Kuli always woke quickly and this was no exception; he sat upright, his wavy hair scrunched in several directions. “Aška?”
“I need you to go with your aunt Inhya, Kuli.”
“But Anahli—”
“She won’t wake yet.” Aylaniś peered at Inhya, though her talk remained for Kuli. “You have time to eat with your friends, and perhaps help Aunt Inyha, a’io?”
Inhya’s eyes held to hers, acknowledged the plea. “I truly could use your help with a few things, Little Fox.”
Kuli rolled from the furs, shook himself with a sleepy shiver, then grinned at Inyha and sped out of the tipo. Inhya started to follow.
Aylaniś touched her sleeve, murmured, “We must leave, soon.”
Inyha clearly hadn’t expected this. Her eyes chased away—the way Kuli had gone.
“He will stay through summering at least. I like that he’s learning different ways here.”
“Perhaps we will trade Kuli’s further hearthing for Tokela,” Chogah drawled. “It would, after all, be better than smothering him.”
Aylaniś shot Chogah a quelling glance.
But the statement, outwardly ignored, had raised hope in Ihyha’s gaze. Aylaniś didn’t know how to answer it, had to look away.
Inyha’s voices followed her, though. “Will Palatan return soon?”
And neither could she answer that. I grieve with you. But I don’t know. Don’t know if he can help Tokela. Her gaze moved to Anahli, met Chogah’s over the small hearth, then slid to Anahli, drugged as surely as… What has Tokela done to her? Made?
Shaped?
Finally, Aylaniś answered, “I’m sorry, but I cannot say any more to this. We’re not Alekšu. It isn’t our place.”
Inhya took in a long, quavering breath, then nodded. Retreated.
Aylaniś watched her go, eyes stinging, wanting to speak, go after.
“We should take the lost one’s son with us, my chieftain.” It was respectful. Ai, Chogah could pull respect from her tail split when she had to.
“It is not a decision we can make. Neither of us is Alekšu.” A keen cut, no matter how much Aylaniś tried to blunt it—too many paths had been walked down to trust this elder.
“The Power does not leave with the title. Do you think I don’t See what is happening?” A jerk of chin towards Anahli. “He has changed something in her. He has awakened something that we thought would never rise. We should take Tokela with us.
“So he can… infect more of our People?”
“You sound like a dawnLander, horse-chieftain.”
“And you seem to forget what your own purpose is!” Aylaniś hissed back. “To protect our Grandmother from Other!”
Strange, how she was the one spitting and hissing, and Chogah so fiercely calm.
And her gaze, fixed upon Aylaniś. “That is not our only purpose, my chieftain.”
Aylaniś closed her eyes, took in breath for another heated reply. How do you expect me to know that, when all of you hold your secrets close as skin? Instead it changed within her; what came out upon the exhale was the beginnings of song. She turned away with another breath, and from deep in her throat the warbling Moons prayer came, soft as the damp cloths she bent to rinse in the basket then replace upon her daughter’s forehead.
Anahli was too warm; the Medicine had that effect. But sleep was preferable to waking, now and here.
“You’ll need another dose of the sleep stink for her, soon enough,” Chogah murmured.
“I have plenty.”
“She can’t stay here. Not now.”
“I know.”
“Hunh. It is time. I know you thought thisnow would never come, but it has. She must come home, and take wing with the night flyers.”
Aylaniś nodded, and kept singing, soft but carrying.
IT IS time. I have waited long enough.
He is underwater, currents folding busily about him. But River is strangely still upon his skin, calmed as far as his arms can reach, as if he can contain Her.
Why do you think you are here? You have given yourself to me, and this time, I will not let you go.
But I am not… His throat closes, instinct, mere pressure trying to halt the not-talk. There has never been need for talk in thisnow. I have… changed things. I… Anahli…
Have you? Are you sure that what you wakened was not already there?
My mother… my… father. I…
You survived. You showed mercy, for they were already Mine.
I… am… Other.
You are of Us, and what you bear within you makes you more of Us.
Us?
We have waited long. You are no longer an infant sucked into a spiral of ignorance. You must take possession of what is yours. You must awaken what is not. It is past time for the teind to be counted: in blood, for blood. The not-voice is strong, ringing inside his skull, inescapable. Pulling him deep into the dive.
He puts hands to his temples, as if to knead the pressure away. Teind? You have my parents!
And you gave them to Me, Eyes of Stars. What else will you give Me, merely to evade what you are?
Tokela came bolt upright.
The den was empty and dark. His choking breaths tore the stillness, overloud.
This had happened before. The Dreams, the waking into an empty room, his lungs filled with water and his bedding soaked with River brack, his cry ringing into the wikupeh to those who would never again answer…
Happenstance fled, a shadowling skittering from illumination, a dark shroud…
The furs were wet. Heavy. Clinging. Tokela kicked them away and crawled closer to the hearth, shivering and damp. Another blanket lay close by; he snatched it up, curled into the nubbly dry warmth, and laid his head to his knees.
And Fire stayed merely that: warmth, comfort.
Soon his shudders eased, heat beginning to steal through skin and bone. Thoughts stole, also, in flits and starts. What had happened. What would happen.
The rush of blood in his skull, the drumbeat of his heart, echoing the Spirits whispering behind his eyes and creeping through his veins.
His veins. If he was to open them, now, what would he find?
Tokela held out his arm, pondered the knotwork of indigo tracing the length of it… and there was the conundrum. How veins seemed
