White Road

one of the young ones sneered, tossing the bit of stick he’d been whittling into the fire just close enough to stir up sparks in Alec’s direction. This one was maybe even younger than Alec in pure ’faie years.
    “That’s enough, Rane,” warned Sorengil.
    “I’ll speak to him if I want! Who has more right than I do?” Rane snapped back.
    “Let him speak,” the youngish woman with dark eyes said, sparing Alec a none-too-friendly look.
    Alec looked around and found the others watching him like a pack of wolves, looking for his weaknesses. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, meeting the younger man’s glare with one of his own.
    “I mean, you whore’s get, that you’ve cost me a father and a brother already, and I’ll be more than happy to stick the knife in you when the time comes!”
    “Rane, I said stop it,” Sorengil ordered.
    “I don’t mind him,” Alec shot back. “If my tayan’gil’s song killed your kin, then you’ve got no one but yourself to blame. We didn’t skulk after you through a snowstorm, now, did we?”
    The boy launched himself across the fire at Alec, drawing a belt knife before any of the others could react.
    Rane was fast, but Alec was faster. He jerked out of the way and caught him by the wrist, using the boy’s own momentum to flip him on his back and wrench the weapon away. Grabbing up the fallen blade, Alec straddled his chest and had the blade to Rane’s throat before the other Hâzad pulled him off. The seemingly friendly one nearly broke Alec’s fingers taking the knife away. Only then did Alec see that Seregil and Micum were on their feet now, too, and that Seregil was holding a struggling Sebrahn around the waist, a hand clamped over the rhekaro’s mouth as he whispered frantically into Sebrahn’s ear.
    Kalien got an arm around Rane’s neck and restrained him. “Sit down, ya’shel, and your friends, too, or this will end badly for all of us.”
    “I had a father,” Rane wheezed, struggling to get loose. “His name was Syall í Konthus, and he died hunting thefilthy cur of a Tírfaie that rutted you into your mother’s belly! And your cursed tayan’gil killed my brother.”
    “My father was a good man!” Alec yelled, lunging against the arms that held him back.
“Your
people killed my mother!”
    “Let them fight,” some of the others urged, forming a loose circle around them. “No knives, just fists!”
    Alec glanced back at Sebrahn, who was clawing at Seregil’s hands now, and then at Seregil, who was regarding him steadily.
    If I let Sebrahn go, you know what will happen
, that look said, clear as a hand sign.
Is that what you want me to do?
    As tempting as it was, Alec couldn’t do it. Not against an angry boy who’d lost his father, even if it wasn’t Alec’s fault.
    He dropped his arms to his sides. “I’ve eaten your food. I won’t dishonor myself and my talímenios,” he shot back. But he couldn’t resist adding, “Or my parents’ memory.”
    “What about you, Rane?” Sorengil demanded. “Does the ya’shel have more atui than you?”
    The boy pulled away. “Where’s Rieser’s atui? The honor of the Ebrados? Why are these bastards still alive?” he snarled, and strode off into the trees.
    A young woman spat in Alec’s direction. “You honor your parents little, backing down from a blood feud.”
    “I’ll have a blood feud with your kin, Allia, if you don’t watch your tongue,” snapped Sorengil.
    Alec pulled away from the men holding him and smoothed down his coat. “My father was a good man, not a kin killer.”
    “If your mother had let us have you and your father, she might be alive now, though her shame would have followed her to the grave,” Sorengil told him.
    “Alec, maybe you should calm Sebrahn,” Seregil suggested with a look that said
let it go for now
.
    No one tried to hold Alec back as he lifted Sebrahn in his arms. “It’s all right, Sebrahn. Don’t hurt anyone, understand?”
    “Huuurt,” the rhekaro whispered, eyes still dangerously dark.
    Kalien and the others stared at them. Even the tall rhekaro seemed to take notice.
    “It talks?” one of the riders gasped.
    “He’s not like yours,” Alec growled, “and you’ll do well to remember that. The next time you lay a hand on me or any of my friends, I won’t hold him back.”
    The threat didn’t win him any sign of respect, but no one taunted him after that.
    It took four horses to drag away the huge firs that the