Page 18 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Eighteen

Neta

It was not every day one received a summons to an Old Family. Curious, worried, and perhaps a bit hopeful, Neta hurried to the Bhalu estate as soon as the messenger finished speaking, leaving her mother Varisa calling after her, “Be careful! And don’t let them disrespect you!”

The road took her past the Pinnsviri estate, where Pabu’s granddaughter Bhayana leaned against a stone porcupine as she talked to Chaku, a former serji recently promoted to midya – in Red Battalion, if Neta recalled correctly.

Bhayana saw the movement, glanced at Neta, and dismissed her, smiling bright and coy at Chaku. Neta rolled her eyes. She’d watched Bhayana’s trial for abusing the innkeeper’s son during their courtship. Sava and Athicha had been furious for weeks afterward at her light sentence. Everyone knew the only reason Bhayana hadn’t been banished to the tundra for at least a year was because of her family.

The Bhalu family did not have their seat of power in Pahuuda, but another Ghuran town several miles west. Thulu’s sister held command out there, while Thulu, his husband, and their adopted children moved to Pahuuda to take the Master’s seat beside the chief. Thulu’s home was guarded by stone bears and was carved deeper into the mountain than the other estates, meaning there were fewer windows and a lot more candles and torches. But the walls themselves were carved with animals, soldiers, gods, and their nomadic ancestors, and they echoed with the sound of little feet and bickering from a dozen different directions.

As Neta stepped inside Thulu’s cavernous home and removed her boots, shouts echoed down the stone halls.

She stiffened. She knew that voice.

Her uncle, Athor Cituva, stormed into the hall, thunder on his face. He stopped when he saw her, and their eyes met. He wore the leopard family symbol as teeth pierced through his ears and claws around his neck. With the exception of skin tone, the two of them looked incredibly similar, likely because Neta’s father was Athor’s twin – same button nose, broad shoulders, and dimpled chin.

As Thulu stepped into the hall, Athor looked back. “You’re making a mistake.”

“I think I can survive rankling your pride, Athor. This meeting was a courtesy. Keep yelling at me in my own home, and I’ll toss you into the street face-first.”

Thulu dwarfed even the tallest of soldiers, and Athor hadn’t served in the militia a day in his life – rare for a Master. He turned to pick up his boots, but as he put them on, he hissed under his breath, “Reject his offer, Neta. If you know what’s good for you.”

Now beyond curious, Neta replied, “I didn’t follow your last order, uncle. What makes you think I’ll follow this one?”

His glare sharpened when she called him uncle, a forbidden word. “If you want to earn that cloak you insist on wearing, you’ll learn to obey.”

She chuckled without mirth. “I tried that, remember? All it got me were tears and a broken hand.”

She’d been a dumb thirteen-year-old, living with a mother who refused to have anything to do with her ex-paramour’s family. Neta had offered to help tend to her sick, dying grandmother, thinking it would endear her to the rest of the family that had rejected her for her Reguallian blood. But all she’d received was humiliation. Her cousins bullied and pranked her while Athor had only used her to clean his estate. Her father Aravi – who had only visited Pahuuda to see to his dying mother – hadn’t even looked at her and had left town to go back to his current wife and children a hundred miles away.

The final break had been when her cousins called her mother “the Reguallian whore.” She’d gone home that day with two broken knuckles and a painful lesson: if she had to “earn” love and respect, it had never been there in the first place.

The next month, she’d hunted a snow leopard, tended to the pelt herself, and worn it in defiance. She was a Cituva by blood, and nothing Athor, Aravi, or anyone else said was going to change that.

Athor had still tried to order her to give up the cloak. She’d refused. The matter had gone all the way to the chief, who had backed her up.

Her uncle sneered at her as he finished putting on his boots and left.

“I see why you live away from them,” Thulu drawled.

“My mother’s house is closer to the training field anyway,” Neta agreed. “You asked to see me, Master Thulu?”

He led her into one of the smaller rooms, lit by candles and the hearth, as there were no windows, and handed her a slip of paper. Neta savored the feeling in her hands, so rarely did she ever get to touch the stuff.

“That’s a transfer order,” he explained as she unfolded it. “You’re going to be part of my battalion. As a serji.”

Neta’s head shot up. “Sir?”

He shrugged. “I need officers, and Sava called in a favor.”

Annoyance soured her joy. Of course it wasn’t because of her own merit. That was how it worked in Pahuuda.

Still. She knew Sava didn’t use those favors lightly.

“I also talked to Ghrahanu,” Thulu continued, “who said that you’d be an all right officer, if you could stay out of fights.”

“I don’t start fights,” Neta assured him. “I finish them.”

He grinned. “Then you’ll do fine. I’m also giving you the witch and her friend. Another favor for that wolf pup; those two wanted to stay together. At least for training. There’s talk of her joining the medics after.”

Neta paused. “That tiny wisp enlisted?”

“She did.”

“Can she even carry a shield?”

“No idea.”

“And you want me to turn her into a soldier?”

“Yes. One who can kill and defend herself without cheating with magic.”

Neta tried to keep the smirk from her face, but knew she failed. She’d never been afraid of a challenge.