‘I don’t understand. You’re going to kill it?’ Somehow the thought troubled me. Despite the stories I’d heard as a child, this animal had saved me from those men and Shalla from a fate that she would have considered worse than death.
My father shook his head. ‘Not yet. Where there is one nekhek there will be others, and that is the greater threat. We will cage the creature and use pain spells to break its spirit.’ He glanced over at where Shalla was being cared for by my mother. ‘It was clever of your sister to conceive of the means to use sympathy to bind the kin of another creature. We can use blood magic to draw other nekhek to this one so that we can kill them all before they become a threat.’
He walked over and lifted Shalla up in his arms. ‘It’s time to bring your sister home.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘That creature killed the diseased dog those men were using to infect Shalla. It saved her. How can you –’
He cut me off with a look. ‘You’ve had a shock. You were terrified of those men and you saw what some frightened part of you wanted to see. I don’t fault you for it, Kellen. But now you have to be a man and come to accept the things a man must do to protect his family. A Jan’tep must be strong.’ His expression changed a little, becoming … I couldn’t tell. Proud? ‘When the time comes, Kellen, I want you to be the one to put the blade in the monster’s heart.’
Before I could even think of an objection, the sound of wings flapping caught my attention. I looked up to see a bird slowing its descent as it flew towards us, moving with a heartbreaking grace and elegance. Without thinking, I reached a hand out to it, but the bird evaded me and landed on Shalla’s unconscious form. For just an instant, it blinked, its eyes turning from a dark brown to blue then to gold. It settled there, on my sister’s shoulder, as my mother and father looked at each other and smiled.
Shalla had found her falcon.
17
The Nekhek
The next day saw a flurry of activity that began with my being something of a hero and ended with me becoming a traitor.
‘She’s still asleep,’ my mother said, noticing me poking my head into Shalla’s room. ‘An interrupted summoning spell is hard on anyone and doubly so on someone as young as your sister.’ Her tone was calm on the surface but full of barely contained accusations underneath. The falcon, sitting on the edge of Shalla’s bed, turned its head to gaze at me with similar menace.
‘It was Shalla’s idea,’ I said. ‘Why am I to blame?’
‘I didn’t say you were, but since you chose to bring it up, why in all the world did you agree to such a thing?’
I reached for a sensible, believable reply. I found none. ‘She said she was ready.’
‘She’s thirteen!’
‘And she’s more powerful than half the mages in this city.’
‘Not last night, she wasn’t.’ My mother came to stand in front of me and placed her hands on my cheeks as she examined me. ‘Look at you, still bruised from getting into fights, and now this.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
She ran a finger along the hollow of my left eye the way she always did when I got hurt. I still had a cut there. When she seemed satisfied I wasn’t dying she said, ‘Couldn’t you see how weak Shalla was?’
I went to sit down on the reading chair next to my sister’s bed. The events of the previous day started to replay themselves in my mind. ‘She said she had a cold.’
‘Well, it’s not a cold.’
‘Bene’maat,’ my father said from the doorway. It was rare for him to use my mother’s name in front of us.
‘Don’t try to gentle me like some barnyard animal, Ke’heops,’ she said, her tone a warning that I recognised. ‘Our daughter could have been killed, or worse.’
My father put his hands in front of him. ‘I’m not, but Shalla was the instigator of this nonsense. Children her age have been sneaking onto the Path of Spirits trying to find their power animals since long before you or I were born, and none has ever come back with anything worse than a headache and the sniffles.’ He paused and looked over at me with something like pride on his face. ‘Kellen did everything he could to protect his sister.’
‘Those men—’
‘We’ll find the Mahdek who attacked her.’
Something about that bothered me. ‘I don’t think they were Mahdek, Father. I think they were ordinary men sent by Ra’meth.’
‘Ra’meth and his sons already submitted to interrogation by the lords magi. We used silk magic to discern the truth of their words. They were neither there nor had any knowledge of or involvement in the attack.’
What was it Ferius had said the other night? That if there’s a spell for everything then there’s probably a spell to counter it. ‘Maybe they found a way around the interrogation.’
‘Oh?’ my father said, his expression suddenly irritated. ‘And what exactly is your expertise in these matters?’
I closed my eyes, thinking back to the way the men who’d attacked us had been dressed, the way they talked. ‘Maybe the masks had something to do with it? Besides, the Mahdek were supposed to be wizards. Why didn’t these men use any spells?’
‘The Mahdek are deceivers,’ my mother said. ‘They use tricks and traps and, yes, dark magics to do their will. But magic can be traced. These Mahdek wanted to hurt us without being tracked down.’
I wasn’t sure I was convinced, but I let it drop. ‘What’s wrong with Shalla?’ I asked. ‘You said it wasn’t a cold but—’
‘We’re not sure,’ my father replied. ‘But her magic’s been weakening steadily for the past three days.’
Three days? Why three days? Unless … ‘She fought me three days ago. In the oasis.’
I looked over to my father and saw his steady gaze. He nodded, but there was something else … something he wasn’t telling me. Then I remembered that Tennat was sick too. ‘Spirits of our ancestors … Osia’phest was right. They’re going to blame me.’
‘Who is going to blame you, Kellen?’ my mother asked. ‘And blame you for what?’
‘Tennat duelled me and he got sick. Shalla fought me next and now she’s sick too. People are going to think I poisoned them or that I’m diseased and they got sick because of me.’
‘No,’ said my father.
‘I’m going to be exiled. Ra’meth will convince the council to—’
‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I will deal with the council and I will deal with Ra’meth. Whatever has happened is either coincidence or, more likely, caused by the presence of the Mahdek and their nekhek servants nearby.’
‘But I told you, when the nekhek showed up those men ran.’
‘They were running from your mother and myself, not from their own servant.’