What the Chepiś had tried to call him. What he’d refused to allow. Tokela didn’t like hearing it aloud, and none seemed to like voicing it. It was a reminder, even if it was what his name meant—another mask, Commingling talk. But no one, not even Madoc, used this particular intimacy. And the way Našobok spoke, so low and soft and… and close—so close… too close… not close enough—breath teasing warm against Tokela’s cheek. The scent conjured Smoke and tulapaiś, sweat and sex and brine. Tokela’s heart skipped against the too-tight drumskin of his breast, thoughts running scattered, water over breaker rocks.
“And if we’re having awkward, insecure confessions, I have several for you.” Našobok’s grip tightened, shook, sending River in rippled spirals about their close-hoved bodies. “I never thought to tread the Mound’s circuit again, and I never dreamed it would be you who’d Dance me around like this. I’m Riverwalker and Wyrh-chieftain, but in our birthing-tribe I’m nothing. Outlier. You and I have shared many a story, but I never thought you would want to share this one.”
It could have been kind lies or indeed a confession, and all Tokela wanted was to deny—nothing, outlier?—to affirm—want you, want you…
Tokela twisted in the firm embrace until he could reach Našobok’s face with both hands and grip. Hard. “You,” he gritted, “talk too much.”
Našobok’s face held no pity and no lies. “I guess I talk too much when… well, when I’m not sure what else to do. And if I talk too much, well, you don’t make enough talk to tell anyone what you want for dinner, much less—” Again the mellifluous voice cracked, went rough; it weakened Tokela’s knees. “Tell me, Star Eyes. Plain and pitiless. There’s no reading your bodytalk now where I could only a short while ago. What do you want of me, here, in thisNow?” Not so soft anymore, it echoed the rapid drum of Tokela’s heart.
Tell me. Here. In thisNow.
Were there other Nows? For River was quiet, quieter than She’d ever been since he’d returned from Šilombiš’okpulo.
Tokela reached out with trembling fingers. Angling his head forwards until his forehead rested against Našobok’s chest, he grasped Našobok’s hand and cupped it to his nape.
He’d seen it done, this intimate and evocative lover’s gesture, and had never truly fathomed why.
Until now.
I’m speechless with want. My head is heavy, my eyes spin, my heart wants to fly. Only your heart can carry me. Only your heart can drum the truth for me.
Against Tokela’s forehead, beneath the thick bone of Našobok’s breast, another beat lurched and quickened. Našobok whispered Tokela’s name, and the fingers at Tokela’s nape twitched, slid up to tangle where a braidlock had, only that morning, hung, binding him to an existence in which he no longer belonged.
And River, silent, curled about them close as skin.
“Thisnow,” Tokela breathed. “Here.”
PALATAN DIDN’T return to Council. Instead he returned to his tipo, merely to find Anahli nested in the heap of their blankets, asleep.
Odd.
Arrow didn’t think so. Giving a low purl in his throat, the fleethound began the arduous process of curling into the blankets beside one of his People: first the circling, then the decision of location, then a fold of his sinewy body—front-first of course—before rolling onto his side against Anahli’s blanket-heaped form.
She barely stirred.
Palatan tucked a smile into his cheek and knelt, regarding his eldest daughter with cocked head. A soft, curious sigh escaping pursed lips, he reached out and tucked the blankets closer, traced a light touch over Anahli’s cheek.
Another oddity: she was radiating heat like a well-stoked Firepit.
Black eyes opened, blearily took him in. “Yeka?”
Palatan hesitated but a half heartbeat before lowering himself gently next to her. He’d never been one to waste a chance. “I am here, sa ehši.”
Anahli lay silent for several breaths, then ventured, “I’m… not so well. I wanted to lie here. It smells like home.”
Her voice quavered, vulnerable reminder of the leggy, open-hearted ahlóssa who’d shadowed Palatan both mounted and afoot. Recent memory seemed implausible; surely this wasn’t the oških who’d only thisSun openly humiliated one of the Spear Dancers and defied her elders.
“I see,” Palatan answered, quiet. “Is there pain?”
Anahli seemed to consider the question before answering, dull. “My eyes hurt. My temples pound…” A frown gathered at her brow and she shrugged the blankets down. She was still dressed in her Dance finery. “N’da, not just that. More like… hiveKin. Buzzing about in their Dance, filling up their little lodges with sweet and wax until they’re too… small.” She looked up at him, cheeks flushed dark, and Palatan froze.
Those eyes glittered, with an overlay of oddling white and turquoise.
It wasn’t the normal gleam of darksight in shadowed places. Nor was it the backwash of any co-tenant he’d ever seen. It flickered like tiny lights within Dark’s upended basket, like…
Stars.
This was impossible.
Sucking in a long, slow breath, Palatan gritted his teeth and reached out, put gentle fingers to his daughter’s throat. Bent his head and breathed the invocation, seeking.
And heard. N’da, more felt, indeed as if hiveKin had taken residence in her heart. Thousands of tiny wings vibrating, a breath pouring into the back of Palatan’s throat to rest there, humming. So soft, so present; surely to release them all he’d to do was just breathe…
Within him, as if teased by the current of many translucent wings, Fire expanded and lit the backs of his eyes, pure and ecstatic. Palatan had no heart to quell the response. This was his child.
And it comforted, reassured his acute senses with familiarity: Grandmother’s own. Ours.
“Yeka?”
“Peace,” he murmured, tracing a tiny sign at her throat. With it, he released his Power and opened himself to working. Though he could not remove those tiny, industrious Spirit forms, he could ease them into temporary complacency. Fire murmured consent, morphing into soft embers. Smoke, and quiet…
A hiss. Fire blazed upwards then gusted sideways, guttered. Palatan swayed and nigh lost his balance, saving himself from falling atop Anahli with
