Chymmerlee made a noise of revulsion, and her features matched it perfectly. "This may sound stupid after I just cleaned a festering wound, but I don't like seeing blood."
It did sound stupid, but Subikahn was too polite to say so. He had spent enough time in the Eastlands to know most women were nothing like those of the Renshai. They suffered a squeamishness that would have left Renshai women rolling their eyes and snorting. He took the coney, and his utility knife, and set to work removing fur and skin from the meat.
While he worked, Chymmerlee piled round black berries in front of him, along with an assortment of weeds in red and light green. She set aside a couple of fat, semirigid stems, then went right to eating her berries, shoving them into her mouth in unladylike handfuls.
Subikahn pretended not to notice, even when Chymmerlee questioned him with a partially chewed mouthful still in place. "So, Subikahn, did I rightly hear you call Saviar your twin?"
Accustomed to disbelief, Subikahn nodded, braced for the inevitable questions. He continued his work on the coney, the skin yielding easily to the sharpness of the blade. A line of blood twined across his hands, and he checked to make certain it came from the carcass. A blade that well-honed sometimes cut without pain. "We're actual twins, yes. Born to the same woman, the same pregnancy."
"Would it be correct to guess that one of you resembles your parents while the other doesn't?" Chymmerlee seemed about to make a stunning revelation, so Subikahn's response had to catch her off guard.
"Actually…" Subikahn paused, scraping cautiously around the rabbit's legs. "… we both look very much like our fathers."
That comment elicited the usual blank stare.
Subikahn studied the food in front of him. He pinched a berry with his least filthy hand. It felt mostly firm, slightly yielding, the type of berries that might crunch before they gave up a sweet load of juice. He tossed it into his mouth. It broke open with a bit of noise, less a crunch than a squeak, releasing a spicy, nutty flavor he could not place. "Yes, it's possible, and it happened. Thrust into life-or-death situations, Mama slept with two good friends in close proximity. We were the results."
"Oh." The word emerged thoughtfully.
Subikahn got the idea her consideration had less to do with the oddity of two-fathered twins and more to do with the pronouncement she had intended to make. "What were you thinking? Before I told you about the two fathers, I mean."
"Well," Chymmerlee said softly. "I've been thinking about your ability to see magic. It requires Outworld or mage blood to do that."
Subikahn only nodded as he finished the skinning. He worried that admitting a sword had done the seeing for him would lose him Chymmerlee's assistance. Right now, with Saviar comatose, he needed her desperately. "Me? I have Outworld or mage blood?"
"Apparently. I thought you, or, more likely, your brother, was a placeling."
That was a term Subikahn had never heard. "Placeling?"
"A creature with fey blood 'placed' magically into a human womb. Sharing a gestation with a placeling might have given the other twin simple abilities as well, such as seeing magic."
Now it was Subikahn's turn to just stare. "Does that… happen… often?"
"Extremely rarely."
Subikahn stabbed the skinned coney with a stick and held it in the fire. The pelt at his feet lay bloody and shredded, useless for anything; but at least the meat did not seem to contain any hair.
"It's one of those things that are more legend than truth, but I know of at least one case where a god hid his indiscretion with a mortal from his wife by placing the infant produced into the womb of a different mortal." Chymmerlee shivered, face pinched in revulsion. "That nearly ended in disaster."
The story sounded too similar to Colbey Calistinsson's history to believe it otherwise, yet Subikahn said nothing. Her last comment suggested she might not approve of Renshai. Right now, he needed her goodwill more than her trust. "And you thought my brother might be… a similar case?"
Chymmerlee grabbed the last handful of berries in front of her. "It would make sense why you can see magic but have no knowledge of it. And, let's face it…" She gestured at Saviar. "… isn't he just a bit too perfect to be wholly mortal?"
For reasons Subikahn could not explain, he felt a twinge of jealousy at the remark. He had no sexual interest in Chymmerlee, nor in any woman, but the frequent comments about his twin's remarkable appearance wore on him. "He looks just like his mortal father. Even more like his mortal grandfather."
Chymmerlee shoved the berries into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. This time, she swallowed before continuing. "Have you ever seen your brother do anything that seemed miraculous?"
"You mean other than attract every female on the continent?"
Chymmerlee giggled.
Subikahn thought it best to stick as close to the truth as possible when it came to Saviar. The knight's son had great difficulty lying, a weakness his twin did not entirely share. "He said he saw a Valkyrie once."
"Gosh." Chymmerlee absorbed that information.
Subikahn did not mention it had appeared at their mother's death. Valkyries chose only warriors, and only Renshai regularly allowed females to fight. "But that's the only 'miraculous' thing I can think of. He's a nice, scrupulously honest, irritatingly polite young man with some decent sword skills; but I consider him as normal as any brother." More normal, in fact, than Calistin.
"You mean, he's sweet, too? And kind?"
Subikahn sighed, feeling like a go-between in a cruel game of puppy lust. "Well, he is, after all, my twin brother whom I love and who, up until a moment ago, was just about dead." I almost killed him. Guilt flared anew. "I could hardly say he was an evil bastard, now, could I?"
Chymmerlee laughed. "No, I don't suppose so." Her expression turned thoughtful, and she cocked a brow. "… but is he…?"
"… sweet and kind? Yes." Subikahn responded honestly. "A young lady's dream. The perfect man."
Chymmerlee studied Saviar in the firelight, speaking softly, almost to herself. "It's a shame one like that came so close to death… might still…" She trailed off, but Subikahn got the message.
As opposed to an ugly, worthless oaf like me. Under ordinary circumstances, Subikahn might have made a sarcastic comment about how the beautiful naturally deserved longer, fuller lives than the plain, how their deaths were so much more undeserved, so much more poignant. But, at the moment, he suffered too much guilt for his role in his brother's predicament to belittle it. Instead, he only nodded. And suffered in silence.
Rain pounded the Western forests, turning the ground into a leafy, muddy soup. Silver Warrior and Darby's chestnut gelding, now named Clydin, stumbled through the muck at a pace resembling that of a mired turtle.
His silks soaked through to the skin, his hair hanging in wet red strings, Ra-khir did not bother to complain. He had known more than weather would keep him from following the three boys' trail directly. He had minimal tracking skills, and the young Renshai would surely stick to the deep woodlands now that they no longer traveled in a large group. Without horses, they had no need to follow roadways instead of picking their way through forests, and the latter probably seemed safer. Ra-khir had never intended to track them by sign but rather by information gleaned in nearby Western towns.
Darby, who had remained silent prior to meeting the Renshai, now had a million questions. "Those were real Renshai, weren't they, sir?"
"Yes, Darby, those were Renshai." From habit, Ra-khir rubbed at a dirt spot on Silver Warrior's neck but only managed to spread it further. "Your first encounter, I presume?"
"They didn't have horns or tails or anything! And they didn't even try to kill us."
Ra-khir smiled. In some ways, Darby seemed so mature for his age, but this had clearly rattled him. "Renshai aren't demons, Darby. They're human, just like you and me, except for their thorough devotion to the sword."