“This,” Sarinak finally voiced, “means trouble. Forestlodge is made of chatter. Seguin will welcome it.”
Inhya couldn’t disagree, but jerked her chin towards Madoc, meaning plain in her expression.
“Akumeh imagined it!” Madoc challenged.
Inhya set her mouth firm. There was strength—and then there was belligerence.
“And that will make its own talk, ai?” Sarinak’s tone was wry, unthreatened.
“There was nothing to make talk about!”
“Before this is done, there will be. Such already follows your brother like flies to sweat.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Tokela!” Madoc protested.
“I seem to remember, not even several Suns ago, you were crying to brother Moon over how Tokela had wronged you and everyone a’Naišwyrh,” Sarinak growled.
It gave Madoc pause, but didn’t stop him. “But this time he did something right. He saved Anahli’s life! Don’t you even care that he saved Anahli’s life?”
“Of course we—”
“I’ve never seen him like that,” Madoc continued, soft. “Never seen him so… He found them, didn’t he? Tokela found his parents after they drowned.”
Inhya made a small, choked sound.
“He did, didn’t he? He never told me. Yet I heard he was there. That you thought he’d drowned with them, until you found him under their wykupeh.”
Underneath, gone to ground like any small, wounded animal, fingers grimed with dirt and blood where he’d dug in, frantic. It had been normal. Ever since his birth, his blood had been normal, so much Inhya had doubted what she had once seen.
And now, this. How? Why?
“You didn’t see him. He was so upset. I think he would have done anything to bring Anahli back to lif…” Madoc’s talk, rushing together, suddenly choked, wavered silent.
“Bring Anahli back to… life?” Sarinak’s voice was soft, but it seared through Madoc’s outrage like a hot blade to fat.
“We… we thought she’d drowned. Tokela thought she’d drowned. But she… hadn’t.”
Sarinak kept peering at him. Madoc looked away.
Silence. Then,
“Come with me, spouse.”
“Sarinak—”
“With me.”
Without a word, but not without a warning glance to Madoc’s sudden-pale face, Inhya followed as Sarinak strode into their private den and gave an enraged flip of the hide to cover the entry.
Whatever was said, did Madoc hear, he would be constrained from any mention by the mere lowering of the thick hide. Not that Inhya believed for a heartbeat Madoc would restrain himself from listening.
But Sarinak used Hunting-talk, aware of both their sons—one without, one within, lying bundled in the next alcove near the wide hearth filled with gleaming-stones.
This. It was accompanied by a low growl, a flit of his eyes towards Tokela’s senseless form. We cannot look aside from this.
Inhya didn’t know how—what—to answer.
What has he done, Inhya? What else might he do? Sarinak moved closer. What else does our son—our blooded son!—hide?
Inhya looked down, making her own silence within his talk—until he strode over and took her arm, hissed, “And what do you hide?”
She raised her gaze, met his. Signed, I swore oath to Lakisa! The name, even if not spoken aloud, still had the power to back him, if slight. Do my oaths mean nothing?
“Your oath cannot displace the good of our tribe, and you know it!” Sub-vocal, yet still betraying his agitation. “You heard Akumeh, claiming he saw the blood of Shaped things. You heard our son! Even, rot him, Mordeleg made claims I scarce wanted to believe, yet… all these winterings, all the rumours… are they true, Inhya? Have we sheltered a creature in our dens all this time? Does he have the ability to Shape, even life from death?”
Inhya put her face in her hands.
“Are the rumours true, Inhya?”
Jerking her head back and forth, Inhya spoke into her hands, hoarse. “I have already spoken to Palatan.”
“Palatan!” It rang against the curved walls.
Over in the tiny alcove, limned faint, Tokela murmured, tossed amidst the furs. They both froze, watching white-eyed as any prey animal. Only when Tokela stirred no more did Sarinak take in a deep breath. Tightening his grip, he pulled Inhya away from the alcove, but did not allow any agitation to colour his voice, once again dipping nigh-silent.
“Your brother—”
“Is Alekšu,” Inhya returned, just as soft. “You know such things are his dominion. His right, even here in duskLands. His duty, to stand against such sorceries.”
“Then why has he left?”
“He said he will return. Perhaps to help Tokela—”
“Perhaps! And what are we to do until then? Keep that one”—Sarinak threw a hand in Tokela’s direction—“drugged senseless?”
“If we must.”
“If we can.”
Inhya let out a sob, echoing hoarse into the den. “Palatan will return, and help him. He is our son, Sarinak!”
“And if Alekšu has no Power over half-bred creatures?”
“Sarinak!” It was a choke.
He loosed her, began pacing, resorting, once more, to signs. The rumours. All the rumours, at which I scoffed, while you kn—
I knew nothing for certain.
You suspected, then. And said nothing.
My—
Your oath. I know. He kept pacing, muttering curses.
“Sarinak, heed me. I beg you. Such things happen, but they can be cured. It happened with my brother. He was possessed when he was younger than Tokela. Chogah cast it from him.”
Sarinak halted, peered at her. “I’d heard he was sickly. I didn’t know… this. Of course”—he shrugged, as if trying to shed his disquiet, and padded closer—“such things would not be openly discussed. But it is there, in the blood, this… this madness. Those a’Šaákfo carry it, insidious, like invisible Marks. It lingers, displays fangs in unlikely ways. My sire, his sister… even Galenu is, in his own way, mad.” Sarinak shook his bright-wrapped head, talismans and tokens rattling. “Perhaps we should let Galenu take him back to his own kind.”
“We are his kind!” Inhya protested, faint.
“Are we?”
“He is of our blood. Spirit-madness is not the same as being Shaper!”
“And what if, in him, it is? Rumour has become truth—has perhaps always been truth. Tokela’s dam let herself be cozened by outLand sorcerers, and that”—another gesture towards Tokela—“is what has come of it!”
Their murmurings were barely audible, but emotion had its own life, roiling about the
