Radu cleared his throat. “Ben, what has been your favorite part of traveling with the Dawn Caravan?”
“Other than the company?” Ben lifted his glass.
Kezia and Radu clinked theirs with appreciative noises.
“Of course the company!”
“A good story will save a night,” Kezia said. “And what else?”
“I love the music.” He saw Vano headed in the direction of Tenzin’s trailer. “Uh… the food has been great too. Just everything. I love the scenery.”
“We are headed to a beautiful lake region,” Kezia said. “You will enjoy it.”
“Perhaps.” Radu’s voice was sharp. “The darigan, of course, decide where and when the caravan travels. They take many things into consideration.”
“Yes.” Kezia smiled. “We all depend on the wisdom of the darigan.”
Ben lifted his glass. “To the wisdom of the darigan.”
“To the darigan,” Radu toasted.
The corner of Kezia’s mouth turned up. “May they never burn us alive.”
Tenzin hovered in a shadow, listening to Ben, Kezia, and Radu speak.
“May they never burn us alive.”
Wow. Dark.
Tenzin wasn’t worried about the darigan burning her in her sleep. She didn’t sleep and she always had an escape plan when it came to any situation. Currently, it involved a very heavy cloak stored under her bed and the location of natural limestone caves within a few minutes’ flying distance, should the need arise.
But why was Kezia questioning the loyalty of the darigan? Had something fundamental changed? The interdependence of the darigan and the Hazar was a foundational part of Poshani culture. What could disturb that?
Tenzin landed softly on the grass behind a kitchen trailer and started walking back to her caravan. She’d suspected Vano from the beginning, but now she was wondering just how much Kezia might be involved. Maybe it wasn’t Vano trying to maneuver Radu out of the terrin. Maybe it was Vano and Kezia trying to make a trio into a duo of power.
She rounded the corner and sensed a large group just ahead.
Vano and some of his men if she had to guess by scent.
Interesting.
She hesitated for a moment and considered taking to the air. But seconds later, she felt something tight wrap around her ankles as a thin metal net enveloped her from head to toe.
What on earth?
Tenzin allowed herself to fall to the ground. She was curious what their plan was.
Vano walked out from behind her caravan. “A bird in a net.”
Tenzin stared at him. “Do you actually think this will hold me?”
“It will hold you long enough.”
Four men grabbed her.
Tenzin laughed as they lifted her on their shoulders and flew away. “The hospitality of the Poshani has been greatly overstated.”
32
“Oooooh.” Brigid’s voice was pained. “She told you.”
“Told me what?” Ben was in his room, an hour before sunrise, still brooding over what Tenzin had said.
“The anger thing. That’s what reminded me so much of my life from the beginning.” She moved from a babble of background noise into silence. “Now listen, I know you’re probably—”
“I’m not an angry person, Brigid!” Ben was pacing again. He was very ready to be living in something bigger than his kitchen back in New York. The Poshani caravans might be the height of camping luxury, but they were still cramped. “She’s completely off. I mean, I’m angry about this of course. I’m angry about her.”
“I was going to say you’re probably in denial.”
What the fuck? Ben’s mouth fell open. “You think she’s right?”
“Right?” Brigid asked. “Of course she’s right. Carwyn and I talked about it immediately after you turned.”
Ben could only blink.
“Your childhood was shit, Ben. Your mother is a con artist and your father was abusive. You’ve told me that yourself. And childhood shouldn’t be shit, so you have a right to be angry about that. I also think you have a little bit of a death wish and have had for quite a while. Which is related but another thing altogether, and I’m not a therapist.” She took a breath. “Have you considered visiting Anne?”
“I don’t need therapy!”
“Of course you fecking need therapy. We’re all messes; we all need bloody therapy. You stole a vampire’s wallet at age twelve. And then when he wanted to adopt you, you just went along with it. I mean, Gio’s a good person, but did you know that at age twelve? Of course you fecking didn’t. You don’t think you had a death wish?”
“You’re so completely wrong I don’t even— Can we talk about Tenzin please?”
“Okay, but just so you know, she’s right. You have a lot of unresolved anger.”
“She said that becoming a vampire doesn’t change who you are; it reveals it. And I don’t agree with that. I think people do change. I’ve seen it.”
“Everyone changes over time, but the woman’s been alive for something like five thousand years. You don’t think she has a fairly good perspective on this? I think she’s right.”
“You think becoming a vampire revealed who you really are?”
Brigid took a long breath. “I think becoming a vampire forced me to deal with the things I’d been avoiding in my human life. Because when you only have seventy or eighty years to live, you can put off looking at a lot of things too closely. You can fill your life with this and that, stay nice and busy, and if you really try, you can pretend you’re happy with that.”
Ben stopped pacing.
“But when you have hundreds of years stretching in front of you—possibly more,” Brigid continued in a softer voice, “you can’t push all those things away. You have to look at yourself for who you are. You have to learn to live with yourself. And sometimes that’s shit, Ben. It’s shit, but it’s the only way to move forward.”
Ben sat and stared at the blacked-out windows covered in works of art that literally hid him from the world outside. “I was telling Chloe last night that I was glad I was alive. Not just that I was okay with it, but that I was actually happy.”
“Do you still feel that way? Think past your emotions right now and the fight with Tenzin.”
“I think I do.” He closed his eyes and tried to think clearly. “I’m all over the place, Brigid.”
“That’s normal. You’re going through vampire puberty right now with the mood swings, and it’s crap. You’re processing everything faster, but your senses are stronger, which means there is literally more data coming in for you to process. To put it in technological terms, your system is overloaded. Your software hasn’t quite updated yet, but it will. Eventually it will all even out.” She muttered something under her breath.
“What?”
She cleared her throat and spoke so rapidly her words nearly ran together. “Getting a leg over helps, but I imagine that’s a bit complicated for you right now, and a therapist definitely wouldn’t suggest that, so probably ignore me, but it does help.”