Black Spice (Book 3) by James R. Sanford Read Free Book Online

salt.”
    “Good. 
I want you to go once around the camp, then get up a tree and keep watch.  Go
now.”  She disappeared into the darkness, and he nodded to Kyric.  “We need
more light.  See if you can make a torch.”
    Once
he had Mahai’s salt in him, Kyric felt himself again.  Aiyan didn’t take any of
it.  Lerica signaled ‘all clear,’ so they lit the torch and brought Caleem to
his feet, Witaan and Nakoa holding him up against a tree.
    “It
wasn’t me,” pleaded Caleem.  “It must have been Nakoa.  Don’t you see?  They’ve
been fooling you.  He and Mahai were both captured by Soth Garo and now they
serve him.  It’s them, not — ”
    Aiyan
jabbed him with two fingers, just below his breastbone, and suddenly he
couldn’t speak.  “If you don’t stop shouting, I will break your jaw,” Aiyan
said with frightening softness.
    Mahai
removed Caleem’s belt and opened his spice pouches.  “Here it is.  A small bag
of black spice inside his cardamom pouch.”
    “Remove
those vambraces,” Aiyan said, taking the belt from Mahai.  “I want to bind his
hands.”
    Kyric
unbuckled the first vambrace.  Thick, half-healed welts encircled his wrist. 
It was the same beneath the other one.
    Kyric
ran his fingers across them.  “Rope burns.”
    Aiyan
stepped close to Caleem.  “So they tied you up and beat you for a few days. 
And when you couldn’t stand it any longer Soth Garo offered you his blood with
the promise that the torture would stop.  You didn’t know what it would do to
you, so you took it willingly.”
    Caleem
shook his head desperately.  “No, no.  The marks are from an accident with a
fishing net.”  He took on a look of fierce determination.  “I am a prince of
the Tialucca, and I demand that you release me.  My father will hear of this. 
He will make you suffer for this.”
    Aiyan
turned to Kyric.
    Kyric
held the torch close to Caleem’s face.  “Did you slip us the black spice?”
    “Mahai
planted that bag in my spice pouch.”
    Kyric
froze.
    He
couldn’t tell.  The remnants of the black spice clouded his inner eye.  For the
first time since he was a child, he couldn’t tell if someone was lying to him. 
It made him feel blind.
    “I
know how he did it,” Nakoa said.  “He filled his bowl first, then tasted it and
said that it needed more pepper.  He tossed what I thought was red pepper into
the sack and shook it, but he let me be the one to taste it the second time. 
It was so hot that I didn’t notice the black spice.”
    “I
saw that too,” Aiyan said.
    Mahai
cocked his head.  “You didn’t need salt.  You never ate the tainted meal.”
    “No.”
    “You
did,” Caleem said.  “I saw you.”
    Aiyan
smiled grimly.  “When I went to use the bushes, I filled my pockets with fresh liat leaf.  When it got dark I swapped helmets with Kyric and ate the plain greens
out of his.”
    “It
was only pepper,” Caleem said.  “I tell you that these Onakai are the ones. 
You don’t know them like I do.  Their totem is the shark, and that is how they
behave.”
    Kyric
turned to Mahai.  “Do you serve Soth Garo?  Did you taste of the black blood?”
    “I
did not,” answered Mahai.
    “Nor
did I,” Nakoa said firmly.
    Kyric
felt sick.  He really couldn’t tell.  Aiyan was looking to him, waiting for an
answer.
    “Let
me try another tack,” Kyric said to him in Avic.  “Sit him down so we can be
comfortable.”
    Aiyan
bound Caleem’s hands in front of him with the belt.  They lowered him to the
ground and let him rest against the tree.  Kyric went down on one knee and
leaned close to him.
    “You
love him,” he said gently.  “I understand that more than you know, for I have
tasted the black blood myself.  And you have no doubt that he loves you as a
dear brother.  He loves you more than your father ever could.”
    Kyric
let his voice drop to a whisper.  He was taking a chance with his next words,
but he said them