Voice of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Rhia barely heard Alanka’s last sentence. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I was ashamed, and I didn’t want you to feel guilty. It was your war that made me this way.” She pounded her fists against her thighs. “But it was my choice to help. I don’t blame you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You didn’t force me to fight. I came out of loyalty to you and my brothers. And maybe because my father was the one who caused it all. I wanted to prove I wasn’t like him.”

  Rhia reined in her frustration, remembering the wolf pup in Razvin’s arms. “I think that’s why he’s taken your soul piece. He wants a link to you, but he’s also angry you went to battle.”

  Alanka’s mouth dropped open. “He’s angry with me? How dare he?”

  “Exactly.”

  She drew in a quick breath. “If my father lets go of my soul part, will I get my powers back?”

  “Maybe. But maybe not. Just because it’s all connected doesn’t mean there’s one solution. What happened to you on the battlefield would have been enough to damage even a whole, complete soul.”

  Alanka nodded. “Filip called it battle shock. Sometimes it happens to real warriors, too.”

  “You’re a real warrior, Alanka.” Rhia sighed. “We all are now.”

  23

  Alanka was grateful to leave the crowded boat that night when Koli anchored it in a calm tributary of the Velekon River. They made camp on the banks to avoid traveling the river’s rocky portion in the dark, and to give each other much-needed space. In another hour, Alanka figured, Lycas and Filip would have thrown each other overboard.

  Soon a fire was burning, and the eight travelers gathered around it. They roasted potatoes and ate fresh spring greens with the dried venison Tereus had packed. After dinner, Arcas led them in a series of songs to lift their moods and beseech the Spirits’ goodwill. As he sang, he worked on his latest wood carving, which turned out to be a bat. He offered it to Koli, who did a poor job of feigning indifference.

  Alanka sat next to Filip and stole glances at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. The firelight glinted off his golden hair and ruddy skin, and created shadows in the hollows of his cheekbones and the sockets of his deep-set eyes—eyes that regarded everyone but her and Bolan with distrust.

  He caught her glance and motioned behind him to indicate he wanted to speak with her alone. Or maybe he was just embarrassed because he didn’t know the words to the songs.

  They walked along the riverbank until they were out of range of even the most sensitive ears. Alanka sat on a mossy log. The dampness seeped through her trousers, and she wished she’d brought a blanket, though that would have spiked her brother’s suspicions about what they planned to do upon it.

  Filip sat beside her. “I was thinking about your power loss and other ways to remedy it. If this soul-capture procedure doesn’t work.”

  “Soul retrieval.” She hated to correct him and was flattered he’d been considering her dilemma.

  “Have you considered a sacrifice to the Wolf Spirit? In my country, we slaughter an animal and dedicate it to the god we want to favor us.”

  “Before you eat the animal, you mean?”

  “We don’t eat it.”

  “Sounds wasteful.”

  “That’s the whole point.” He lifted a palm to the sky. “It’s a tribute, showing the gods that they’re so important, we’d in essence give them food from our own table.”

  “So they can eat it.”

  “No, gods don’t eat.” Frustration tinged his voice. “They’re not human.”

  “I know, but—I don’t understand. It seems so pointless, so impractical.”

  “Why should faith be practical?”

  She rubbed her arms, which had grown cold. “You still believe in your gods? Now that you know the Spirits are real?”

  He nodded, and she wished for enough light to read the emotion in his eyes. “My beliefs haven’t changed,” he said. “Except that I’m no longer certain that the Spirits are evil agents of chaos, like I was taught growing up.” He turned to her. “What do you think of my suggestion?”

  “Making a sacrifice?” She shook her head. “Even if I could catch a rabbit or a bird right now, Wolf wouldn’t want it. He cares about what’s inside me, and right now what’s inside me is a mess.”

  “I know.”

  “Thank you for not denying it. Everyone wants me to be fine, so I pretend I am. That way I don’t let them down more than I already have.”

  “Shh.” He slid his hand over hers. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

  Her chest tightened with the ache of true connection. She wanted more than anything to kiss him, but something in his manner curbed her. She was confident he wasn’t a lover of men like Damen, but Filip treated her so cautiously, it made her wonder at the level of his desire.

  “I have another idea,” Filip said, breaking her contemplation. “My people undergo initiation rituals when they become warriors.”

  “So do mine. The Wolverines and Bears and Wasps.”

  “But not Wolves?”

  “Wolves are hunters,” she said, “not warriors.”

  “Everyone’s a warrior when their land is threatened, when their lives are at stake.”

  “That’s what Rhia said, but it felt wrong.” She tapped a fist to her chest. “Down in my blood it felt wrong.”

  “But think of Marek. He’s a Wolf, and he killed a Descendant face-to-face, like a man.”

  She snorted. “As opposed to the womanly piercing of flesh with arrows?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Is that why your people don’t have archers? Not manly enough?”

  “Yes, but—” He waved his hand. “Back to the subject. The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve never honored the warrior in yourself. Not only that, you were never purified after the battle.”

  “Purified…” The word slid over her tongue like a pat of butter. “I wish we had been purified, instead of just going back to our lives.”

  “Which have no delineation from war. In Leukos, military uniforms are forbidden within the city gates. Before entering after a campaign, we lay down our weapons, then we’re scrubbed clean with hot water and salts, so as not to taint our city’s streets with the blood we’ve shed.”

  “How do you keep order if no one’s armed? Asermos has a police force, mostly Bobcats and Badgers.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Those Bobcats shot my comrades in the back when they tried to escape.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway, in Leukos, we also have police, but they’re completely segregated from the military. Retired officers from one can’t join the other. If I were to return home—” The muted hint of pain in his voice made her want to fold him into her arms. “Even if I were whole, I couldn’t join the police force.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’d think me too violent, too brutish.”

  “You don’t seem brutish to me.” She reached forward and swept an imaginary leaf off his shoulder. “You seem quite…restrained.”

  He glanced at the place where she had touched him, then returned his gaze to her face, more intense than ever. “Be assured, whatever restraint I show around you is merely a measure of the force it contains.”

  Her lips parted instinctively, the better to smell his desire and fear and see which was winning. But her powers were lost, so she would have to guess. “I admire your discipline.”

  “A warrior shows control when control is called for.” He dipped his head and kissed her cheek. The warmth of his lips sent a shock snaking down her spine. “And shows abandon when…”

  He grasped her face and melded his mouth with hers. She moaned, arching her back to demolish the distance between them. Desire sparked within her, a feeling so long undetected it felt almost foreign. For the first time since the battle, she felt like she lived within her own skin.

&
nbsp; She moved his hand to her breast as her leg slid forward around his. Her knee knocked into something unyielding. He pulled away suddenly, glancing down.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You know I don’t care about your leg.”

  “It’s not only that.” He let go of her. “Where I come from, a man doesn’t do such things with a woman he…”

  “A woman he what?” She feared he would say “doesn’t like.”

  “Respects,” he said. “A woman he could imagine someday wanting to—to have more than just her body.”

  She pondered this quaint notion. “Do you respect me too much to keep kissing me?”

  He stared at her mouth. “I don’t think anything would keep me from that.”

  “That’s a start, then.”

  Alanka drew him close and reveled in the feel of his lips and tongue, in the novelty of a kiss that would lead to nothing further. It was enough, for now.

  “This time, don’t scare them off.”

  Rhia frowned at Damen as she knelt on the rug inside the boat cabin. “I’ll try. This time they won’t be a surprise. That should help keep my temper under control.”

  A small lantern glowed in the corner, giving them enough light to set up the ritual for Alanka’s soul retrieval. Damen and Rhia had settled on a plan by which, working together, they would persuade Razvin to hand over his daughter’s soul piece. Rhia was skeptical that anything other than force would convince him, but she was glad to have Damen to distract Skaris while she focused on the Fox.

  “Why did Skaris want to kill you?” Damen asked Rhia.

  “To get his time back, Crow’s ransom, the amount of other people’s lives Coranna had to trade for resurrecting me. She told me it was roughly a month per person, if I lived to be her age.” She set the drum on the berth. “Didn’t people want to kill you after you were brought back to life?”

  “Not that I was aware of. Then again, some say I’m a bit dense.” Damen paused, thanapras in hand. “There’s a way to force them to let go.”

  “Force them? How?”

  “You can ask Crow to take them nowhere.”

  She stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “These lingerers play a dangerous game, torturing the living. By not accepting Crow’s release, they risk annihilation. No peace and rest on the Other Side. Just nothingness. Forever.”

  Rhia shuddered. “We can ask Crow to make that happen, and He’ll do it?”

  “Supposedly, yes. I’ve never asked for it, and I never will.”

  She sat beside Damen on the floor. “Why didn’t Coranna tell me?”

  “She said you weren’t ready. She feared your emotions would lead you to do something you’d regret.”

  “I’d never do that to anyone.”

  “Not even Skaris?”

  “No. I want to silence him, but not that way. I want to help him find peace.”

  “And spend the rest of your life missing a piece of yourself.”

  “If I have to.” She ruminated on Damen’s revelation. “What does it cost to ask Crow to annihilate someone’s soul?” The words themselves felt foul in her mouth.

  “The only price is living with what you’ve done. Such an act can’t ever be taken back. I’d think the regret would poison one’s own soul.” He sat back on his heels. “Ready to begin?”

  She nodded. “I’ll get the others.”

  Soon Alanka was lying on the floor next to Rhia. Koli stepped over them to sit on the berth. She set the drum in her lap, rolled up her sleeves and swung her dark blond braid out of the way. “Which tempo?” she asked Damen.

  “Deep trance. Wait until I lie down.”

  Damen lit the thanapras, then chanted a high, potent keening that seemed as if it could smash the barriers between the Spirits’ world and their own. Rhia could almost feel the sound tunneling through her mind.

  After he finished, he sank onto the rug on the other side of Alanka. Koli began to drum.

  A strange feeling crawled over Rhia’s skin. She wanted to brush her arms and neck to check for spiders, but forced herself to remain motionless. Damen’s chant echoed in her mind.

  The fog between worlds appeared again, but this time lightning cracked its surface as though it were a thundercloud. When Rhia tried to pass through, painful tingles jumped among her fingertips. She backed up, and the fog seemed to pull her in and push her away at the same time.

  She fought to keep her breath steady and focus on the drum. Perhaps this was a test. Alanka shifted beside her, and Rhia wanted to tell her to be still, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She hovered, paralyzed, between two worlds.

  Hands shook her hard. “Rhia, something’s wrong with Damen.”

  She lurched to sit up, rubbing her face to banish the clammy, groping fog.

  Her Crow brother was panting hard, lungs heaving as though he were running at full speed. He clutched at the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric. It tore in half down the center of his chest.

  “Koli, stop,” Rhia said. “This isn’t right.”

  The Bat pushed the drum aside. “What’s happening to him?”

  “I don’t know.” Rhia touched his hand. It shook as hard as her own and was twice as cold. “I’m going to bring him back.”

  “No…” Damen grasped his hair and pulled hard. “Not everyone. Stop.” His body twisted on the rug. “Where are you? Speak!”

  Rhia took his other hand. “Damen, come back to us. You’ll be safe here.”

  He screamed, a sound so long and loud it seemed as though it could reach the Gray Valley and beyond.

  Alanka and Koli yelped and leaped to their feet. Her heart pounding, Rhia told the two women, “Go. We need to be alone.”

  They jerked open the cabin door and pushed each other through. When the door slammed shut, Rhia turned back to Damen, wondering what to do. If only Coranna were here.

  His moans had softened, and tremors racked his body. She wiped his face with a damp cloth, figuring it couldn’t make things worse. “Damen, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you.” He opened his eyes and let out a deep breath. “I heard it all, and then nothing. Nothing.” He struggled to sit up against the berth, then raised a wet gaze to hers. “I think my baby just died.”

  Rhia stared at him in horror. If a first child died before coming to term, its parents returned to the first phase. As if it weren’t bad enough to miscarry, one’s second-phase magic would be lost, too. But it was the Spirits’ way of ensuring no one got pregnant for the sake of power, only to abort the child.

  “I’m so sorry.” She pulled Damen close and stroked his long black hair. He gripped the back of her shoulders, shivering.

  Suddenly his body seized, and he pushed himself out of her embrace. “I hear them again!” He crammed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “But I can’t block them out. I can’t even tell them apart.”

  She exhaled hard. “Then your powers are fluctuating, the way they were when I was first pregnant.”

  “The child’s in trouble.” Damen wiped his face with his sleeve. “This happened to my cousin. His wife had a hard pregnancy. In the month before their son was born, their powers swung from nothing to everything.”

  Rhia nodded. As a healer, her mother had encountered several such cases.

  With a shaky hand, he quenched the thanapras in the water bowl. “It’s my fault. Crow is punishing me.”

  “He doesn’t take innocent lives to punish us. What do you think you did wrong?”

  He angled a wary look at her. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Damen, this secrecy has to stop. You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t want to tell me.”

  He sat back against the edge of the berth and let out a long sigh. “I saw Nilik’s death. When he was born.”

  “So did I.”

  Damen stared at her, then blinked. “You have an excuse. You were tired and weak after the labor.” He hung his head. “I was merely curious.”

  “Abo
ut what?”

  “About the Raven prophecy. Because of my own child. I thought if I could see how Nilik would die, it would tell me whether he was the one.”

  “Did it?”

  “No.”

  The image burned her mind, and she wondered if Damen had seen the same one. “I saw him die young,” she said, “seventeen or eighteen, facedown in the sand holding a sword. There’s blood everywhere. I think he dies in the land of the Descendants. Which either means we won’t rescue him, or that someday our people will invade—”

  “Wait.” Damen held up his hand. “Nilik won’t die in Ilios. He’ll die in Velekos.”

  “Velekos?” Rhia grabbed Damen’s hand so hard she thought the slender bones would break. “Are you sure?”

  “I recognized the place. It’s an hour’s ride west of the village, one of the few beaches without rocks.”

  Her mind raced with the implications. “Then that must mean—”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. He could still spend his life in Ilios and travel back to Velekos as a young man.” He grimaced as if in pain and drew his hand out of hers. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. It breaks the sacred law.”

  “But there must be exceptions. Why else would Crow give us these visions if not to share them, at least with other Crows?”

  “I don’t know. To test us? It’s not for us to question.”

  “But it’s up to us to act the way we think is right.”

  “So we just make our own rules?” He rubbed his temples, glaring at her. “Coranna was right about you.”

  Rhia’s blood heated. “She wasn’t, because she never knew that my vision saved Asermos.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was fifteen, Galen tested me on his sick brother Dorius, Arcas’s uncle. Everyone thought he was dying, but I saw that he could live. Then—I saw his death.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “He was bleeding in a pile of golden oak leaves,” she said. “I thought it meant he would die in autumn.”