“Lord Beneger,” Robart said.
“Lord Robart,” the leader answered.
No standard, no display, no ceremony. Vampires thrived on ceremony. House Meer was here, but they were making it clear they weren’t visiting in an official capacity. My hand tightened on my broom. I had only seen vampire delegations do this four times, and every single time it was done so the House could deny it had sanctioned the actions of its members. I would not permit a massacre in my inn.
“Follow me.” I led them through the back of the house to the balcony overlooking the festival grounds. Arland, Lady Isur, and the rest of their vampires occupied the far right side of the balcony, House Vorga the middle, and Nuan Cee’s clan took up the far left.
Below us the otrokars were checking piles of wood. They had arranged the logs I provided into a bonfire at the south end of the circle created by my stream and made four smaller piles along the water. The bark on some of the logs was red and purple. They must’ve brought some of their own wood.
The scarred knight from House Meer looked down on them and spat on the balcony. “Blasphemy.”
He spat on my inn.
I smiled as sweetly as I could. “Next time you choose to spit, my lord, the stones under your feet will part.”
The scarred knight glared at me.
“We are guests here, Uriel,” Lord Beneger said. “My apologies, Innkeeper.”
Apologies or not, the next time Lord Uriel decided to hawk up some phlegm, he would regret it.
The otrokars formed a ring around the festival grounds. While we spoke, the night had snuck in on soft cat paws, turning the eastern sky a deep, beautiful purple. Twilight claimed the clearing, the light of the sunset diluted by encroaching darkness. Shadows deepened and grew treacherous, the wind died down, and the first hint of the stars studded the sky.
The otrokars’ shaman stepped into the circle drawn by my stream, entering from the north. He wore only a long, layered leather kilt. Strange symbols drawn in pale green and white marked his exposed torso. His hair streamed loose about his face. Some strands were braided with a leather cord decorated with bone and wooden beads.
Fire burst in the two piles on his left and right all on its own. He kept walking, the lines of his muscular but lean body oddly beautiful. The fire jumped to the other two piles, then to the bonfire. An insistent drumbeat sounded, growing more and more urgent as the three otrokars on the edge began to play big bloated drums. A wild, eerie melody of pipes that hadn’t come from any wood or grass born on Earth issued a challenge, the simplest kind of music brought to life by a sentient being’s breath. The shaman turned his head, his long dark hair flying, spun like a dervish, and began to dance.
The otrokars clapped as one, picking up the rhythm of the drums. The shaman whirled and twisted, his movements born from the grace and speed of a hunter closing on its prey, wild and strangely primal, as if every layer of civilization had been ripped away from him and what remained was a creature, fruit of the planet that birthed it, as timeless as life itself. It was impossible to look away.
The otrokars began to sing, a simple, exuberant melody. I couldn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear. I live. I survived. I’m here.
Breath caught in my chest. I realized with absolute clarity that one day I was going to die. One day I would no longer be here. All the things I wanted, all my thoughts, all my worries—all of it would be gone with me, lost forever. There were so many things I wanted to do. So much I still wanted to see. I had to hold on to it. I had to hold on to every short second of life. Every breath was a gift, gone forever to the cold stars the moment I exhaled.
I wanted to cry.
The symbols on the shaman’s body glowed, weak at first, then brighter and brighter. The flames of the fires turned pale yellow, then olive, then a bright emerald green, matching the radiance of the shaman’s markings. The wood no longer fueled it; the blaze raged on its own.
Shadows rose among the otrokars, translucent silhouettes without features, silent and standing still.
The shaman twisted, bending backward, his supple body nearly parallel to the ground, and suddenly a simple wooden staff was in his hand. He spun the staff, turning it into a blur, planted it into the ground, and clawed at the sky with his free hand. The glowing coals from the bonfire rolled to him, forming a narrow scorching path to the blaze.
The shaman froze, poised on his toes, leaning back slightly, rigid, every muscle in his body tight, like a genius ballet dancer frozen in a moment just before the leap. His eyes glowed deep purple, otherworldly, as if the distant planet itself stared through him. He held out his left arm to the side.
The Khanum emerged from the shadows and came to stand next to him. She wore a simple tunic. Her feet were bare. The shaman’s hand clamped her shoulder.
A wave of translucent purple dashed through the green light of the coal path. A shadow appeared in the heart of the bonfire.
The Khanum stepped onto the coal path and walked quickly to the blaze. With every step, the shadow became clearer. Arms formed, the lines of the shoulders and the neck streamlined, hair sprouted, and features formed in the oval of the face. A young otrokar man stood in the flames. He looked like Dagorkun.
They were so close now she could almost touch him. The Khanum stood still on the coals, one hand raised, as if trying to touch her dead son. Her bare feet burned, but still she refused to move.
Dagorkun moved in from the side and took his mother by her hand. The shadow in the fire nodded to his brother. Dagorkun nodded back and gently led the Khanum away, back to the others. The shadow melted into the light.
I realized I was crying.
Another otrokar stepped to the shaman. A second wave of purple, a second shadow, another trip down the coal path. A woman this time, older, wearing the otrokar armor.
One by one the otrokars came, each finding another loved one in the fire. Dead wives, dead husbands, fallen parents, children taken before their time… Some only stayed for a brief glance, but most lingered, enduring the pain for a chance to see someone they’d lost one more time.
Finally the last otrokar stepped aside, letting the ghost of her past fade into the light. The shaman moved, his staff drawing a complicated pattern in the air. An otrokar woman began to sing, her voice soft but rising, a challenge to the stars above us.
The shaman thrust his staff into the ground and opened his arms.
The fires turned white. Tiny sparks swirled within them like ghostly fireflies.
The woman’s voice rose, stronger and stronger, her song holding the darkness at bay like a shield.
Fear not the darkness
Fear not the night
You are not forsaken
We remember you
The fire exploded. Thousands of white sparks floated through the air, swirling, drifting among the otrokars. The shaman held out his hand, letting the glowing dots brush against his skin, and smiled.
The myriad of glowing lights floated up, pulled to the sky by some invisible current, and rose high, toward the greater universe beyond.
Chapter Twelve
Four long tables stood in the main ballroom, arranged into a rough letter m: one table across for the Arbitrator, the heads of the delegations, and special guests, which included Caldenia and Sophie, and three longwise, with about twenty-five feet of space between each to make sure nobody happened to trip and accidentally fall into a slaughter. We put the otrokars on the left, the Nuan Clan in the middle, and the Holy Anocracy on the right. I took a position to the left of the main table. I was starving, but food was out of the question. I had asked Orro to save me a plate because this banquet would require my complete attention. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it with honey for dessert.