But she couldn’t. Not tonight. After her humiliation at the Sisters’ council meeting that afternoon, Kiva didn’t think she could face another night of struggling to hear the voice of the Ancestors, a night of getting more and more frustrated as no new vision came, a night of failing again, and again, and again.
No. Tonight Kiva wanted to take a break, to go somewhere as far away from the Sisters’ camp as possible and try to forget everything: the Strangers, the Forsaken, the Vagra, Kyne. Tonight, Kiva wanted to be with her family.
Outside the Vagra’s hut Kiva paused, lifted her gaze. Her heels raised up as she balanced for a moment on the balls of her feet, craning her neck. From here she could see the entire Sisters’ camp, the entire village, all the way to the lip of the rise. Beyond, the Great Mother loomed on the horizon. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to be at Grath and Quint’s hut by sundown.
Kiva put her head down and began walking. Shadows lengthened in the Sisters’ camp, darkness rising up from the ground like a creeping mist. Most of the Sisters were either in their own huts or visiting their men and children in the main village. Only a few women stood in the doorways of their huts and gave Kiva unsmiling nods as she passed. Kiva could have listened to their minds, could have known what they were thinking as she walked by—whether they supported her or thought that the Vagra had made a mistake when she named Kiva next in line to lead—but she didn’t want to know. Not tonight, not when she was trying to forget her troubles rather than linger on them. She pushed their thoughts away and kept on into the village.
The main village was even emptier than the Sisters’ camp had been. Kiva had been back into the village a handful of times since she’d gone to live with the Sisters, sometimes to visit Grath and Quint, but more often on business that the Vagra was too weak to do herself—visiting the sick, checking on how new babies were doing with their fathers, communicating the Vagra’s decisions and decrees to men who’d had their mates bring petitions before the Sisters’ council. Every time she set foot in the main village, she’d found it mostly empty.
The people—her people—were afraid of her. Though the men and children treated her kindly whenever she visited one of their homes, something had changed in the way they looked at her. A fissure had opened up between Kiva and the Vagri; they gazed at her as if from across a gulf. They respected her, even admired her, but they feared her, too. When she spoke with them, she wanted them to treat her as the girl she’d been, the girl they’d known. All they could think about, though, was the person she would become, the mighty Vagra.
Can she hear my thoughts right now? they’d think. I don’t like it. I wish she’d leave. I wish she’d just go back to her hut and leave me alone.
That’s why she never saw anyone when she walked through the village, Kiva knew—because the Vagri didn’t want to be around her. Whenever they saw her coming they retreated to their huts to avoid having their thoughts heard by the next Vagra.
As Kiva passed one hut after another, she wished she could call out to the people she knew were hiding inside. She wanted to tell them that hiding was pointless—she could hear their minds chattering through the walls of their homes, if she wanted to. She had no interest in eavesdropping on their thoughts tonight, anyway. She wanted to be alone in her own mind for a change.
But she said nothing. Only walked on in silence.
Walking this way, Kiva didn’t hear Po come up until she heard the scratch of his footsteps directly behind her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” Kiva said. “I’m just going to visit Grath and Quint.”
“Do you need company?”
Kiva shook her head. “No. I want to be alone right now.”
“Why?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
Po strode around behind her, from her right ear to her left. Kiva had to resist the urge to rear up on him, to clench her hands and shove him in the chest with both fists—tall and strong though he was. But pushing Po away wasn’t something she should have to do. Wasn’t she one of the Sisters now? In line to become the next leader of the village? Why couldn’t he do as she said?
Po jumped around her, loped on his long legs until he stood in front of her, walking backwards and looking at her with a leering grin.
“Don’t you ever get tired?” he asked.
“Yes. Tired of you.”
His smile dimmed. “No. Tired of being so cold. So distant. Of never letting anybody in.”
Kiva brushed him aside and walked on faster. The light in the sky was dimming, and the first of the stars were beginning to come out. Kiva didn’t have time for this. She wanted to get to Grath’s hut before sundown.
“I’m going to get my own hut soon, you know,” Po said, still keeping pace at Kiva’s heels. “My father said I could. We’re going to start building it tomorrow. My own hut, my own garden. And someday, when I’m older, one of the Sisters …” Po trailed off. “I’ll have my own mate, I mean. My own family.”
Kiva stopped walking. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. She sensed what Po was thinking. She’d sensed it a long time, in fact, even before the Ancestors had given her the power to read the thoughts of others—sensed Po’s growing interest in her. She’d never encouraged Po to think that they could ever be together, but she knew that he wanted it all the same. But the thing that Po hoped for could never be, not only because Kiva could never think of him as anything other than the annoying boy who never left her alone when they were kids, but because the Vagra wasn’t allowed to take a mate.
She needed to tell Po the truth right now—and make sure he understood. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Look, Po,” she said, unable to hide the note of pity that crept into her voice. “I’m flattered, I really am, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I can’t—”
“Don’t,” Po interrupted, his face crumbling for a moment before going smooth, resolving into an empty grin. “That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant at all. Why would you assume I was talking about you? That’s pretty conceited. You think that just because you’re going to be Vagra that everything’s about you now? You, you, you.”
Kiva breathed out angrily, for an exasperated moment unable to find any words. She’d tried to be kind to Po, tried to be honest, and this was how he repaid her?
“I’m sorry, Po,” she said finally. “I—”
“I get it,” he cut in, lifting a hand in the air as he half-turned. “I’m leaving, all right? Go on. Be alone, if that’s what you want so much. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Then he turned and walked away—but not before tossing one last taunt over his shoulder.
“Be alone your entire life, for all I care.”
20
po
Po’s cheeks burned as he made his way through the village, putting distance between himself and Kiva. His breath came hard and labored, even though he was walking slowly. A restless energy buzzed in his limbs, vibrated its way to the end of his arm. He felt like moving, lashing out at something, hurting it, destroying it. He lifted a hand to cover his eyes for a few steps, then let it fall back to his side as a fist.
Soon, he came to the hut he shared with his father. He paused at the edge of the garden and glanced at a lone post, the remnants of a fence that had fallen into disrepair. Somewhere from the depths of his mind Kiva’s words came back to him—I’m flattered, I really am, but I don’t think that’s going to happen—and suddenly, without quite knowing why, he kicked at the post with his bare foot, then kicked it again, and again, each blow aching in the arch of his sole, until the post had uprooted and was lying loose on the ground.
“What’s wrong?”
Po snapped his head up. From the black shadows near the hut, Kyne walked out into the light and came to the fence.
“Nothing,” Po said to his twin sister. “It’s nothing.”
Kyne glanced at the ground. “The post says otherwise.”
“Just leave it,” Po said, not quite knowing whether he was talking about the post or something else he wanted his sister to leave alone.
“Oh, come on.”
Kyne reached forward as if to grab him by the shoulder. Po jerked away and took a step back.
“Don’t touch me,” he said.
“It’s Kiva, isn’t it? You like her.”
Po’s teeth tightened. “This has nothing to do with Kiva.”
“Po, don’t lie to me. I saw you together.”
Heat rose up around Po’s neck. “You were spying on us?”
“You were arguing in the middle of the village. I didn’t need to spy.” Kyne’s voice softened. “I’m not making fun of you, Po. I’m your sister. Just tell me the truth.”
Po’s shoulders slumped, and a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding came out of him in a rush. He looked at the ground, then back up at his sister’s face. He squinted, studying her.
Po knew Kyne better than anyone in the village, but at the same time, it often seemed like there was no one Po knew worse, no one who was more of a mystery to him. Their father always said that Kyne looked like their mother, who’d died giving birth to them—and when Po was a boy he’d often looked at his sister’s face when she was sleeping, studying its contours and wondering about the mother neither of them had ever known.
But as they’d grown, his sister became mysterious to him in a completely different way, and he began studying her face for a different reason entirely: to guess at what might lie just beneath the surface, to speculate about what she was thinking, what she might do next.
His sister wasn’t actually cruel by nature, Po knew. As children, neither of them had many friends in the village, so they’d spent most of their time together: playing together, talking together, quarreling together. When Po felt sad or lonely, Kyne was always there for him.
But there was another side to Kyne. A dangerous side. She liked to be in control. And reducing one of the other girls in the village to tears, or yelling at a boy or even one of the fathers until he went quiet, feeling small—it was one way she could control others, wield power over them.
She wielded power over Po, too. Since he had no mother, the custom of the village said that his older sister would be his guardian and authority until he came of age, got his own hut and garden. Kyne was only older than him by ten minutes, but it still counted: she could tell him what to do, if she wanted to.
It was a power she hadn’t used much when they were kids, except as a joke. But things had changed since Kyne had left him to live with the Sisters in the middle of the village. He barely saw her anymore, and when he did, things between them weren’t the same. Now more than ever, there seemed to be two Kynes: his twin sister, his best and closest friend in the world—and a cruel, angry person whose mood could turn black in the space of a moment.
Now, Po looked at the expression on Kyne’s face and thought: This is the good Kyne. This is my sister. I can trust her.
“Come on,” Kyne said. “Just tell me.”
Po nodded. “Fine. I do, okay? I like Kiva. You happy now?”
He had half-expected Kyne to laugh, but there was no trace of mockery on his sister’s face. She smiled.
“So,” she said. “Was that so hard?”
Po sighed and shook his head. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, though. She doesn’t like me. Not like that, anyway.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kyne asked.
“Yes. She told me.”
Kyne made a sound in the back of her throat.
Po tried to meet his sister’s eyes. “What is it?”
Kyne turned again to face him. “Did you know that the Vagra can’t be mated?”
Po’s heart thrummed; he could feel his pulse in the tips of his fingers.
“You mean …” Po’s mind scrambled. “Kiva can’t take a mate or have children?”
“That’s right. The idea is, a Vagra should be too busy taking care of the whole tribe to bother with a family of her own. The Vagri are her only family.”
Po thought back again to Kiva’s words to him.
Look, Po.
I’m flattered, I really am, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
I can’t—
Po had cut her off after that, embarrassed and simply wanting the moment to end—but what had Kiva been about to say? What if she’d been about to tell him that she wanted to be with him, but couldn’t because she was next in line to be Vagra?
Of course. That had to be it. Kiva seemed so sad, so burdened, when he’d come up behind her. She didn’t want to be Vagra. That was what had been wrong with her; that was why she hadn’t wanted to talk to Po.
“What if … ,” Po began, then trailed off, afraid to speak the thought aloud in front of Kyne.
“What if Kiva weren’t Vagra? What if we could find someone else to lead in her place? Is that what you were about to say?”
“Yes,” Po said.
“I’ve been thinking about the same thing,” Kyne said. “She’s not right for it. Kiva—she’s too timid, too weak. Some kind of … of trouble is coming, and Kiva’s not ready for it. She can’t lead the village.”
“But didn’t the Ancestors choose her?” Po asked. “What can we do?”
Kyne looked back at Po. “I have a plan. I think it could work. But I need your help.”
“Anything. What is it?”
Kyne’s mouth curled at one corner. “The Forsaken,” she said.
Her eyes were dark. Po’s blood chilled as he realized he had guessed wrong.
This wasn’t his sister. This was the other Kyne. The bad Kyne.
Po took a step back. “No,” he said. “No, not that. Please. I don’t want to. I want to stay here, in the village. Please don’t send me to them.”
“It’s only for a while,” Kyne said. “The Forsaken are the key—the key to taking power from Kiva, the key to fighting back whatever trouble is coming for us. I need someone among them. Someone I can trust.”
Panic began to spread over the surface of Po’s skin, itching like a rash. That morning, when his father had suggested that it might be time for him to build his own hut, plant his own garden, Po had felt the future begin to open up before him. Now it was closing again, narrowing to a single path he didn’t want to take.
“Isn’t there another way?” Po asked.
“You want Kiva, don’t you?” Kyne asked. “It will only be for a month or so. Maybe two. Just until I can get the Sisters and the Forsaken on my side. Then, as soon as I’m Vagra, you can come back to the village, and live the rest of your life with Kiva.”
“But won’t she be angry?”
Kyne shook her head. “I don’t even think she wants to be Vagra. She might be mad at first, but when everything’s done and I’m Vagra, Kiva will be grateful to you. To both of us. I promise.”
Po breathed out. Resignation flooded his body like a physical force, sapping him of the will to resist Kyne.
“When?”
Kyne’s eyes flashed. Her face was feverish.
“Tonight,” Kyne answered. “You have to leave tonight.”
21
kiva
At last Kiva reached her father’s hut at the edge of the village. She ducked through the door and paused just inside, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness.
“Kiva!” Quint shouted from somewhere in the dark, and suddenly Kiva felt herself tackled in a hug, staggering back toward the door as her little sister’s arms squeezed tight around her waist.
Kiva laughed.
“Oof! You’re getting too big to run at me like that.”
Kiva ruffled the younger girl’s hair, planted a kiss on the crown of her head. Four seasons old when Kiva had her vision and left to live in the Sisters’ camp, Quint was eight now. Kiva didn’t have time to visit very often, and every time she did she felt a confusing surge of bitterness and love as she saw how much her sister had grown while she wasn’t looking.<
br />
“Quint,” came another voice from the other side of the hut, a woman’s. Kiva looked up.
It was Liana. She’d been at the Sisters’ meeting that evening, looking on from the side of the crowd. Seeing her face now, Kiva felt everything she’d been trying to forget flood back into her mind: the Strangers, the Forsaken, the Vagra, Kyne.
“Remember what we talked about?” Liana said to Quint. “You have to treat your sister with respect. Soon enough, she won’t just be your sister anymore. She’ll be the Vagra, in charge of the whole village.”
The pressure of Quint’s arms around Kiva’s waist eased. She let go of Kiva and stepped back. All the brightness had gone from the girl’s face. Now, she looked at Kiva with a trace of fear, as a child might look at a complete stranger. Kiva bit her lip.
“It’s fine,” Kiva said. “She’s not doing any harm. Really.”
There was a beat of silence. Grath knelt in the middle of the room over a pot set on some glowing embers; he watched Liana and Kiva but didn’t say anything.
“What brings you all the way to the edge of the village?” Liana asked at last. “Are you on business from the Vagra?”
Kiva shook her head. “No. Just visiting.”
Liana nodded. “Grath is making sweetroot stew. You’re welcome to some.”
“Thank you,” Kiva said. “Are you staying here tonight?”
“I am,” Liana said.
“You can stay too, if you want,” Grath said, rising from the fire and wiping his hands on a cloth. “We’ve kept your old bed the same.”
“No,” Liana said, looking first at Grath, then back at Kiva. “I’m sure she can’t stay.”
Kiva bristled, her body tightening. Liana probably thought Kiva was shirking her duty by coming here tonight—she should’ve been trying to summon the Ancestors to tell her more about the Strangers, not coming to the outskirts of the village for a visit.
“She’s right,” Kiva said, trying her best not to let her disappointment show in her voice. “I can’t stay. But thank you for the offer. A bowl of stew, then I’ll be on my way.”
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