Silence. Then, “Oathbrother. As you say, I am Alekšu. My spouse is chieftain of horseClan. I have four offspring in my tipo, twenty-four clean-limbed mares grazing ’round, and two stallions to keep them healthy and in foal. I have claimed tribute against uncountable challengers. I have you.” A smile curving his lips, Palatan gave a light slap to Našobok’s cheek. “I do not crave the regard of Galenu a’Hassun.”
And there was nothing for Našobok to make in reply, except take that hand and bring it to his cheek.
8 - Birth
Things were always better after a swim. Even this time, with everything… there.
River took him in, and where Tokela likely should have been shivering-sick with the sensation of Her—so close, so present—instead She gave comfort. She cradled him, enveloped him in a soft, thick hum that blocked away everything else.
He could have hung there, weightless underwater, forever. He waited, smiling and slowly twirling, until the red-black began to beat behind his eyes and his lungs, bereft of breath, began to seize and beg.
But he kept waiting. Finally, he surfaced akin to one of the air-breathing water-horses, with a blow and heave into starved lungs. Thrice after he submerged, sinking to the bottom of the secluded cove; thrice he came up, and on the last one his Spirit lay quiescent, clear.
Sane.
The coming of dawn found Tokela high in the weeping tree wykupeh he and Madoc had built with their own hands. Sun peeked through the trees to finger his eyes open and warm his cheeks, sending healing slats of roseate and gold over his battered body.
He hadn’t slept. First he’d spent some time tracing, in the dust of the wykupeh’s wooden flooring, his memory of the t’rešalt. Then, with shaking fingers, he’d sketched the faces one at a time, lingering upon Sivan’s.
Once finished, though, the lines had reminded him of the sketch Inhya had taken.
The sketch that had begun all this.
He’d obliterated the drawings in a single, vehement swipe and collapsed onto his back. He lay there through the remainder of Moons-passage, the sounds and smells of First Running’s firstdark gathering faint echoes off the great Mound and into the woods, with a dart here and there until they faded, mute.
All the while, Wind fingered the weeping tree branches and nuzzled Tokela’s hair, whilst River sang Her unending song below.
It eased his heart, somehow, even as it roused him no less than watching those oških tangle in the shadows. River had always sung to him, but normal: a wordless hiss against the shoreline; a drag of foamy, copper-blue skirts to dress the craft skimming Her; a soft and utter stillness on a Windless Sun’s passage to bely what burgeoned beneath. Normal. When he was young, Tokela had imagined his parents’ voices in River’s every crest and ripple. She had soothed him—or tricked him, he still was not sure which—and claimed him when no one else would.
But now it seemed She, like a tiny ahlóssa learning to make talk, was trying to tell him something important.
More like he was the babe, not understanding what She needed to say.
Talk. Elementals… talking. To him. Forbidden, to hear such things. Not normal, not at all.
Had it ever been?
The light warmed his skin. Tokela squinted against Sun’s rising until his eyes saw nothing but white burn, then rolled over and contemplated the ghosted tracings against his eyelids. He’d rewrapped his clout snug, to ensure what was beneath it would behave for once. Not that it seemed to help. Even light seemed raw and rousing upon his skin. He contemplated donning his tunic, turned Sun-spackled eyes to where it, with his boots and leggings, were flung aside.
Not that it would help. Sun soaked through anything, eventually, be it leathers or clouds heavy with wet.
Or maybe it wasn’t Sun, but his injuries. They were healing, still too quickly.
All of it, running swift along his nerves; not only the Chepiś’s healing power but his own heart’s drum. If he had dreaded going before his hearthmother so physically marked, he now truly dreaded going before any of his people, because… because…
What had Chepiś done to him?
For they had done, must have. Had Shaped something in him just as they’d Shaped that tree to cover them from Rain’s fierceness. Had opened him in some fashion and claimed him—ihšehklana, half-breed—yet in the end had refused the claim. Had tossed him—little fish, of course!—back to his People with this… this whatever-it-was. This thing that had seduced his dam, taken her Spirit, and… made him.
Shards seemed to light behind his eyes, edged brilliant-keen, hot as SkyFire following heavy storms, and Tokela curled up on the hard wooden poles of the wykupeh flooring, palms hard against his temples. He gritted his teeth, nose to knees, gave a strangled-silent orison to Wind and River to make it stop, just make it stop.
He didn’t expect an answer. Yet something deep within him responded, gave silent, strange-familiar command: Not thisnow. Not yet.
And the shards sheathed themselves into darkness.
“There you are! Finally!”
For a half breath, Tokela wasn’t sure who—or what—had spoken. With a shudder, then a lurch and heave forwards with a prop of both hands against the flooring, Tokela peered over the ledge.
Only the grassy cove, the rocks, trees bending over River… but a scent unmistakable, and familiar.
“Where have you been?” Madoc’s voice confirmed from below. “I’ve been… everyone’s been… looking…” Punctuated with small grunts of effort, climbing the rope.
Tokela fell back, a small groan escaping his chest. He’d intended to be gone before Madoc came. He needed time: to compose himself, to figure out a way to hide what surely must be stippled upon his skin like the inked-thorn pricks of permanent Marks.
Too late. Rubbing at his eyes, Tokela sucked in a deep breath of mist-laden air, looked about him. There was nothing remarkable in the furs pulled from the corners, or his clothes strewn across the flooring… his tunic and leggings! Rinsed free of blood stains—his own and
