Kindred of the Fallen by Isis Rushdan Page A

non-phallic object. She stumbled into the room, groping for a sturdy piece of furniture to hold her up. Her hand caught the top of a wingback chair.
    Files rested on a desk angled toward a fireplace. Above a loveseat hung a painting of a falcon, its left eye the sun and its right a crescent moon, clutching a double-bladed sword.
    The distress from her dreams crept up in her chest. Choking on the lucid memories, she wobbled backward.
    Cyrus entered the office wearing fatigues. He slipped knives in various holders and strapped a sheathed sword across his back. The sight of him quelled her trepidation and settled her nerves. He smiled, strutting closer, but stopped an arm’s length shy of her grasp.
    Her feet edged toward him and with each step, buoyancy lightened her limbs. She glanced at the painting. “I’ve seen this before. What does it mean?”
    “It represents Heru, an ancient Egyptian god of the sky. It’s the symbol for House Herut, my clan.” He curled his hands about her shoulders and his breath grazed the nape of her neck.
    “I’ve dreamt of this, but not as a painting.” Even her voice was now light as a whisper.
    Caressing her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “I wish we had more time, but I have to leave.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I have to euthanize one with sangre saevitas .”
    “What’s that?”
    “If we don’t merge our life force with our kabashem’s , our mate’s, over time our energy becomes poisonous,” he explained. “One of two things eventually happens. Those of the Psi class tend to get severe melancholia, which we call the dark veil while warriors are prone to suffer sangre saevitas …blood rage.”
    Goose bumps prickled her arms.
    He lowered his head and wavy locks fell forward. “With blood rage we have violent fits of madness and lose all sense of compassion and reason. We destroy everything in our path.”
    “Why euthanize them? Isn’t there a cure or some kind of medication?”
    “Connecting to the anima of one’s kabashem , even just once, seems to stave off the affliction, but not all are lucky enough to have their mate born in the same lifetime. Neith, the Great Historian, tries to help by tracking births and our marks to make meeting at least possible, provided politics don’t get in the way.”
    She struggled to process the outpour of information. “So blood rage and the dark veil are untreatable, some sort of terminal illness?”
    “Kindred are cursed to suffer until our souls are redeemed. There’s a way to break it and save our people…but it’s complicated. More and more are afflicted every day, and at an earlier age. It’s escalating. It’s almost like over generations as our ingeniums , our special gifts, have evolved and grown stronger, the torments of the curse have worsened. Soon we’ll be extinct.”
    “Cursed for what?”
    “We’re descended from ancients, extraordinary beings created before humans. They were cursed for their wickedness and hubris. We’ve found being on our own makes us more susceptible to the affliction. The energy of the collective helps us to fight it. If we’re not with our kabashem , we stay in groups.”
    “Is the energy of the collective similar to what I’ve felt with you?”
    “No, it’s very different, more communal. I’m not sure how to explain it. The energy from the group supports and stabilizes, but it doesn’t nourish and enhance like our connection.”
    The flowing give and take of their merged streams energized her body better than eight hours of rest. “I think I understand,” she said, but so much of what he’d explained escaped her.
     
    If only he had more time to help her understand. Cyrus stroked her arms, wanting to lessen her confusion.
    Growing up in House Herut, he never had to explain something as natural and simple as existing or the curse that afflicted their species to anyone before. She must feel like Alice after slipping through the looking glass and landing in