Deeper than first gathered, the t’rešalt lay bare of overgrowth and darker than any dark—save for the spastic lightning-shards that occasionally spread over its surface and… well, they seemed to follow him, a wake of not-Fire that pocked his eyes in blinding white shards. His nostrils, too, were overwhelmed, filled with the charged, silt-wet cloak of an approaching storm. A shivery rash of sensation washed over his skin, lifting hair from scalp to ankles. His pace dragged more and more, a scrape and shuss just that much too loud. Gritting his teeth, Tokela forged onward.
In truth it was only several tens of steps, with the thing sparking and snapping and crackling about him, his breaths skittering, faint but determined, amongst the cacophony. He counted them, speeding more and more as the thing pressed upon him, tight and empty and unending…
Tokela staggered past the t’rešalt and fell to his hands and knees, released.
Counted a brace of his own heartbeats.
Looked up, eyes ghosting with white sparks, and irising all the wider to take in the blessed normalcy of dark. His heart, conversely, tightened and twisted against his breastbone. Now he was here—in here—he wasn’t sure what to do with the reality.
What that reality meant.
It was said that only Chepiś could venture past the t’rešalt.
But his mother had done.
Taking refuge in the thought, Tokela tossed the hair from his eyes and rose to his haunches, curious.
Not so different, after all, than the deeper woods north of Naisgwyr’uq. Trees, towering over him in muted shades of jet and downRiver malachite, their canopy so far over his head it didn’t even feel as if there were any ceiling, only darkness rising and melding into forever. Moss and lichens, with old logs fallen in their own rot, making fecund nurseries for fresh shoots and fingerling plants. Wet, dripping from the dark and hanging in the air.
Only…
This place felt different, somehow. It smelt different.
Forbidden. Misbegotten monsters wait, eat curious ahlóssa who don’t stay upon their bedshelf, who wander where they shouldn’t…
Nostrils flaring, Tokela rocked to his feet. He was being foolish. Nothing had changed. Moreover, he hadn’t changed. Still in his own skin, still possessed of hale limbs, with breath to fill his lungs and heart pounding, a rhythmic if agitated drum, in his breast. Still of firstPeople.
His gaze, unwilling, slid back to the t’rešalt, which looked much the same—only darker, those odd sparks and cracks muted, gone quiet.
Until something erupted, Stars from pitch, with the sound of wet droplets flung into Fire’s embrace. Tokela jumped like hareKin. Averted his gaze.
And went deeper into Šilombiš’okpulo.
3 – Anahli
She’d forgotten how Air was weighted, here. Ša dripped from the trees, glittering and heavy. Ša hung in her lungs, lingering there even as she exhaled. Ša puffed her long braids from oiled sleekness, and tickled her ankles as she dismounted. The fringe of her leggings made dark swathes in the damp grass as she walked forwards, scratching her mare’s black-splotched face and gathering the rein. So sodden, here, that trees grew unhindered save by each other, and had to be cleared to make proper grazing.
Letting the breath escape her pursed lips, Anahli a’Šaákfo watched it vent upward like the steam escaping the winter caverns in duskLands. It wasn’t even that cold.
And she’d better get used to it.
Her mare danced in place, snoring from curled nostrils, eyes on the herd grazing the other side of the clearing. Anahli grinned and slipped the rope from the mare’s nose, stepped back. The mare exploded into a run, bucking and squealing and farting. The other visitors—horses, shorthorns and even a few lammoi from hillClans—responded to the mare’s high spirits. Tails flagging, they lapped the clearing, once coming so close Anahli’s leathers rustled with their passing.
She didn’t retreat. Instead she cupped both hands to her mouth and let out a whoop.
Another answered from behind her—more a whistle, really, and then her name echoing against the trees. “Anahli!”
Another smile teasing her lip, she pretended not to hear. As if such a thing were possible when Kuli was in full voice.
“Hihlyanahli!!”
She turned about just in time for several hands of giggling, wriggling little brother to leap into her arms and try to knock her flat. Laughing, she let him, and they rolled in the damp grass.
Which just set the herd off again. Anahli’s black-spotted mare in the lead, they made for the far line of trees. The cattle lumbered after, stub tails flung high, and even the phlegmatic lammoi snorted and circled the clearing with their curious, rocking gait. Watching them go, still laughing, Anahli rolled to her feet and peered down at herself: best leathers smudged with damp and green; colourful skeins and fur mussed where they’d been plaited into her braids.
“Ai, now look what you’ve done!” She gave a half-hearted smack at Kuli’s cinnabar topknot. “How am I to make a proper impression if I look like I’ve been rolling in the grass with ahlóssa?”
“You have been rolling in the grass with ahlóssa.” Kuli looked up at her, flat on his back in the grass with an impenitent grin. “I was watching for you from Overlook; saw you riding ahead! Where are Aška and Yeka?”
“Soon. Our dam and sire rode slowly with the elders.”
Kuli’s eyes—moss-coloured as their sire’s—widened. “Which ones… Ai, not old Chogah! She can hardly even sit a horse any more, why is she—?”
“Show respect, little Fox.” It was purposeful, pointed. “If you’re going to be ugly about Chogah, I’ll leave you here.”
“I’ll just follow you. I don’t mean to be ugly. But she started it. She’s ugly to Yeka and you know it.”
“That’s not yours to judge.” Anahli knew she was puffing up like poked serpentKin, but the
