?”

“It is possible.” Hannya gestured to the light, kavaru-sized birthmark on Enashoma’s forehead that marked her as a direct descendant of Chonda Lu. “But there would be a sign to show that you were.”

Enashoma bit her lip nervously. “I—I don’t know about Turesobei, but I do have another mark.”

“Show me.”

Enashoma moved aside the robe she had been clutching to herself to reveal her lower stomach and the ever so faint birthmark directly over her kenja-heart.

Hannya shook her head. “I do not see anything.”

Enashoma leaned back and twisted so that it would catch the light better. “It’s just a little paler than the rest of my skin.”

“Ah, I see it now.”

“I didn’t even know it was there until about a year ago. And I assumed it was random until I learned where my kenja-heart was. Even then….”

Hannya nodded. “You had no reason to think it was a bloodline mark. Otherwise, your family would have told you about it.”

“Maybe they don’t know we're related to Nāa, too. My mark is so faint, and I'm his inheritant. Maybe I'm the first to have the mark in ages and the knowledge was lost….”

“Doubtful, and that kind of knowledge does not get lost easily.”

“Maybe someone in my family married a direct descendant of Nāa several generations ago, and I'm the first Chonda the mark has shown up on.” Enashoma could hear the panic creeping back into her voice. It was bad enough finding out that she was an inheritant. She couldn't handle having some mysterious destiny, like Sobei's, hanging over her, too.

Hannya shook her head and sighed. “For both you and your brother to be inheritants—that seems incredulous to me.” She took Enashoma’s hand and helped her up. “Come. We must consult with my lord.”

The Blood King, who preferred to be called Lord Gyoroe, stepped out of nowhere to appear right beside them.

“I am here.”

W
ith nine different kavaru soul gems instead of one like normal, the Blood King was a strange sort of Kaiaru. A cat’s-eye-yellow gem sparkled on his forehead. A deep orange gem glimmered on one hand, a pale green on the other. The remaining six gems were hidden beneath his gray, monk-like robe. His skin was the color of pale fog; his hair was the dark of the morning sea.

His eyes were currently yellow, matching one of his ten different personalities—one for each of his kavaru, plus a mysterious tenth one with gray eyes. Turesobei had explained to Enashoma the different personalities, but she had rarely encountered the Blood King.

A stern expression creased his face as he studied her. The yellow-eyed personality, she remembered, was suspicious of everything.

“She is not an inheritant,” the Blood King said.

Enashoma sighed with relief. “Thank the gods!”

The Blood King scowled, scarlet fires lighting within his yellow eyes. “There was a time when humans lined up and competed for the privilege of becoming a Kaiaru.”

“Those days are long gone, my lord,” Lady Hannya said. “She did not grow up amongst Kaiaru. And until recently, they were little more than legends to her.”

His eyes dimmed. “I will soon correct that problem.”

That was the Blood King’s aim: to restore the Kaiaru to their golden age of dominance over the world. To do that, he needed the power from the eight heart stones, one from each of the eight realms, so that he could view the ancient origins of the Kaiaru. How that would help him, she had no idea. It didn’t make any sense to her, but then he did have a reputation for being mad.

“I knew there was something unique about you, Chonda Enashoma,” the Blood King said, his eyes returning to yellow. “Something I struggled to figure out. You are most certainly not an inheritant, though. I would have known immediately. There is a tell-tale energy signature that Hannya apparently does not know about.”

“If I’m not an inheritant, then what am I?” Enashoma asked.

The Blood King’s eyes shifted to the emeralds of the wizened instructor personality. “Something I have not seen in a very long time—something remarkably rare that usually marks the end of a weakened Kaiaru’s journey through time.”

“You mean she is a bonded host?” Hannya asked with surprise.

“Yes.”

“How can that be? She has never even seen Nāa’s kavaru before, much less touched it.”

The Blood King shrugged. “Truthfully,” he said, with a hopeful tone in his voice, “that is not what intrigues me the most.”

He sliced his right hand through the air. A thin cut ripped across Enashoma’s forearm.

She leapt back and clutched her arm just above the wound. “Ow!”

The Blood King stepped up to Enashoma, dipped a fingertip into the blood leaking from the cut, and touched the fingertip to his tongue. Then he closed his eyes and chanted.

“You are, in fact, a direct descendent of Nāa, but the bloodline is weak. Probably, Chonda Lu married some of his own descendants, keeping his bloodline strong while weakening Nāa’s.”

“Lu Bei would know when the two bloodlines merged,” Hannya said, “if it is of interest to you, my lord.”

The Blood King stared at her, his eyes fluctuating from emerald to gold and back. He started to say something, then frowned in confusion as the words died on his lips. Then his eyes flared the brightest scarlet Enashoma had ever seen, and they had seen him plenty angry before.

Hannya grabbed Enashoma’s hand and pulled her back. They waited in silence at the far edge of the room, as the Blood King clutched his temples and chanted one spell after another. Finally, he uttered a growl, which turned into a shout that made Enashoma fall to her knees and clasp her hands over her ears. The ground shook, and dust fell from the ceiling of the Training Hall.

When it subsided, the scarlet faded from his eyes. Gold again, they raked across Enashoma. She wished she hadn’t dropped her robes in surprise when he had cut her arm. The anger faded from him entirely, his eyes dimmed, and he released a deep sigh.

“My lord,” Hannya dared ask, “what is wrong?”

“It is no use asking the fetch,” he said, “the information is spell-locked in the same manner as the spells clouding Turesobei’s mind. Only this knowledge is permanently locked. And I am certain that even if the fetch could cooperate, he would not.”

“How do you know that it is locked?” Hannya asked.

“Because just now, having tasted the blood and hearing Lu Bei’s name, I nearly remembered something about Nāa’s bloodline mixing with Chonda Lu’s.”

“You were there when they merged?” Hannya asked.

The Blood King shook his head. “Several times, I ghosted into the past and attempted to observe how Chonda Lu created Lu Bei and Motekeru. But each time, the knowledge slipped from my mind immediately afterward. If I focus, I can remember bits and pieces surrounding their creation, but the knowledge fades too fast for me to make sense of it. Clearly, Nāa figures into this somehow, but that is all I know.”

“I do not recall ever having met Nāa,” Hannya said.

“I hardly knew him,” the Blood King said. “He never involved himself in Kaiaru politics or the business of humans. According to reputation, he was a gentle soul and a recluse, like Mokelmot.”

“So why would Chonda Lu lock away knowledge of their bloodlines merging?”

“Why indeed?” the Blood King asked in a clipped voice, his eyes turning violet. This was his most impatient personality. “Put your clothes on, girl. It is time for us to seek answers.”