Read The Killing Moon (Dreamblood) for Free Online Page B

always made him strong. So he took a deep breath. “Superior, now I must speak of that we do not discuss.”
    The Superior flinched. Rabbaneh’s smile did not falter, but it grew harder, sharp-edged. Sonta-i did not react, but there was a palpable additional coldness in his voice as he spoke. “You imply that Omin made promises with respect to the pranje ceremony.”
    “I
imply
nothing, Gatherer.” He watched that news settle in among them, and saw Omin’s death harden on brows and tightened lips. At that, Nijiri did feel a moment’s guilt. But Omin had brought this on himself—and Nijiri had his own future to consider.
    “Continue,” Sonta-i said.
    “The Teacher offered me safety, Gatherer, from the annual selection of pranje attendants. In exchange, he made clear his desire that I attend
him
, in the small hours of the morning, at some location in a disused corridor of the Teachers’ Hall. I do not know the place, since I refused him, but he said that he had used it with other acolytes, and there we would have privacy.”
    The Superior muttered something to himself in Sua; Nijiri, whose Sua was only passable, did not catch it. Rabbaneh let out a long sigh. For him, that was tantamount to a desert skyrer’s shriek of fury. “And why did you not accept this offer?”
    “I don’t fear the pr—that we do not discuss.” Silently Nijiri cursed the lapse. He had hoped to seem cool and controlled like a Servant of Hananja, and not a nervous child. “Why would I need protection from something I don’t fear?”
    The Gatherers looked at each other. There were no words exchanged between them—not that Nijiri could tell in any case. Rumor had it Gatherers could speak through waking dreams in some manner. But by that unvoiced agreement, Sonta-i abruptly moved away from his pathbrother and the Superior, coming down off the dais. Moving, his pace slow and steady and full of warning, to encircle Nijiri.
    Now it took everything Nijiri had to stay angry, and not show his unease.
    “You aren’t afraid?” Sonta-i asked.
    I wasn’t before now.
“No, Gatherer.”
    “An acolyte died last year. He served a Gatherer in the pranje and died. Did you know this?” Sonta-i did not look at Nijiri as he spoke; that was the worst of it. His eyes glanced over themoontear-vined pillars, the rugs, Hananja’s starry knees. Nijiri did not rate even that much attention.
    Nijiri did not turn to follow Sonta-i’s movement, though the hairs on the back of his neck prickled whenever the Gatherer passed out of his sight. “I heard the rumors. I don’t claim to be fearless, Gatherer; I fear many things. But
death
is not one of those things.”
    “Injury. Violation. Damnation. Despair. All these things can result when an acolyte attends a Gatherer sitting pranje.” Abruptly Sonta-i paused, leaning in to examine a moontear flower with great intensity. Nijiri could not see what had so attracted the Gatherer’s interest. Perhaps it was nothing at all.
    “I am aware, Gatherer. I did sit pranje twice—” But those had been nothing, hours of boredom, while he sat with Sharers who’d been nearly as bored as he. Sharers faced the pranje’s test only once every four of floodseasons, as a precaution, and no one could remember the last time a Sharer had failed. He had not trained to serve
Sharers
.
    All at once Nijiri froze, as Sonta-i swung about and peered at him with the same taut scrutiny he’d given the flower. “You did not refuse the Teacher out of propriety. You refused him out of
pride
.”
    It was not a question, but Nijiri felt no need to deny it. They knew he had never been humble. “Yes. I wished to be a Gatherer.”
    “Acolyte,” the Superior said, somewhere beyond Sonta-i. He sounded weary; Nijiri did not dare look away from Sonta-i’s gray eyes to check. He didn’t fear death, but somehow Sonta-i seemed worse than death in that moment. “You just said propriety was not your concern.”
    “Just so, Superior.” He