Chapter 19

Brahm came to, her head pounding. The sounds of rushing water inundated her ears, as did the steady creaking of wood. Above her, beams crisscrossed the ceiling, and she traced their path to the smooth curved walls of the ship in which she found herself imprisoned. Her head throbbed as she sat up, but it was no more painful than her rope-bound wrists and ankles. They itched and burned.

She rolled to her side. Both White Feather and Diarmuid lay close to the wall, unconscious. Lya was not in the room with them. Brahm listened to the groaning of the ship, and her mind sailed through the memories of what had happened.

Her brother had become much better with a sword than she had ever thought possible. After a short skirmish, he disarmed Diarmuid. And White Feather had been no match for nine Confederation Guards. She closed her eyes as the memory of it stung. She had been useless, barely able to stand, let alone fight. And in that fucking dress, without weapons, she might as well have knelt at her brother's feet. She still felt the pain from the blow he had dealt to her at the back of the head. She remembered the look in his eyes when he had struck her. It hurt him to capture her, but the pain that lingered in his eyes was from the wound she had inflicted when she left his side so long ago.

She looked at White Feather. As she stared at his long frame huddled on the floor she wanted to reach over and touch him.

He shuffled and rolled towards her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He groaned, and nodded. “You?”

“I've seen better days.”

His eyes hinted at anger. “He's your brother?”

“Yes.”

“Your brother is Captain of the Confederation Guard?”

She sighed. This is where it would get painful. “Yes,” she said, “but he wasn't always. He used to be second in command to me.” She braced herself for a torrent of anger.

His eyes seethed for a moment before he spoke in a low hiss. “So the rumors were true. You used to be one of them.”

She swallowed the knot in her throat. “Yes.”

“And to think I … to think … did Gray Wolf know?”

Brahm nodded. “She took that secret to her grave.”

“Is it also true you killed her and Two Moon's family?”

Brahm shook her head and her eyes welled up. “No. I could never have harmed her. She died trying to save Two Moon's family. I begged her not to go with them that day, but they left before I woke. I tracked them to find the wolfen over Gray Wolf. They fled as I approached. Two Moon came out of the woods later to find me kneeling over her dead body and those of his slain parents.”

“How do I know you're not lying?” He turned his head away. “Does anyone else know?”

“Diarmuid, Gregor, your mother, and now the Hoyaneh.”

His face reddened. “Were you planning on telling me?” His voice was low, disappointed.

The tears ran. “I thought the Hoyaneh would tell you before we left.” She paused, trying to find his eyes, but he averted his gaze. “I’m sorry. I should have told you long ago.”

He sat in silent disapproval for a time, and Diarmuid stirred. His face was cut and bruised. Mason had shown him little mercy.

The pepper-haired man groaned. “Ugh. I feel like hell. Are you two okay?”

Brahm nodded and dried the tears on the shreds of her dress.

White Feather remained silent.

“Where’s Lya?”

The sound of footsteps approaching set them all to silence. Keys rattled outside the door. It groaned as Mason opened it. A young man followed him with a small pail and rag in hand.

Mason looked them over.”Clean him up,” he ordered, and the youth ran to wash the dried blood that was caked to Diarmuid's face. His eye was swollen and angry. When the young man finished, Mason ordered him out.

He walked the perimeter of the hold, his polished knee-high boots clacking on the wooden floor. “Traitors are tried before the High Court and hanged if found guilty. Brahm, your former service to the Confederation may gain you some sympathy, but treason is punishable by death. I am sorry I found you. I hoped we would never meet again. I have no desire to see you hang, but justice must be served.” He struggled to keep his face without expression, but sorrow lingered in his eyes. He adjusted his jacket and flicked something off his shoulder.

She remembered being like that once. It was her whole life, everything she stood for. She was so principled and so regimented then.

Until the night she met Sephirah.

“Where’s Lya?” she asked.

Mason continued stalking the perimeter. “She will bear witness to your trial so she can remember the price of rebelling against the Confederation, then we will make her one of our own. I've heard interesting things about her abilities. She'll make a good addition to our ranks. We hoped to take that brother of hers as well, but it was not him waiting in the bushes like Breland had hoped. He made a grave error in letting you out with those Hunters, but his actions have been redeemed.”

Brahm was stunned. “You let her go as bait?”

Diarmuid's eyes raged. He fiddled with the bandage on his arm. “Paine would be of little use to you.”

“It does not matter. The Senator has ordered him to be taken alive. His usefulness will be determined later.” He paused for a moment. “What is interesting is how once you took their mother, I now have the daughter.”

Brahm's brave look slipped into one of disappointment.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” His eyes were unreadable. “You haven't told her, have you? You haven't told her how you killed her mother? How you led an ambush against a band of half-breed rebels and Haudenosaunee, and killed them for conspiring against the Confederation?”

Brahm hung her head as White Feather's eyes bored through her. The ship's creaking grew louder.

“Brahm, you shame me. I thought you had at least maintained your integrity. Did you lie your way into Haven?”

“No,” she said. “Haven knows.”

“And they still took you in —the Wendigo? And your Haudenosaunee friends; it would seem they didn't know.”

White Feather turned his gaze from her.

“They know,” she muttered.

“And what about the girl?”

Brahm’s shame was a weight around her neck. “I have not told her.”

Again the ship groaned and tilted to the left. Brahm adjusted her position to keep from sliding.

“You killed fifty of our people.” White Feather's voice was coated in rage. “You killed them all. Our people. And the children you stole in the night.”

Brahm nodded her head, her stomach reeling. She felt nauseous.

Mason rose. “I must leave you now.”

Brahm left her head hanging on her chest as the sound of Mason's boots stepped out the door. She never felt so alone as she did in that moment. She hated herself for who she had been, for what she had done, and for those she had killed. And all the children she had taken who now had become the Hunters that terrorized them.

Diarmuid slid over to her. “Tell him everything.”

How many times would she have to relive this? When would it be over?

She sighed. “When Mason and I were young, our parents owned a vineyard outside New Memphis. We were sent off to a Confederation school at a young age. We were taught how witchcraft destroyed us in the Witch Wars and how we should turn in all those that wielded it. They were a menace to be destroyed.

“In time, both Mason and I showed great physical prowess and one of the instructors decided we should be taken for training. Our parents were thrilled. So, most of our time was spent learning to become the best of the Confederation Guard. What we didn't realize was we were continually being fed Confederation propaganda. I can see it now, but couldn't see it to save my life back then. I suspect Mason still doesn't see it.

“Eventually I became head of the Guard, and Mason was my second in command. Our network of spies told us of a secret meeting that was to take place between Haven, the Haudenosaunee and the Lastborn. We suspected for some time they were planning on waging a war against the Confederation. It was rumored they brought with them a weapon of incredible power, but we never found it after they were vanquished. We came upon them in the night and killed many in their sleep before they had a chance to raise an alarm. I stood as their judge and executioner.”

White Feather hung his head, his eyes moist with pain and anger.

“Among those present was a woman who stood to face me. She had Lya’s eyes and dark hair — her mother. I drove my sword through her before she could summon anything to aid her.” Brahm kept the rest to herself, remembering the feeling that seeped into her as the woman gripped her with hands of iron, smearing her own blood on Brahm's fingers and face. She could still taste her blood and the words she had whispered still haunted her.

My soul to your soul. We are one, Soul Runner.

If the woman was capable of forcing her own soul into Brahm’s, what else was she capable of? Could she eventually take over her body?

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am,” she said, pushing the thought from her mind. “I was another person then.”

She looked to White Feather. “Gray Wolf forgave me and my past. Though I do not deserve it, I ask the same of you.”

White Feather continued in his silent rebuke.

The ship groaned and Brahm's head sagged. Her shoulders heaved and guilt streamed down her face in tears that dripped into the dark violet of her torn dress. Strangely her second soul was not screaming. Instead Sephirah’s soul held Brahm’s in her own and they wept together.