Warrior's Touch (Deadly Touch book 2)
Not The Man He Was

What good was a Syakaran without Syakaran strength or Syakaran speed? No good, that’s what.

Salmen cuffed Jonas’s hands behind him before returning to his post by the gate. What more could Jonas do but follow Braph as he walked, arm around Llew’s ma’s shoulders? She hadn’t done a thing to try and free herself. Then again, she wasn’t Syakaran, either. And she was heavily pregnant. She was in no state to fight her way free.

Duffirk had quietened significantly since they’d first arrived at the palace. It would be fair to think that most were inside enjoying an evening meal. Which meant a day had passed since any of their lot had eaten. How was Braph still standing? He was Karan. He needed to eat like any other Karan, even if he did have his device, didn’t he? Jonas was sure hungry. Nothing like he would have been if he were still Syakaran. Didn’t make it any less unpleasant or leave him any less lethargic. If anything, he was more so, with the added sense of utter helplessness.

“Cinqa? Got any cinqa?” A young boy called from his seat on the gutter.

Jonas had never thought much about these kids before, but now he always seemed to see Llew in their place. It was where she had come from. And now she was caged, and he didn’t have the power to do anything about it.

Braph stopped in front of the boy. “I will give you a whole mira if you will do something for me.”

The boy jumped to his feet. Had he ever held an entire mira before?

“I need someone to run ahead to my home, let the soldiers there know they’re no longer needed, and my staff know that my guests and I require a meal on our return.” He bent to tell the boy his address. “Nothing now. One mira when I reach my home, and everything is in order. Can you do that?”

The boy nodded, brimming with enthusiasm.

“Now.” Braph placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The soldiers will probably laugh at you. They may even curse you. Don’t listen to them, and don’t push on at them. I wouldn’t want them to hurt you. Just make sure my staff get the message. I will clear up any doubts on my arrival.”

The boy nodded again. Eager, determined to win the prize.

“Now go.”

The boy shuffled off in a kind of skipping gait, one foot trying to drag behind.

Braph turned to Llew’s ma. “Now I need a favor from you, my love.” He dug in his long coat, reaching across himself to replace a hidden pocket. The leather kept trying to settle before he got his hand under it, but still Braph didn’t ask for help. Not that Jonas could offer any with his hands behind his back. And Llew’s ma didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. She was free of the Turhmos dungeon, but now in Braph’s hand. And her daughter had taken her place. Jonas wished he could say something to comfort her but, truth was, he needed some words himself.

Braph pulled what he had sought free. One of his vial and syringe contraptions. He looked from Llew’s ma to Jonas, clamped the syringe and vial under his short arm, and dug in a pocket again.

“I can trust you, can’t I, Jonas?” he said, still fishing in a pocket. “You’ve got nowhere to go anyway, Llew is in the safest place for her right now, and you’re about to meet your son for the first time.”

Jonas swallowed down a threatening lump. His son.

Braph brandished a brass key.

“You won’t try anything stupid, now, will you?”

“No.” His son was the only light Jonas still had to look forward to.

“Orinia, my love. Could you do the honors of freeing the hands of your daughter’s lover?”

She looked at Jonas then. Really looked at him. “You didn’t stop them,” she said. Her tone straddled a line between accusation and question.

Jonas didn’t know what to say. Everything, no matter how true, seemed like a poor excuse.

“To be fair, he’s not the man he was.” Braph freed the syringe and vial from beneath his arm. “Please, my love. Do the honors, would you?”

Jonas turned, presenting his shackles to her and she silently unlocked them, letting them fall to the ground.

“Now, Jonas can fulfil his role as my two-handed assistant.” Braph smiled, a hint of self-deprecation around his eyes. He held out the vial and syringe for Jonas, then turned to Llew’s ma. “Forgive me, my love. But I need to be prepared to fight for our home and...” He glanced down at her belly. “Our son.”

“Orin.” Llew’s ma’s voice trembled.

“Yes, Orin. He was well, last I saw him.” Braph leaned closer to her. “And will be beyond well, come the week’s end, if I have anything to say about it.” He stood back and waved his stump from Jonas to Orinia. “Jonas?”

Jonas fitted the vial to the syringe and Orinia presented her arm like she’d done this countless times before.

As used as he was to fighting and killing in close quarters, the idea of sticking a needle in someone’s arm unsettled him. Braph worked his way around so he could come in close without blocking the dull light from a gas lamp and directed them in locating a vein with the needle.

“You love her?” Orinia asked as her blood flooded the glass vial.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you protect her?”

Jonas couldn’t answer.

“Two.” Braph held a second vial out as the first filled.

“Why did you bring her here?” Llew’s ma pushed.

Jonas pulled the needle, popped the first vial free, swapped it for the empty one and sought the vein again.

“She should never have returned.”

Jonas couldn’t disagree. But the world looked a whole lot different from this side of events. Llew had come to save her ma, and she’d come to help defeat Aris. And she’d come because he couldn’t protect her if she stayed behind. He couldn’t protect her now, no matter where she was.

Second vial filled, he passed it to Braph, who’d already fitted the first to his device and was taking the usual deep breath, savoring the moment Syaenuk blood mixed with his own.

With the spare vial and syringe secreted away, Braph pulled Orinia to him and guided her down the street. And with nothing better to do, Jonas followed, keeping his head down and darting wary glances every which way, hoping no one recognized him in the dark.

The beggar boy awaited them by a wrought iron fence.

“Soldiers had heard you was back, mister,” he reported. “Weren’t none here. Reckon I still earned that mira, though.”

“And Nilv has a meal on for us?” Braph dug in his pockets.

“’S that his name?”

Jonas doubted the boy cared for the answer. He wanted to keep Braph sweet till the money changed hands.

“Yeah, but he was real pleased to hear you was back. Said he had a cold roast ready to cut.” The boy’s voice grew thick over the words, his mouth watering.

Braph handed the paper money to the boy. “Well, you wait here a minute and I’ll send someone out with a slice of meat for you.”

The kid’s eyes just about boggled out of his head and he seemed lost for words.

Jonas stole a glance at his brother, seeing the man he’d always hoped he would grow to be. The image didn’t meld too well with what he knew of Braph, but it was enough to bolster the illusion that Braph could be a good man. If he’d wanted to be.

Braph opened the gate and guided Orinia through, a hand resting at her lower back.

“Thanks, mister.” The boy’s gratitude followed Jonas up the garden path.

From the outside, the home could have been anyone’s, but inside was all Braph. Not the Braph of Jonas’s childhood. This was the home of the inventor who built his contraptions into his own skin. Pieces of machinery hung from the wall, a shrine to Braph’s own brilliance. Jonas tried to imagine what Llew would have thought about it all when Braph brought her here. Her, a Syaenuk coming into the home of this man who would use her blood to fuel his magic. This home, a place of metal and the sound of running liquid. It gave him chills.

Copper pipes along the walls of the dark hallway sucked whatever heat may have been in the air. Jonas was reluctant to close the door behind him, not wanting to feel trapped in this place. And he wasn’t here to serve Braph. At least, not in any capacity Llew had.

“Master!” An old man tottered along the hall. Despite obviously stiff joints, he moved with determination and an eagerness to please Braph. “There is food in the dining hall.” He worked his way behind Braph, preparing to take his coat. “Is there anything you would have me do for your... guests?”

“First, send Maura out with a slice of meat for the young man waiting by the gate.”

“The one you sent, sir?”

Braph nodded. “Then you may bring the meal to the children’s room.”

“The, ah—” The old man’s eyes darted about. “The, ah, boys are asleep, sir?”

“I am sure they will forgive the disturbance.”

The old man looked from Orinia to Jonas. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Of course. I’ll, ah... I’ll get Maura.” He turned and hobbled back along the hall, pausing to hang Braph’s coat on a hook by the bottom of some steps.

Four doors led off from the main hallway. Stairs climbed to a mezzanine-style second story that stretched over a hall perpendicular to the first. The house had appeared deceptively small from outside.

Jonas followed the sweep of Braph’s hand, inviting him to step through the door next to him. His son was just a door away. Asleep. He turned back to Braph; eyebrows raised. Braph nodded. The first time he was going to lay eyes on his son, and he was going to wake him in the middle of the night. The boy would think him a monster. He was about to say as much to Braph when his brother urged him on.

“Go on.”

He wanted to. That was his son through there. Maybe they wouldn’t have to wake him. Maybe he could just peek, then see him properly in the morning. But the ache in his heart lifted his hand. He clasped the cold brass handle, pressed his other hand to the door, and eased the door open as quietly as possible, hoping the children were deep sleepers.

Just a peek.

As soon as the door opened, bedding shifted, and a child murmured. Jonas stepped into the dark, keeping his footfalls as light as possible. Behind him, Braph struck a match and lit a gas lamp.

A child of about eight or nine – although, he could as easily have been five, or eleven, for all Jonas knew of children – covered his eyes against the light, rubbed his eyes and peered at them.

“Dad?”

“Hello, Orin.”

The boy threw his bedding back, scrambled from the bed and ran into Braph’s arms. “Dad!”

Braph caught the boy in a hug, lifting him from the ground.

Jonas had been thinking maybe he’d meet a reserved child, if not a downright fearful one. But a boy who would run into Braph’s arms? He was captured by the moment, half expecting the image to poof into nothing and be replaced by his original expectations. But it was true. The boy clung to Braph with what could only be described as true love and joy.

A higher voice muttered from another corner of the room. Jonas sought the source while the reunion continued behind him.

“Orin, you may not remember her – you were only a baby when she was taken – but this is your mother.”

Orinia stifled a sob and gathered the boy in her arms. Braph must have always told the boy the truth of his parentage as the child let her press him firmly against her breast. Jonas wondered if Braph had done the same with his son. He hoped so. Perhaps not the truth of the circumstances, but he hoped his son knew of him already.

Jonas moved farther into the dark. The shadows shifted as Braph raised the lamp behind him, bringing the cot into focus.

His child fussed, rubbed at his eyes, and was on the verge of screaming the house down. It was the most amazing thing Jonas had ever seen.

Something touched his shoulder. Instinct told him to spin around and hurl his attacker across the room. But he couldn’t take his eyes off his son.

Braph’s hand settled.

“Let’s do this right. Come.” With light pressure, Braph guided Jonas to a chair. The wooden frame was soft with wear and the suede back and seat supported just right. The whole thing rocked on a stationary base, reminding him of cuddles on his nanma’s lap, usually after a fall or humiliation at Braph’s hand, but sometimes just because her cuddles were the best.

Jonas felt silly easing back in the rocking chair and was about to get back up when Braph shushed him and headed to the cot. He lowered the side as quietly as possible and gathered up the grizzling child along with an arm-and-a-half-load of blankets.

Unable to look away from his child, Jonas settled in the chair and accepted the precious gift laid on his chest. His son hadn’t woken fully. He squirmed, and his face screwed up like he was about to bawl, then slackened when Braph shuffled the bedding around him, blocking out the evening’s chill.

Orinia and her son chattered and giggled quietly, adding a certain comfort to the room. It seemed, on the surface, like the perfect family moment. Jonas had his brother and his nephew. Jonas had a son.

Jonas didn’t have Llew. Nor did he have the power to save her.

He brushed hair back from his son’s forehead. He was of little use to Llew, now. But he could be a father to his son. In the morning, he could discuss Braph’s plans. Surely, somewhere, there would be room to free Llew after all was done. Braph had Orinia, Jonas was no longer a threat, and Braph sounded sure they had the means to defeat Aris. Surely, Braph could let Jonas go once he’d done whatever it was Braph needed of him, and he could let him go with Llew. And his son.

Braph returned with another blanket, placing it so it covered Jonas’s shoulders, but scooped loose enough not to smother his son. Joelin. Jonas ran the back of a knuckle across the boy’s head. Joelin.

The child stirred and Jonas removed his hand, hiding it deep in the folds of the blanket. He let his head fall back, ready to sleep like that.

Nilv brought in a tray of food and, at Braph’s request, placed a plate with bread and meat on a small pedestal by Jonas. The awkwardness of eating was made up for by the pure bliss of his son snuggled into his chest.

Llew’s mother asked Orin how he’d spent the years since she’d been gone. Seemed he hadn’t much left this house, but Braph’s staff seemed capable of teaching him, as he was quick-witted and polite. Braph sat in another chair, content to watch his little family.

Jonas relaxed, savoring the warmth and closeness after a rough few days, and rocked the chair absently. Holding his son to him, he closed his eyes, and found himself humming a tune.

...Fly up to the moonBut see me soonSweet bird...

He started the tune again, hoping he could introduce Llew to his son soon.

The room fell silent.

For a moment, Jonas thought he had fallen asleep and woken sometime later, but something told him this wasn’t the case. Besides, his throat still held the echo of the hum he’d only ceased when he’d recognized the silence. Opening one eye, he peered across the room.

Orinia kneeled beside Orin’s bed, but all her attention was on Jonas.

“Is that how it goes?” Orinia asked.

Jonas stared at her, probably a little too long for comfort, hearing an echo of that question in Llew’s voice. Then he started to laugh.

And he kept laughing. Partly because he hadn’t laughed properly in such a long time, and partly because it was just so damned funny. Here, Llew had wondered why her ma never sung her the last few lines of a childhood song, and it was all because her ma didn’t know them either. Maybe it wasn’t so funny. But in that moment, Jonas was going to laugh about it.

Until his son started crying.

He stopped laughing, comforted the child and rocked the chair, easing the boy back to sleep.

He chuckled once more, then lay his head back and hummed the tune while he rocked.

Before long, Orinia started to sing along with him, and Braph, too. And they repeated the song until Orin was deep in slumber, and one by one the adults were, too.