Anahli shook her head.
“You saw him, didn’t you?” Chogah pulled her close, peering even closer. “Did you see something in him to make you ask questions, to form others in your heart?”
Anahli didn’t have to ask how Chogah knew such things; she had been Alekšu, still clutched to what Power she could.
Why was it permitted for an ancient fem to wrap such secrets for holding—using? Why could Chogah keep hold when others had it muted, appropriated, silenced?
“Already,” Chogah said, quiet, “the risk is high for him. Cause for suspicion, isn’t it? And this much is true: his birthing broke not only his mother’s possession, but her Spirit. Poor Talorgan, for this much is also true: he lost both son and spouse to Chepiś sorcery.”
The compassion was real enough, but Anahli also saw the canny gloss behind Chogah’s gaze. Alekšu-that-was, waiting. Watching.
Wind rattled the door flap, sent a small gust into the tipo. Chogah started, glanced about. She seemed… confused? The stray breeze rose prickles upon Anahli’s bare arms, prompting a memory held against another set of glossed-over eyes, luminous with Stars.
Remember. Mother’s heart wakens…
“Wakens what?” Surely Chogah couldn’t have heard the not-voice. “What has happened, ehši?”
“Nothing. My head hurts,” Anahli answered, true enough. Her temples and heart both pounded fit to burst. Chogah was too close; she smelled of mould and sour milk, of a tipo too long closed away from Sky. “I just want to sleep one more dark in my own place.”
Chogah took a breath as if to say something. It escaped in a sigh; with a clucking sound, she released Anahli. “Rest, then.” Rising with a grunt, Chogah made her slow way outwards. At the still-open flap she paused, seemed to speak more to the hide than Anahli. “Perhaps I shall speak with your sire. Your dam listens to him overmuch. Perhaps he can persuade her to relent from this wrong-headed course.” She looked around, then back towards Anahli. Her eyes gleamed: piercing, too canny.
“Ai’o. You must come back home, my Dancer. I shall speak with Alekšu.”
IT’S BUT a game, great and complex. Full of promise.
So Aylaniś had told him before they’d entered the Council dens, as much reminder as coax. So she’d told him many times before he’d been allowed in the Council of chieftains. But unlike Aylaniś, Palatan had never enjoyed this sort of game, never enjoyed the underhanded machinations that passed for interaction. Alekšu was what he was. What he had no choice in becoming—or now, being. But had he fully realised the political—or afferent—implications?
If only they didn’t insist upon making everything so absurdly complicated.
“…if you drive outliers from any place in your territory, they’ll just move elsewhere. To the boundaries of sandClan, perhaps, where resources are already scant. Or here beside River, where MoundChieftain has enough difficulties, even with his own blood.”
“I appreciate you are trying to make a point, Seguin,” Sarinak growled. “Kindly make it with less insult. I’m fully aware of my own problems.”
Seguin a’Nunkáhiti, leader of Forestlodge, can be trouble, Aylaniś had informed Palatan as they’d travelled to the Mound. And he’d listened. She’d canny instincts for such things. Indeed, the several Suns of riding Riverwards had been filled with advice and trivia. Seguin begrudges Sarinak’s wide-flung control. Seguin knows he is unable to the challenge, but resentment makes him unwilling to bend his neck, even to Mound-chieftain. You’ve seen his like.
She’d smiled as she said it. Palatan had been his like.
But now he was Alekšu, his own honour and an important curve along Council’s Hoop. He could have demurred. Certainly Chogah’d only hied herself to First Running as she pleased—and often she hadn’t pleased.
Save this one, and Palatan still wondered at the perversity of that.
Just as perverse, his own understanding as to why Chogah acted as she did, including preferring a closed tipo.
The Council pipe passed a second time round. Palatan gave the gaily painted bowl a fond stroke before pulling Smoke deep into his lungs. Within the bowl, Fire flickered greeting, smaller twin of the hearth’s blaze.
“…suffering because stiff-necked midLands farmers refuse to suffer a few yakhling.”
“Not all midLanders are so stiff-necked,” Galenu a’Hassun pointed out with a lazy smile. “As I said before, in stoneClan territory, outliers are permitted to come and go.” That smile betrayed the commonality Palatan shared with Galenu; they both preferred more than a token amount of Smoke aboard to deal with Council matters.
Well, two commonalities: Galenu’s dam had been great-aunt to Palatan.
Dance and sparring had their places, raids and rutting too, but Smoke truly blunted the keen emotional edge of acute disagreement. The inevitable clash of differing customs and ways of being could erupt into something more resembling the flowing Firepaths of Naišihloyeh than any reasonable Council. Smoke had a necessary place—and had the surreptitious benefit of dulling Palatan’s own Senses from roar to murmur. The forces running like hot blood beneath skin were that importunate. For now, what Fire lay behind his eyes was quiet—Smoked—within. Palatan could, as Našobok would say, “keep his heart in his body” for a change.
Another reason to loathe Council: taking Palatan from a lovemate he saw far too seldom. Though Našobok no doubt was busy indulging Tokela.
And there’d always been something more to that one. Palatan found himself wondering, not for the first time, if Tokela had begun maturing in more ways than those of a mere rutty oških.
“—does Alekšu say to this?”
Palatan disguised his unwary start as a shift of weight, seeking Aylaniś. Her lip tilted; she knew he’d been leagues away. Inattention wouldn’t be discourtesy, considering how Smoke’s effect could vary, but it nevertheless pointed out the newest to wear Alekšu’s horns was too wayward, more skilled at being the trickster horse raider than wielding any authority.
Well, so be it. Palatan would rather knock someone off their mount
