Masad’s attention shifted to Gilene. He spoke in the trader’s tongue. “You can truly wield fire?”
She nodded and kept her reply succinct. “Yes.”
He eyed her a little longer before turning to Azarion. “The Fire Council will want her to prove it. Seeing her walk through the Veil will give truth to your story, but they’ll want more. The Ataman Council will want to speak with you as well.”
Azarion had waited ten long years for such an opportunity. “I want to speak with them.” His cousin Karsas sat wrongly as head of Clan Kestrel, and Azarion wanted justice. Killing your relatives through ritual combat was accepted by the Savatar. Selling them into slavery was not. Karsas had taken the coward’s way in getting rid of his rival.
Masad edged closer to him, his voice barely above a murmur. “Even with an agacin by your side, you’ll still have to face Karsas in ritual combat for the chieftainship.”
He truly hoped so. The chance to challenge his cousin to a fight had been a dark dream that had kept Azarion alive for so long as a gladiator.
With the four other archers ahead of them but still close enough to hear everything spoken in a normal voice, Azarion didn’t badger Masad for details regarding Karsas and his leadership. And while Masad had been his teacher from childhood and was, in many ways, a second father, he was fiercely loyal to the clan. Karsas was ataman of his clan; therefore, Masad was loyal to Karsas. Azarion didn’t want to put the man into an untenable position of divided loyalties. He would make a stronger ally if not forced to choose between his chieftain and his newly resurrected nephew.
He steered their conversation toward less dangerous subjects. “Tell me what has happened since I’ve been gone these many years.”
They rode at a leisurely pace for several hours as Masad recounted the ten years Azarion was enslaved within the Empire’s borders—the ever-shifting status of the Savatar clans, births and deaths, marriages and raids, the seasonal migration from the Novgarin foothills to the sweeping pasturelands of the east and back again.
All these things Azarion remembered, unchanging, as predictable as the sun’s rise and the wind’s ceaseless breath over the grasses. Yet Masad’s narrative hinted at less welcome changes. There were others besides him who’d embrace the chance to fill Azarion’s ears, namely his mother, Saruke.
Masad left Azarion and Gilene behind and joined the archers ahead of them. The Sky Below stretched before them in a flat swath of swaying grasses and the rolling shadows of scudding clouds.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Gilene said. “Your family will be overjoyed to see you.”
He hoped so. An image of his mother rose up in his mind’s eye, her features creased by her gap-toothed smile. Tamura was a vaguer memory. Pretty, fierce, and one of the clan’s finest archers. According to Masad, she hadn’t married, and Azarion was grateful that Karsas hadn’t taken her to wife. Such a familial connection wouldn’t stop him from killing the man, but he’d regret hurting his sister if her husband meant more to her than just an elevation in status.
“Karsas is the cousin who sold you?” Gilene kept her voice low.
“He is.”
A thoughtful expression settled over her face. “But if you’re here, alive and recognized by many as the ataman’s son, why do you need me to claim your place as ataman? It belongs to you by birth, does it not?”
He wished it were that simple. “I’ve been gone too long. There’s a point where claim by merit overrules claim by birthright. I’ve nothing in the way of experience and rule to justify my challenge to retake the ataman’s seat without something beyond my bloodlines. No council decisions, no enriching the clan through trade or raids. I haven’t married another clan’s daughter to strengthen ties or the line of families. You are the only link to the chieftainship that means something now. As my woman, you’re a direct blessing from Agna, a sign of her approval of me.”
Her mouth pinched. “I’m not your woman.”
“For your sake, pretend you are. It puts you under my protection. Say I have no claim to you, and I’ll have to fight off those who would take you for themselves. You might never see Beroe again.” That threat had become the weapon he employed to force her cooperation, and he was growing heartily sick of using it. He’d much rather coax than threaten her to stay.
“Why would you let me go if they won’t?”
They’d argue this until he delivered her to her doorstep. “Because, as I said before, you saved my life. I’m in your debt, and I’ve made you a promise.”
The disdain faded from her expression; the distrust did not. “Do all Savatar keep their promises?”
“This one does.”
“Won’t you lose your place as ataman if I leave?”
He glanced at the men riding ahead of them. Gilene’s question was a dangerous one, spoken from the stance that he would inevitably reclaim his birthright from his cousin.
“No,” he said. “Once Agna’s blessing is recognized by the councils, it’s permanent, even if the agacin chooses to marry into another clan or, as with you, leaves the Savatar.” That, and he planned to kill his cousin. Karsas wouldn’t live to work his treachery a second time.
Gilene arched a doubtful eyebrow. “There have been agacins who left?”
“Not in the memory of the people.”
“I thought not.” She huffed a frustrated sigh. “Where will I stay while I’m in your camp? With you?”
“Yes, and it’s anyone’s guess where I’ll lay my head. Likely in my mother’s qara, though she’s subject to Karsas’s will now, and he might not allow it.” There was no reason for his cousin to forbid it except from pettiness, but he was ataman. His clansmen wouldn’t question so small a thing.
“He may try to kill you.” Gilene’s voice lacked any glee at the possibility, and he fancied for a moment that it actually contained a hint of worry.
Azarion smiled. “I’ve no doubt of it. He failed the first time. The Karsas I remember never accepted failure well.”
They went quiet when Masad trotted back to them. “Do you want me to send those foolish boys ahead to cry the news? Or should we ride in and surprise them all?”
The shrewd look his uncle leveled on Azarion told him he already knew the answer. Azarion’s reply was simply for the benefit of other listening ears. He was happy to oblige. “Surprise them,” he said, letting his voice carry on the wind. “I long to see my mother’s and sister’s faces after all this time.” And to keep a shocked Karsas from planning an unfortunate accident.
They picked up their pace after that, traveling at a gallop until Azarion caught sight of colorful flags fluttering atop the peaks of qaras. The round structures squatted on the steppe in loose clusters. Carts stood next to several of them, and horse and sheep herds grazed nearby.