Vessel

rodents, insects, and other food they had to cook.

Fennik oiled his bows. He also worked on fashioning new arrow points from rocks he’d collected. Liyana tried to practice her magic on the tamar tree. She wondered if her family had attempted their dreamwalks. Without Bayla, they couldn’t have chosen a new vessel. She wondered if they felt despair. She thought about her mother and father, Jidali, Aunt Sabisa, her cousins . . . She thought of Talu and wondered what she had done when the dreamwalks failed. Eventually Liyana gave up on her practice, and she crawled into the shade of the tent. Korbyn lay there with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. She pulled her knees up to her chin and looked out the tent flap, through the drooping branches, toward the Falcon Clan. “What should we do?” she asked Korbyn.

Eyes still closed, he said, “I could have been sleeping.”

“You weren’t,” she said.

“How did you know?” He opened his eyes.

“You have a little purr to your voice when you sleep.”

“I don’t purr.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s a divine purr.”

His mouth quirked a little, but the faint smile faded too quickly. “This shouldn’t be my responsibility,” he said without looking at her. “I’m not leadership material. I’m a trickster god. Little tricks. Not this!”

Liyana was silent, considering how to reply. She thought of Jidali crying “Why me?” when he was asked again to card the goats. And she thought of herself after she’d been chosen in the dreamwalk. “Why is it you?”

“I was with Bayla on the day she was summoned,” he said. “Her soul was drawn east, though your clan was west.” East, she thought. At last there was a direction. “No one believed me. It happened again. . . . The Scorpion Clan, the Horse Clan, Silk, Falcon. All drawn east. Still no one believed me, for who would believe a trickster god? I did this to myself. I made myself untrustworthy, and here is the price I pay.”

“Surely they must believe you now,” Liyana said.

“Most don’t watch the world,” Korbyn said. “You can’t affect the world of the living from within the Dreaming, and it hurts to see your clan suffer and be unable to help.”

“How did you avoid the fate of the others?”

He snorted. “Side effect of being a trickster god. Trust no one. When I was summoned east, I suspected a trick. I did not leave until I was certain that it was my clan who called.”

You’re trusting me now, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. This was the most truth he’d spoken to her in weeks. “Who’s in the east who would do this?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he watched the sky above the tamar tree. Above, two sky serpents danced. Their glass scales caught the sunlight and reflected it like a thousand jewels as their bodies twisted and intertwined. Their eyes burned like minisuns as their bodies etched through the blue.

Quietly Liyana said, “You don’t know. You don’t know who took the other deities or why they were taken, or even if others have been taken since. That’s why you never answer questions. You have no idea how to rescue them. Just like you don’t know what to do if Raan doesn’t come.”

“You know, I used to be a very good liar.”

“I’m sure you still are.” She patted his hand. “You just don’t want to lie to me.”

“Oh, I don’t?” He looked amused.

“You don’t,” she said, her hand still on his. “Because you don’t want to do this alone.”

He stared at her, and then he covered her hand with his.

Fennik raced to the edge of the tamar tree. “I see her!”

Jumping up and down, Pia clapped like a child. “I knew it!”

Liyana chased after him. Korbyn followed closely behind. They stayed just within the branches as a figure walked toward them.

Fennik rode out to meet her, leading a second horse. In moments, both rejoined them. Raan slid to the ground and collapsed onto her knees.

“I knew you’d return,” Pia crowed.

Raan covered her face with her hands. Her sleeves rode up her arms, and Liyana glimpsed bandages. Kneeling beside her, Liyana pushed Raan’s sleeves back. Raan lowered her hands but didn’t resist. The bandages were wrapped all the way up her arms, over her tattoos. Hesitating, Liyana unwound the bandages.

Underneath, the skin was red and raw in between new black markings of soaring falcons. Liyana looked at Raan. Raan’s eyes were wet. “I didn’t plan to return,” Raan said.

The falcons obscured the scorpion images. Recoiling, Liyana wrapped her own arms around her stomach as if that would protect her own clan’s tattoos.

“They were supposed to take me in and help me return to my clan. Then my clan would quit waiting for a miracle and find a way to save themselves. But instead . . .” Raan stared at her arms, and her arms shook. “This isn’t . . . I can’t . . .” Her voice rose higher. She looked at Liyana, and then at Pia and Fennik. Lastly she looked at Korbyn. “You must fix this!”

Liyana had never heard a story of a clan stealing another’s vessel. A vessel was a clan’s future. To force Raan . . . Such a thing should have been inconceivable.

Korbyn knelt and held the girl’s wrists. He studied the wounds. “I can help the pain. I can’t change the marks.”

Raan yanked her hands away from him. With fumbling fingers, she reached into her robe and pulled out a small waterskin on a cord. She yanked out the stopper and poured yellowish liquid onto her arms. She hissed as the drops hit, and Liyana smelled alcohol.

Fennik nodded approvingly. “That will ward off infection.”

“Raan . . . ,” Liyana began. She didn’t know what to say, how to comfort her. She knew Raan hadn’t wanted to be a vessel, but to have her destiny stolen from her . . . To have her clan condemned by another . . .

Raan lurched to her feet and stumbled over the roots of the tamar tree.

“What is she—” Pia began to follow the sounds of Raan’s passage.

Liyana put a hand on Pia’s shoulder to stop her. “Let her mourn in peace,” Liyana said softly.

Raan dropped to the ground beside Fennik’s fire. She pressed her alcohol-dampened arms directly onto the embers. Flame shot into the air and blanketed her skin. Raan screamed.

Fennik lunged forward and crossed to her in three strides. He wrapped his arms around her waist and yanked her away from the fire. Her arms continued to burn. Fennik smothered the flames with the cloth of his robe. Raan kept screaming.

Korbyn seized her shoulders and dropped into a trance while Fennik held her still.

“What’s happening?” Pia cried.

Liyana clapped her hand over Pia’s mouth to keep her quiet. “He’s healing her,” Liyana whispered. “Shh.”

A few minutes passed, and then Korbyn released her and stumbled backward. He sank to the ground and dropped his face in his hands.

Raan curled against Fennik’s chest, whimpering. Liyana took her hand off of Pia’s mouth. “It’s over,” Liyana said.

“What happened?” Pia asked.

Slowly, Raan held out of her arms. All the tattoos were now a swirl of red scars. Even the ones that marked her as a vessel were obliterated. She took a great, shaking breath in.

“She burned them away, the markings, all of them,” Liyana said.

“But . . . her clan!”

“The Falcon Clan had already taken them from her.”

“She’ll need new tattoos,” Pia said.

Raan wrapped her arms tightly around her. She stood and backed away from them. Her gaze darted across the desert. Liyana knew she was thinking about running, but there was no place to run to. Certainly not back to the Falcon Clan. “Only when you’re ready,” Liyana said as soothingly as she could. “For now . . . we should ride.”

A few minutes later, the camp was packed, and they were each mounted on a horse. They had three hours before sunset. “Which way?” Fennik asked.

Everyone looked at Korbyn.