Sarinak repeated the words then, with a rough muss to Madoc’s hair, made polite excuse and strode away with the male who’d first beckoned—some host business to attend.
“And yet you banish your eldest to these.” Chogah gave a sneer after Inhya’s retreat. And ai, it had been that—albeit with head held high.
“You are part of that reason, old viper,” Aylaniś gritted through bared teeth. “Your base cruelty does none of us credit.”
“Is it cruel to remind one so set upon ignoring the ripples in one’s wake? Inhya abandoned her own tribe, after all.”
“You would deny her the choice? Such talk is hardly respectful.”
“Hunh! Hardly respectful is the way she treats that hearthling son of hers. Tokela, they call him here, when his mother called his Tohwakeli. As if even his name is forbidden!” Chogah pulled her shawl tighter. “Hunh! As Inhya ruined the mother, she’ll ruin the son! And now, our Anahli… still, you insist upon abandoning your eldest to such foolishness?”
Pointless to dignify such talk, yet Aylaniś had to respond, still through her teeth, “Kuli thrives here.”
As if he’d heard his name, Kuli looked her way and grinned. Skipping over, he wrapped freckled arms about his dam, hugging close to her belly. “Aška, I’ve missed you.”
Aylaniś smoothed her fingers through the tangled hair that had given him his child-name. “I’ve missed you, my little Fox.”
Chogah made a disagreeable sound.
Palatan had been watching them, a slight frown twitching at his new-scarred brow. He started to make his way closer despite being submerged beneath a joyous wave of ahlóssa chatter. Madoc was taking full advantage of Kuli’s absence.
Kuli, in the meantime, had fixed an unflinching gaze upon Chogah. “Are you hungry, Aunt? There’s food over there.” He jerked his chin towards the cooking hearths.
“Cheeky brat!” Chogah sniped back, yet she refrained from further invective. It had been so since she’d first laid eyes upon the baby sitting naked in the Breaking Ground, playing in the cinnabar dust as if Alekšu weren’t parsing his fate.
Perhaps, in that moment, she had done. Palatan often claimed it as explanation for Chogah’s wariness of their youngest—but then, Palatan had no gift for prescience and, as one male in both Spirit and flesh, sparser connexion to such things.
I’ve no need. You are the one who Walks my future, he would say to Aylaniś, softened after loving. You and our children.
“…and Kuli is going back with you, isn’t he?” Madoc was saying. “Once Councils are done?”
“If he wants to.” Palatan’s eyes were full of mischief as he meandered over.
Madoc followed, face falling. “Only if he wants to?”
Aylaniś answered glint with grin, even as Kuli shifted against her hip and hissed in the back of his throat. It wasn’t approving. Madoc’s nostrils curled in reply.
“Anahli was at the cookFires when you arrived, Aška,” Kuli tossed his head at Madoc and turned pointedly to Aylaniś. “D’you want me to go find her?”
Palatan’s eyes were still teasing, but also questioning as he gave a fond tug to Madoc’s ahlóssa braid. “I suppose we should all go and find th…”
A shrill whistle made him trail away and peer towards the massive cliff frontis. Teasing gave way to disbelief, then elation.
Aylaniś felt it herself, bubbling up into a smile. “He’s made it!”
“Who’s made what?” Madoc asked, looking back and forth, plainly puzzled.
The piercing whistle sounded again, details soaring over the cliff frontis from River: trilling thrice, skidding into a lower register then up again shrill as raptorKin. Aylaniś read them, plain: A long, slow journey, but I’m here! Are you?
Palatan turned and answered in kind, beginning shrill then dropping low. We’re here! We’re coming!
Aylaniś laughed and gave Palatan’s shoulder a gentle push. “Go. Greet him.”
His face lit up, a shaft of sun in cavern depths. Grasping her hand to his cheek, he loosed it to tangle fingers in Kuli’s hair and tug Madoc’s braid. “Kuli. Go find your sister and show her where we’ve made camp. Will you help him, Madoc? We must go.”
Madoc still seemed confused. “Go where?”
“Off with you.” Aylaniś gave Palatan another nudge. “I’ll be right after.”
Still grinning, Palatan loped away. Aylaniś turned her attention to the two children. “Go, ahlóssa. Find Anahli.”
Kuli tilted his chin in acknowledgement and sped away like his sire, but in the opposite direction. Madoc remained.
“Will you not help him, Madoc?”
“He knows where you’re to stay.” As stolid—and as adamant—as ever were his parents, but Madoc’s composure breached easily as any youngling’s. “Don’t make me tag along with him again? Please? Where is Uncle Palatan going? Wasn’t that a wyrhling’s whistle?”
Aylaniś chose the swiftest route—Palatan was eager, but so was she. “Indeed it was, and I’m sure you remember your Uncle Našobok. He just let us know his ship has anchored midRiver.”
Madoc’s face closed. “I have no uncle of that name.”
Aylaniś should have expected it; nevertheless, it hit her like a blow. She answered in kind, sharp with a hint of teeth, “Madoc’enbeh a’Naišwyrh! You forget your manners, and traditions older than all of us. All leaders of the People are welcomed to First Running, whatever Clan they possess… or do not.”
His face flamed; but to do him credit, he didn’t lower his eyes.
“And he is of my Clan, oathbrother to my spouse and to me, regardless of his status here. He is my tribe’s guest, if not yours.”
Those eyebrows, dark over wide bronze, squinched together. “I’m sorry, Aunt.”
Aylaniś smiled, tugging at his ahlóssa braid. “Well enough, then.”
Madoc laid his temple against her arm for a half-breath, then raced away. Aylaniś watched him go, then turned away, her smile broadening, and her steps skipping into a run.
Našobok was here!
THE GALLEY was one of the biggest to ride River, laying-to all broad and low with cargo,
