Inhya blinked. “I never wanted them to hurt you. I don’t want Tokela hurt. I swore an oath, to protect him even as his dam would have.”
“But?” He tried to blunt his talk, couldn’t. Inhya frowned, her confusion surely reasonable. As a hand laid upon Palatan’s shoulder he stiffened, then relaxed into Aylaniś’s touch. It transferred a soft-deep strength, and one that didn’t come from pain or rage.
Palatan closed his eyes, gentled, and rested his cheek against his chieftain’s fingers. Repeated, “But?”
Inhya’s gaze dropped, then her head followed suit, forehead resting upon their clasped hands for long breaths. Then she told him what she had witnessed in the Council den, alone with Tokela.
As she spoke, Aylaniś’s fingers nipped, hard. With a tiny, choked noise, she moved away. Beyond Inhya’s view, beneath the pretence of pouring tea, her eyes sought Palatan’s, dark with disquiet.
Tokela sketching Chepiś faces he’d never seen. Tokela drawn to Našobok, to River. Mordeleg’s claim of sorcery—and Inhya’s worries that it could well be true. The Šilombiš’okpulo, where Lakisa had gone and Tokela had followed… and perhaps, as Mordeleg had claimed, used the Shaper’s well to defend himself.
Not only Inhya’s, but Palatan’s own thoughts running apace: Anahli stricken afterwards, hints of interference surfacing. Her change thereafter, asking her dam about Našobok, and River.
Had she lied in Arbitration? Why would she?
And now, it seemed Tokela could hold Fire as well as River?
His thumbs stroking at Inhya’s temples, Palatan winged a silent question towards the hearth. Why did you protect Tokela?
Fire gave no answer, Sent or Sensed.
“Something must be done, Palatan. I swore to shelter him, to raise him as my own, yet at every opportunity he but proves he’s not… not…” The talk throttled into clenched fists; she’d revealed more than she felt wise. “I fear to even speak it, but I more fear…”
“You fear,” said Palatan, “rumour could be truth. That your son is not your son, but a’Chepiś.”
Inhya mouthed a negation, muted, and he could feel the underpinnings sending waves of chill over his scalp and down his nape.
She doesn’t fear. She knows.
“You are Alekšu.” Inhya raised her head, eyes glimmering. “You are now the one who, alone of all our People, has Grandmother’s leave to… to intervene. You can help him as Chogah helped you!”
Chogah did not help me. Chogah hoped I’d not survive. Again, Palatan met Aylaniś’s gaze; again, hers lay dark—this time with sorrow.
Yet another reason such secrets shouldn’t be easily shared. The toll lay heaviest upon those forced to bear their weight as mere witness.
“I know you say torture,” Inhya pleaded, “and I know she hurt you, and I felt my own Spirit dying with every scream you uttered. But you were freed, brother, freed of what Spirits would take you. There was purpose to it, you know there was, for now you can aid others! You’ve walked their path, you know the horror of it!”
You have, he whispered silent against her hair, no idea. Then, full of pity, Ai, Tokela.
“You know what he could face. The only reason they never banished La—my lovemate—was because she showed nothing like to… that. She was merely lost, Spirit-lost. It holds shame, but such things are pitied, cared for, released if necessary. It is not… not true possession. And it isn’t Other. Isn’t Shaping.” Inhya gulped a harsh breath, tried to regain some control. “If Tokela is what I fear, if it is laid upon him, if the rumours are proven… I have done everything I can to protect him, to stop it. I have, I swear, but if we cannot stop it, expel what possesses him—”
Cannot, she says. Ai, she knows this is not of us, knows it is truly Other.
I can gather one a’Alekšuáhoklawyhahín. Indeed, I must. There is no choice; so few of us remain. Yet what do I do with one who is but half our kind? I cannot bring Chepiś sorcery into the beating heart of our most sacred places!
“—there will be nothing more I can do. He will be made outlier, walk nameless and clanless.” Inhya lifted her head, met Palatan’s eyes. “There is none else before whom I can lay this. You must help my eldest son, Alekšu.”
Palatan raised Inhya’s fingers to his forehead, where the scarified, ebon-and-white Mark still bore a tiny, new-made itch. Then he rose and walked over to the hearth.
He could feel Inhya’s eyes follow him, and those of Aylaniś, but he didn’t respond, staring instead into Fire’s depths.
“Alekšu.” It trembled, false force. “Palatan. Brother.”
Still, no response. Rain poured, outside. Fire remained placid, as if Ša asked no more than to sear meat and give warmth. Was such refusal its own answer?
Or was it that there could be no answers here?
Aylaniś began to serve the bark tea. Palatan took his and did not drink, mouthing the warm clay of the cup and staring into Fire’s eyes.
Turned. “He is only just oških, I know, but how long is it since his voice deepened?”
“Two winterings. He had… an…an ill reaction to the Dreaming, and the Seer said he wasn’t ready. Breaking has come late to him.”
“You have only seen small signs recently.”
“A’io. And not all at once. In… surges.”
Palatan nodded. “This is normal.”
“Normal?” Inhya’s voice rose, almost shrill.
Another knife cut, shallow and stinging. Palatan smiled at it, bitter, and gave emotionless explanation. “It means we yet have time.”
“RAIN’S STOPPED,” Tokela half-whispered.
Našobok turned from draping their wet clothing over a line of twisted hemp in the corner of his hold. Tiny hisses issued as he did, the garb dripping upon uncovered pots of gleaming-stones. Set below on gimbals, they gave off as much warmth as light—a luxury Našobok was glad to invest in. Their clothing would be mostly dry by Sun’s rising.
Tokela stood by the aft lookout, staring out into the darkness. He swayed ever so slightly, not only from Ilhukaia’s motion, but some vibration deep within.
Frowning, Našobok snatched up a length of fine-split doehide from a hook and padded over, draping it across Tokela’s bare
