Anahli was so still. She’d left them, walked on, gone to River already without waiting for Fire or ash. Tokela was proof of that, quaking like a tree in Wind’s fury, shaking his head and making soft, broken sounds. Denial. Fury. The sounds of a heart cracked and split with grief. It tore into Madoc’s own breast, wrenched a sharp, springing sob in his throat and a hollow in his gut, deep and sharp and unstoppable.
Madoc had to turn away—he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t watch anymore—and only then did he see Akumeh standing on the bank, as stilled, as unwilling to intrude into a grief he didn’t thoroughly understand.
Tokela pushed upwards, shoving against Anahli’s chest as if he still would deny, still not believe. Akumeh shook his head, said, puzzled, “Otter?”
Madoc envied Akumeh; as for himself, he couldn’t speak if he’d had to.
“Anahli! Tokela!” A cry from Kuli, who’d sped down here as if he’d wings instead of feet, flying forwards as if to throw himself upon his sister’s body.
Akumeh grabbed Kuli up. Held him, too, even when the ahlóssa growled, struggled, even bit to get free.
A strangling sound—choke and mewl and heave all at once—came from Tokela… n’da, from Anahli. Tokela shuddered. Anahli twitched, then convulsed, then turned sideways and heaved up more water than anyone should be able to hold and live.
Akumeh stepped closer, once again spoke—only this time it held more horror than pity. He staggered back as Tokela whipped around from Anahli’s body, snarling not unlike one of lionKin defending a kill. Madoc didn’t blame Akumeh. Tokela’s face was pale as Brother Moon, his eyes nigh black, lit only by faint and frantic glimmers of what must be darksight but seemed even… more, somehow. Blood streamed from a long gash upon his forehead, rivulets streaking his face; it had gathered in his eyes like tears, and a thin stream of it from his nose.
Only, Madoc realised with a jolt, it wasn’t. Blood. It ran thick like blood, pooled around Tokela’s eyes and nostrils and dripped, slow onto Anahli’s breast, but it wasn’t. Blood. Was it?
Tokela seemed to notice, then. His sudden cry sent Akumeh staggering back, and the second, more a keen, raked cold claws down Madoc’s spine, trying to pull him down.
Yet when Tokela’s third scream choked into silence and he fell, senseless, across Anahli’s coughing form—even as Akumeh turned to Madoc with active terror scrawled over his expression—the same terror did not take Madoc. Even though part of him wanted it to.
Instead he propped himself higher, half in and out of the water. Ordered, “Go! Bring my sire!”
Akumeh hesitated. Ai, Madoc was chieftain-son, but he was also the same ahlóssa Akumeh had dragged by his plait to this very fall.
“Go on!” Madoc snapped.
Akumeh’s response made cold measure of his apprehension. He loosed Kuli without a word, turned, and dove into the water. Not long after, he waded out the other side, disappearing into the trees at a mad run.
Tokela lay on the bank, as unmoving as Anahli had been not so long ago.
Kuli sprinted to his sister’s side, crying her name through tears as she tottered up to her elbows.
Anahli had been dead. Dead. Tokela had saved Anahli’s life, somehow, and Tokela all bloody from it… only it wasn’t blood, couldn’t be blood. It seemed more like the tales of the creatures of Šilombiš’okpulo, Shaped things with ichor in their veins hued akin to lapis and indigo.
How could this be happening?
If I was… gone, like Nechtoun. If I was to go away, go to River, be outlier… would you love me then?
Madoc had been insulted by the question. Then.
Making someone outcast because they do something, hear something, feel something—that’s right? Is that the sort of leader you want to be?
This was it. Answer, question, all of it circling. Into this.
If I was… gone…
Madoc wanted to run. He wanted to growl curses, scream denials, swim away and never look back.
Instead, he heaved himself, both arms and one good leg, through the shallows.
It took forever. It took a span of heartbeats. It roiled pain up his swollen ankle and into his hip, and Wind made chill the wet upon his flesh. Madoc ignored all of it, making stolid progress to gain Tokela’s side.
Anahli still coughed, pale and sodden, trying to wriggle out from beneath Tokela; trying to unwrap Kuli’s tight grip around her ribcage. Dismal, the failure to do either.
Madoc ended up rolling Tokela over with a great heave and grit of chattering teeth, lost hold; he was limp and lifeless as Anahli had been mere heartbeats earlier. Madoc dragged closer, watching for some sign of life. Anahli heaved herself—and thusly a weeping Kuli—closer, merely to collapse against Tokela’s shoulder.
It seemed all ceased until a breath—ragged, hoarse—finally lifted Tokela’s chest. Madoc extended trembling fingers to the leached, indigo-streaked throat; it pulsed erratic, but strong. Found himself charmed with a horror he could not voice, with which he could not react. Not now.
How many orisons had he offered up for answers to Tokela’s oddities? He’d railed and wanted to strike out, to hurt Tokela for the lack of those answers, furious in the wake of wanting. Now Madoc had them within reach, and he was not going to let such a capricious thing as fear take them from him.
Mine, he growled. Mine.
Anahli reached up a hand to Kuli’s face and smiled, tried to speak. Instead she sank back down against Tokela, unconscious.
“She’s still breathing,” Kuli said, all quavery, then scooted over to Madoc. “But… Tokela? What’s wrong with Tokela?” It came out as a growly hiccup. “What’s on his face? It’s on Anahli, too.” Still gravelly, but curious. There was no fear, even as Kuli peered at the indigo on his hands. “And me, now.”
“To have no fear isn’t brave, just stupid.”
Then both
