Renegade's Magic (The Soldier Son Trilogy #3)

Renegade's Magic (The Soldier Son Trilogy #3) Page 146

Such a drawing off could not escape Jodoli’s notice. “How do I smooth his feathers?” Soldier’s Boy asked of me late one evening as the rest of the lodge slumbered around us. I tried to hold myself aloof from his questions, but at such times, when we were alone in his mind, I felt like a prisoner tormented during questioning. I could not escape him, and if I would not surrender what he wanted, he would resort to picking through my memories. He concentrated most heavily on what my father had taught me. That wrung the most guilt and pain from me, for it seemed a double defection that I betrayed my father as well as my own people when I used my father’s hard-won knowledge of strategy and tactics against them.

“How do I win Jodoli over to me?” he asked me again. Olikea slept heavy and warm against me. Her sorrow had left her limp and exhausted. She moved once, making a small sound like a baby’s half sob, and was still. She smelled of tears. He sighed heavily. “I don’t like to do this to you.” I felt him begin to plumb our shared past, drilling through my memories in search of advice that might apply. I gave in.

“You have two options,” I told him. “Either you make your cause his. Or you make it appear to him that you have come over to share his concerns. Either one will work, if you do it well.”

I could feel him thinking that through. Threads of a plan started to weave together in his mind. I almost felt him smile. “And if I did it well enough, would that be how I win you over, too?”

“I will never be a traitor to my people,” I told him fervently.

“Perhaps all I need to do is show you which people are truly your own,” he replied mildly. “Perhaps if I think long enough and in enough detail, I will get you to face what the Gernians did to you. How your fiancée mocked you and your father disowned you. How no one wished to let you serve your king. How your ‘own people’ decided not just to hang you, but to slice you to quivering meat before they ended your days. And then I might remind you of who took you in and fed you and cared for you. I might ask you which women treated you as a man, and which people respected you and the magic you held. I might ask you—”

“I could remind you that Spink and Epiny risked all to rescue me. And that Amzil was willing to sacrifice herself however she must to help me get past the guards.”

“She was willing to do that, but not to lie with you,” he pointed out snidely.

“Olikea was willing to lie with you, but not love you,” I retorted.

“What sort of a man, what sort of a soldier, cares so much about being loved and so little for duty to a people loyal to him?”

I had no answer to his words. They struck strangely deep in me. “Leave me alone,” I retorted savagely.

“As you wish,” he conceded and did.

When he did not need my advice, he ignored me. At those times, I felt as if I were coming loose from time as well as space. I seemed not to sleep but from time to time to lose awareness of myself as a separate entity. I felt like a tiny piece of driftwood spinning slowly in a backwater of his mind. The currents moved me but I had no influence on them. His words about which people were truly my own ate at me like acid; I felt that my core self grew smaller whenever I considered them. Buel Hitch’s words from long ago came back to haunt me. Why was it a virtue to remain loyal to a people simply because I had been born into their midst? Why could I not simply turn my back on the Gernians as they had turned against me, and become a Speck with my whole heart? At such times, I think that only my small circle of kin and friends at Gettys kept me Gernian.

As from a distance, I watched Soldier’s Boy court Olikea’s kin-clan, trying to gain their acceptance and trust. And when the time came, he did not invite Jodoli to his lodge, but instead sought him out on the kin-clan’s own grounds. Olikea’s and Firada’s father quickly welcomed him in. Kilikurra had been the first Speck to speak to me, and I think he felt a measure of honor in having been the first to recognize a Great One come among them. He was a man of middle years, with black lips, mismatched eyes, and streaky gray hair. I now thought of how he had lost the mother of his daughters to Kinrove’s dance, and saw his fresh grief at the loss of his grandson. He and Soldier’s Boy spoke long and quietly together, and Soldier’s Boy made him an ally in his drive to regain the boy. It was heartbreaking how easily the man was won over by Soldier’s Boy’s promises of doing all he could to get Likari back. Soldier’s Boy did not try to conceal the grief he felt at the boy’s absence and his concern for his well-being. I don’t think that even he could detect the line between what he actually felt and how useful it was in swaying the Specks to his cause.