He did not even have the wet, rasping quality to his breath one nigh-drowned should have, would have. His inhalations were taken with eerie peace.
“Inhya. As much as our two peoples are joined, dawn to dusk, Naišwyrh’uq cannot lie so easily with such things. You are of thisClan, now. Your birthing-tribe chooses to tread a risky path, one as dangerous as courageous, but we cannot countenance such things here. DawnLands was nigh destroyed by Other. Those who lived along River bore the brunt of the devastation. You know this!”
Inhya kept watching Tokela. Said, through her teeth, desperate, “He saved Anahli.”
“And what if Anahli wasn’t meant to be saved?”
“And what if she was?”
“I cannot believe you’re asking such questions.” Sarinak gripped Inhya’s shoulders, shook. “This… thing has taken all wisdom from your sight. You’ve let your mourning of Lakisa’ailiq lead you too far astray. Inhya, you swore an oath that protected the get of Shapers.”
“I swore to protect Lakisa’s son!” She didn’t use the suffix, and it hit them both like a blow. “An infant. You would return to the old ways of child killing, of witch hunting?”
Sarinak released her. His eyes went dark, then hooded as they slid sideways, taking in the still, fur-wrapped form in the alcove. “That was an evil time.” He shook his head, paced over to their bedshelf, lowered himself to sit on the edge with another shake of his head. “But Inhya, what has happened thisnow, the doubt of it will grow, and splinter. Such a weakness—disease—of Spirit has nearly felled us more than once. Lakisa’ailicq’s Spirit-madness, my own father’s weakness when my mother was taken, Našobok’s defection—”
“Sarinak—”
“I watched, and wasn’t allowed to so much as weep as my brother was rived from us! As my dam, her heart wrung but her eyes dry, watched her youngest hung from the poles for two Suns, then watched agains as he was forced to run the gauntlet, beaten and debased and cast from our lodging to become less than nothing! Little he cared, but it killed us all! And then, so soon after, my sire’s decline—you remember how it was, tšukasi. In the end, I had to go to Council, conspire to his replacement.”
“You took nothing that wasn’t yours,” she whispered.
“Inhya, you know we always bide unsure. With all that’s happened in our family—all the weakness, the sickness—the tribes were well within their rights to not accept me.”
“But they did.”
“A”io. They won’t accept this.” Sarinak jerked his chin towards where Tokela lay. “All the speculation damaged his standing—so much that there was never a breath of hope that he would be trained to perhaps hold Mound-chieftain’s staff. And it was his right to try; Tokela is eldest of our Clan after me! But now? Rumour will burn through our Land like flames. You know our tribal law, my heart: those possessed of an Elemental must be cast out! Shapers are never allowed in our territory. We hold duskLands, you and I, and we must hold to the law or be set aside.”
“I know.” Almost a moan. “Yet if we do what you say must be done, my oaths lie broken. One I swore to protect shall hang from the poles and run the gauntlet, never to return, and our… our blood son will… ai. Madoc will never forgive us.”
Sarinak let out a vile curse, turned away. “Would you have me keep Other in our midst, just so our son will love us? I can’t do that, Inhya. And it hurts my heart to think you would ask it of me.”
“That isn’t what I—”
“I know you loved my father’s sister. I know what she meant to you. I didn’t understand, then. I had playmates, of course. I eased the heat in my blood amongst my own, as proper for oških. But I never had a lovemate, never an oathbrother. I scorned my brother’s ways, his insistence upon rutting males even past his oških summerings. I was contemptuous of what he had with your brother. I didn’t understand such love. Not until I found you.”
Inhya came over, knelt before Sarinak and laid her head upon his knees. His fingers, strong and callused from spear and fishing-net, stroked her hair with the gentleness he gave only to her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, peered at up her spouse. “There must be something to be done, other than…” Her voice choked. “Sarinak, he’s our son.”
Sarinak crumpled, then, as if the strong cliff stones that had made him and borne him were shivering into sand around their feet. “He was our son.” It quivered, thick with tears. “But that time, beloved, is long past. And we’ve been deluding ourselves to imagine otherwise.”
“HOW IS she?”
Aylaniś turned from the furs, looked outwards to Inhya’s silhouette within the opened tipo door.
“She sleeps, peaceably.” A smile, shared between two mothers. “She’s alive, thanks to your sons. Both of them.”
Inhya’s gaze flickered, and she entered, her voice strong-seeming. “If there is anything… well. You must take care she doesn’t fall prey to the lung-sick. It happens here, often, when someone has nigh drowned.”
“There are times advice is maddening as blackbuzz in summering,” Chogah growled from where she’d squatted in beside the hearth. “We know better how to care for her than even one as exalted as you.”
Inhya slid a dark glare Chogah’s way, said to Aylaniś, “Do you have any more of the sleep stink?”
Chogah made a disagreeable noise.
Aylaniś slid her a quieting gaze, little hoping for its success, and peered at Inyha. “For Tokela.”
“I must.”
“We’ve enough ourselves for now.” A well-filled pouch came sailing from Chogah’s direction. “A’io, drug him. What else can you do? Unless you plan on smothering him middark.”
Inhya still didn’t answer Chogah, but she tied the pouch at her belt.
From the Bowl, drums announced midSun meal. Aylaniś reached out where Kuli lay, curled up in the furs against Anahli’s sleeping form. He’d remained there all
