KINSMAN’S OATH By Susan Krinard

“I’m prepared to take that risk. We’ll tell the Kinsmen at least part of the truth—you were caught on Persephone trying to assassinate the Archon, and they let you go because they discovered that you were a Challinor.”

“And what will we tell them is the reason that you are with me?”

“You believed I had knowledge that might be of use to the shaauri, so you abducted me. Convince yourself, and you’ll convince them.” She smiled coldly. “Unfortunately, an old rival took over your House, and your enemies here are trying to kill both of us. You don’t even have to pretend that you like the Kinsmen, as long as they believe that going to them was our only chance of survival.”

“You have it very well planned, Aho’Va.”

“I plan for both of us to survive. Let’s go.”

They stood up, chest and head above the grass. One of the distant figures turned toward them.

A silent alarm was given. At the edge of the tall grass, where it had been mown short to accommodate landing ships, three armed Kinsmen came to claim them.

The two men and single woman wore uniforms of dark red with black bars on back and shoulders designed to mimic the striping of shaauri fur. They stopped well short of Cynara and Ronan, weapons raised.

Cynara felt the assault of several minds on her own, sifting her surface thoughts. If Ronan suffered the same scrutiny, his face didn’t show it.

The Kinswoman raised her brows. “We were expecting you,” she said to Ronan. Her gaze sought Cynara’s. “You must be the Concordat agent Lenko told us about. Artur will be very happy to see you both.”

The ship lifted from Aitu as soon as the Kinsmen and their prisoners were aboard. Its interior was very much like the one Ronan had seen before they had stripped his mind of memory. Perhaps it was even the same vessel.. It was modeled after a shaauri striker but on a smaller scale, adapted for human use and heavily armed. Artur Constano VelRauthi was clearly prepared for attack and defense.

But by whom? Did he already fear what the shaauri might discover?

Ronan glanced at Cynara again, clearing the last confusion from his thoughts. He had been mad for a time after Sihvaaro’s death, and thus had forfeited the chance to protect her until the Arhan ship arrived. Sihvaaro had been wise to summon them, but they would come too late.

He had lost more than Sihvaaro in the past few hours, but he had no one to blame save himself. He had withdrawn too far, disgracefully abandoned Cynara in her time of greatest need.

And she had changed. She had taken command in spite of her limited knowledge and many disadvantages, never hesitating to do what must be done. She was true aho’va, as he had known from the beginning. That was not what convinced him that she had inexplicably altered.

She looked as she always had, except for the utter coldness of her eyes. But her voice had undergone an unmistakable transformation, along with everything she did and said—sometimes in only a subtle nuance, at others so blatantly that it was as if another soul spoke through her mouth.

That other soul was unreachable. She had closed her mind from him as well as the Kinsmen. He had begun to believe that she was invulnerable to any probe to which they might subject her.

She was lost to him. All that remained was to keep her alive until she had the opportunity to escape.

He shut such thoughts behind a barrier thick as the ship’s hull and let the Kinsmen push them through the main corridors, past stations manned by Kinsman technicians and into a narrower corridor of many doors. One of these led to the inevitable holding cell, cold and sparsely furnished.

Ronan had learned to expect dry humor from Cynara under such circumstances. He waited for her to speak, but she simply sat down against the bulkhead and ignored him.

Sihvaaro, my father, you are my only Ancestor. Guide me now.

He sat opposite Cynara and stared at her until she looked up. Her eyes were glazed with ice like Lake Ashti in the Month of Brittle Branches. What agonies had she suffered for his sake?

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