Crucible of Fate Read Online Free PDF Page A

answer him.”
    “What conflict?”
    “Apparently in Ipis they have some kind of land dispute that the semel-aten will need to lend a hand resolving.”
    “I—but why do—”
    “The tribe of Feran makes their home close to the catacombs of Abtu, and apparently the catacombs themselves are in dispute. Ehivet says that he’s heard of a few fatalities.”
    “Why would this man send his son to such an unstable tribe?”
    “He had to. Years ago, he agreed to a covenant bond with Tarek, that when their 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,