Crucible of Fate

children were of age they would be mated. Tarek has a daughter, Masika, who is now sixteen—”
    “Sixteen? She should be going to high school.”
    “Domin,” Yuri sighed. “These are not—”
    “I’m going to pass a law, Yuri. All children will be educated. All of them. Boys and girls; no one will be exempt.”
    “It will always be up to the individual semels to do with their children what they will, Domin. You can’t change that.”
    “Watch me.”
    He smiled warmly. “Your heart is in the right place.”
    “Just talk to me,” I huffed.
    “Well, so, anyway, Ehivet says that he simply sent his son to Ipis to let the semel know that they would wait until Masika was eighteen before performing the ritual of handfasting.”
    “But?”
    “But now he has not heard from his son, or the ten men he sent with him, in over a month. All his attempts have fallen on deaf ears, and so now he has reached out to you to come mediate the situation.”
    “Then I should go with—”
    “Domin, you barely have enough time to breathe in a day so I—”
    “No.”
    “You’re being unreasonable.”
    “No, this Hakkan Tarek is. What exactly is wrong in his tribe?”
    Yuri’s eyes remained gentle; his tone didn’t rise. It was as if being with me, becoming my mate, had changed him, made him the soul of quiet strength and reflection. Not that it had doused his passion for me, but the temper that used to be in him had simply disappeared. He was different, as were the others, but whereas they were all hardening, he had done just the opposite.
    “The semel has two factions within his tribe: the peq, made up mostly of farmers and shepherds who live in the hills, and the shen, who are the merchants who live in the city of Ipis. Apparently, the hostility stems from a dispute over the ownership of the catacombs. There has been some kind of discovery there, and so who is heir to the land is in question.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “The tribal records.”
    “Oh,” I grunted. “Been reading those again, have you?”
    He chortled. “Kind of a prerequisite to being the mate of the semel-aten, don’t you think? I swear, I have no idea how the tribe of Hatheret has—”
    “What?”
    “The tribe of Hatheret in Paris. Their semel, Emil Lefevre. His family has compiled and edited the records since the time of the Crusades.”
    “I know about the tribe of Hatheret!” I barked.
    “Then why did you ask me?”
    I growled. “So everything you just said, that’s all in the tribal record?”
    “As you know, it’s up to each semel to compose his correspondence weekly and send it to the tribe of Hatheret to be entered into the logs.”
    “That’s not mandatory,” I insisted.
    “No, but maybe it should be.”
    “That job has got to be daunting.” I sympathized with people I had never seen.
    “I’m sure the stipend they receive from each tribe the world over for doing it more than outweighs the annoyance.”
    “Maybe.”
    He kissed my forehead, which just reminded me he was leaving and irritated me all over again. “Okay, so if the territory in Ipis itself belongs to the semel, I don’t see—”
    “But we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about the land.”
    “So there is a family that owns the land the catacombs sit on.”
    “Yes.”
    “And who is that?”
    I got a wicked grin. “I don’t know, love. I have to go there to find out.”
    I grunted.
    “But for right now, from what the records say, Hakkan Tarek can see no resolution in sight, but since it affects no one, he has left it in the hands of the two djehus.”
    “But it is affecting those outside his tribe now.”
    “This is only a brand-new development, though. Before this, no one knew or cared what was going on in Ipis. Ammon didn’t; there’s no record that he ever even visited.”
    “But we care suddenly because of the semel of the tribe of Tegeret.”
    “Yes.”
    “If not for him, you would not be making this journey.”
    “No,” he said huskily, gazing into my eyes.
    “And what precisely are you going to do?”
    “First, I’m going to meet with Hakkan Tarek and insist that he send Garai Milar home to his father immediately. Then I am going to meet with the djehus, the leaders of the two factions in the tribe of Feran, and then report back to you. If it’s a question of the law, I might just send for Mikhail. If it’s more, then I’ll—”
     “As soon as you handle the situation with Garai, immediately check in