I try to pull against him. Torrin needs to suffer. He needs to be the one twitching on the ground while everyone watches.
“You will calm yourself, now!”
“He set me up,” I yell back. “I didn’t get bitten. It was him. All of them. They—”
He slaps me.
The shock is enough to distract me from my need to disfigure Torrin. My father has never struck me. He’s never needed to. I have always been his perfect child. His favorite. But as I look into his eyes now, I can see nothing but disappointment. Anger. Even hate. As though he is the one about to be sentenced to death in the wild.
I collect myself, breathing in and out slowly. This time, with no mania, I try to explain again, loudly for all to hear. “I was not bitten by one of the creatures. He clamped one of the severed head’s teeth onto my arm. They’re trying to get me banished. I swear it, Father.”
A group of the village elders stand behind my father. Edelmar, the oldest and wisest of them all, speaks up. “Can anyone confirm Rasmira’s story? Did anyone see?”
I look around, but I now realize the reason for Havard’s battle cry. He drew everyone’s attention to him, and Torrin was so close to me, he could have easily ruined me without anyone noticing.
My eyes land on my mother.
She saw.
I’d looked up and seen her watching me. I remember. She saw the whole thing. She can save my life.
“Mother?” I plead.
Uncertainty crosses her face for a moment. She has an important choice to make. One that could change her life and mine.
Finally, she says, “I cannot lie. The goddess forbids it. I won’t do it, not even for my own daughter. I saw nothing.”
Whatever hope I might have been clinging to vanishes. I vanish, blowing away on the next gentle breeze. My world has ended, and I can’t feel anything anymore. I am only a collection of thoughts.
The odds that nobody saw what truly happened are so slim, but no one would dare refute my mother. Not the village beauty. The wife of their leader. Not when they could use their knowledge of the truth to gain favor with her.
“Very well, then,” Father says. His voice is calculated, free of emotion. “Rasmira Bendrauggo, daughter of Torlhon, you are to be banished. You have until morning to prepare yourself for the wild. By that time, the council will decide your mattugr.”
* * *
IT REQUIRES ALL MY concentration just to put one foot in front of the other. Hundreds of eyes burn into my back. I can feel them even if I can’t see them judging me. When at last I step into my home, I allow my shoulders to slump, my head to fall.
I head for my bedroom. I need to pack.
I need to think.
I need to breathe.
My thoughts jumble together as I try to remember all the supplies I will need for the wild. Hides, food, candles, flint and pyrite, soap, water flask, blanket, whetstone, oil.
I crouch down to my knees to look under the bed for a leather pack to store it all. Instead my eyes land on the jewelry box.
Mother’s earrings are inside.
Before I even know what’s happening, the box is in my hands and I’m hurling it across the room. A scream fills my ears. My scream.
The box shatters as it hits the wall, and the light from my window flashes across the gemstones as they rain to the ground. I rip the ax from my back and let it clatter to the floor. I slam a fist into my feather-stuffed pillow. My eyes and nose burn.
I come apart where no one can see and no one can hear.
* * *
SOMETIME LATER, I lie in bed, staring at the rock ceiling. I’ve already finished filling my pack with provisions. There is nothing to do now but wait.
It seems as though my memory must be faulty. Some nightmare that I’ve confused with reality. But as I listen to the sounds of the village’s celebration, I remember that I’m not invited. I am not an adult like the rest of the warriors of my age group. I’m an outcast.
I hear the door to the house slam shut. A rush of footsteps. Then my door bursts open, Irrenia spilling in, her arms barely containing an assortment of objects.
“Sorry it’s taken me so long to come,” she says. “I had to grab a few things.” She sets everything on the floor and starts sifting through it. “Fever reducer,” she says, holding up a few leaves in a glass jar. “Pain reliever.” She raises a bottle of rosy pink liquid. “Muscle relaxant. This one wards off infection, and—”
“Irrenia.”
“Drink this one with water. It’ll make sure you get all the nutrients you need. Plants will likely be scarce out there.”
I stand and walk over to her, trying to still her frantic hands. “Irrenia.”
“No! You need to remember this. It’s important.”
“How can I possibly fit this all in my pack?”
“Take two packs.”
“I may be strong, but I also need to be able to walk.”
Her head snaps up. “This is no time to joke! You’re going to—going to—” She bursts into tears.
I have little desire to comfort her when I am the one being sent to my death, but I remember the right motions. I wrap my arms around her dainty figure. She’s beautiful like Mother. Out of all of us, I think she looks the most like her. How did she become Mother’s opposite in everything else?
She lets me hold her only for a few seconds before pushing me away. “Don’t do that. I should be comforting you. I’m horrible. I—I—I just stood there.”
“What do you mean?”
“All I had to do was say I saw that boy do it. It didn’t matter that I didn’t see anything. I still should have done it. For you.”
My heart seems to grow within my chest. “I don’t expect you to lie for me. You cannot jeopardize your soul, Irrenia.”
“I should have done it anyway. I would do anything for you. I just hesitated. I thought of myself first. I’m despicable. I—”
“That’s enough. You are the furthest thing from despicable. You are one of the only people in this village who truly cares for me. You are kind and good. Nothing in this world has made me happier than having you for a sister.”
Tears start to fall from her eyes again. “But it’s not fair. They set you up.”
“I know.”
She grabs one more thing off the ground. “All right, it might have been silly for me to bring so much, but you at least have to take this with you. It was your present for after the trial. And now—” She clears her throat. “Now that your trial is over, I can give it to you.”
She forces a smile and hands me a canister. I take it, open it, and sniff at the contents.
“Ugh. It’s brown. Is it dung?”
“No. It’s much more useful than dung. I’ve been experimenting.”
“With dung?”
“No! With ziken blood.”
Now she has my attention. “You didn’t!”
Her tears disappear. The healer in her comes forth. “I did. If you’re injured out in the wild, smear this cream on the wound. It will heal most cuts and scrapes instantly. It won’t mend broken bones, and it won’t re-form lost limbs. I can’t figure out how they manage to grow those back. I’m still working on it, and I have much to figure out, but—”
I embrace her before she can finish. “It’s wonderful. I’m sure it will help.”
Maybe I’ll last two days out on my own instead of one now.
Hurt spreads through my heart as I hold my sister. My hours with her are numbered, and I don’t know how I’ll possibly let her go.
* * *
UNSURPRISINGLY, I CAN’T SLEEP. I’m half-tempted to leave while everyone dreams; that way I don’t have to face them all in the morning. But if I don’t stick around to hear what my quest is to be, I’ll have no hope of returning home, no chance of redeeming myself so I can enter the goddess’s Paradise.
There’s also no chance I could leave without waking Irrenia, who refused to sleep in her own bed despite my protests. She said she w
as going to stay by my side for as long as she could.
Bugs chirp loudly outside my window, counting down the seconds until I have to leave the safety of the village.
I try to close my eyes, but when I do, I see my father’s face. That look of disappointment. Of embarrassment. Of anger. All of it for me.
Could I have misread his face? Surely he was only surprised? My father couldn’t have really turned against me so quickly, could he? Not after all the years of training. We’ve grown so close in all that time.
I remember the day when things finally changed between Father and me. It was ten years ago, and it was the same day I realized my mother would never love me again.
My whole life I’d been mocked for my bulkier form. Even when I was so young, I knew I was different with my short torso, wide shoulders, muscled figure. I knew that I didn’t look like my sisters, and all the village kids my age would tease me for it. My father barely looked at me back then. I was daughter number six. His sixth disappointment. He never had time for me.
I was sick of it. Sick of being told I wasn’t pretty like my sisters, sick of being told I took more after my father, sick of my father not paying attention to me.
At the end of the year, all the eight-year-olds were lined up and told to declare their professions. Father had every child come up to the village square one at a time and state what they would do for the rest of their lives. Then they went to stand with the masters of that trade.
When it was my turn, when my father finally looked at me for the briefest moment and then looked heavenward, as though he were embarrassed to even acknowledge my existence, I said, “I will join the warriors.”
I remember being surprised by the words. I’d thought for sure I would join the jewelers like my four eldest sisters and mother. It’s what I’d been planning.
But then my father looked at me. Really looked at me.
“Rasmira, don’t waste our time. What is your real choice?”
I stared him down, held myself as high as I could. “Give me your ax.”
While much scoffing and laughing came from the villagers, my father listened. He took that ax from off his back, an ax that Irrenia and Ashari couldn’t hope to heft an inch off the ground, and handed it to me.
I took it. I lifted it high. And then I threw it. The ax embedded firmly into the nearest tree with a satisfying twang.
I couldn’t remember anything feeling so right. While I enjoyed jeweling immensely, I realized that I wanted this more. Especially with the way my father was now looking at me.
I said it again. “I will join the warriors.”
Father escorted me himself over to Master Burkin. As we walked, he said, “You’re to listen to Master Burkin in all things. If you can prove yourself, if you become the best, I will make you the next ruler of this village.”
All my father’s attention suddenly became mine. He watched over me, trained me, talked with me, loved me in his own way. Mother lost her husband to me. Because I was like him, he loved me more. And once she realized things would never be the same for her, she began to treat me the way Father did her.
I was ignored, ridiculed, held to different standards. I was always a disappointment to her.
I took comfort in my prowess with the ax, but that only drove me further and further away from her.
I did nothing to deserve my mother’s hate. How could I help the way Father reacted? I used to try to ignore him as he did Mother, hoping he would understand and start being kind to her again. But that only resulted in me being neglected by both of my parents, and I couldn’t stand that.
Apparently, I drove my mother so far away that she would rather lose her immortal soul than finish out her mortal life with me in it.
But not Father. I’m his pride and joy. He won’t send me into the wild with an impossible task. He can’t. He needs me to carry on his legacy. He needs me to be the next ruler. He won’t allow the council to assign me too harsh a task. It’ll be something difficult but doable. Something I can accomplish and, once done, return with glory.
Only that thought is what finally lets me drift off …
* * *
I’M HYPERAWARE OF MY surroundings as I walk to the village square, my pack and ax strapped to my shoulders. Irrenia walks beside me, but she doesn’t say anything. What do you say to someone who’s about to go to their death?
I shake away the dark thought. Not death. Father will help me. He loves me. He’ll make the council see reason.
The air feels unnaturally cool this morning, raising bumps along my skin underneath my furs. I notice the coarse grass swaying in the wind, rocks skittering out of my path as I walk, the buzzing of insects in the early morning.
Irrenia places her hand on my arm and gives it a squeeze, offering me strength, as people start to stare.
“It doesn’t matter what they think. The goddess knows what really happened. You will not lose your place in her Paradise. Because your place is right next to mine. I cannot live happily if you are not there.”
“Thank you, Irrenia.”
“You will try, won’t you?”
“Try what?”
“To complete your quest. Whatever it is. Promise me you’ll try. You have to come home to me.”
She’s on the verge of tears again, so I say, “Yes, I promise. I’ll try.”
But even as I say the words, I wonder if I’m lying.
* * *
“RASMIRA BENDRAUGGO, daughter of Torlhon, come forth.”
That’s the second time my father has addressed me this way. As though he is not Torlhon. As though I am not anyone or anything to him. It must be an act. It has to be. I kindle the hope inside me. He’s putting on a show, trying not to express favoritism before he gives me my mattugr.
It would seem that everyone has come out to watch my banishment. Kol, Siegert, Havard, and Torrin push their way to the front of the crowd. They share a bag of myrkva seeds between them, cracking the shells with their teeth and spitting them to the ground, as though I were some sort of summer play about to start.
How is it so quiet? Even children don’t speak as everyone stands in a semicircle in front of me. There is nothing but the crack, crack, crack of those damn seeds.
I step forward, turning bright eyes to my father.
“Rasmira—” There’s a hitch in his speech, his voice breaking for the briefest of moments to show his emotion.
I make the mistake of glancing to his left, where my mother stands. She tries to hide the smile on her face, but I see it clearly. She couldn’t be more thrilled by the whole situation.
“Rasmira,” he tries again, “you are my daughter. I taught you myself. You’ve had the best training under Master Burkin. You may be a woman, but you are held to the same standard as everyone else your age. You have had many female ancestors who have passed their trials. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t have.
“You made a statement by entering that maze. You told everyone that you had the confidence to succeed. That you deserved to be a warrior.
“You lied. And as my daughter, you’re being appointed a special quest.”
My back straightens. This is it. He’s going to spare me. I’m going to be given a special quest, one actually capable of being accomplished.
“For centuries,” Father says, “we have lived as the hunting tribe. We are responsible for supplying the meat for Peruxolo as our yearly tribute. Our children starve as a result. Our hunters exhaust themselves. Our habitat spreads thin.”
He’s lost me. Am I supposed to get more food for the village? I can learn to hunt. If I can take out a ziken, how hard could it be to catch a valder?
“And so,” he continues, “for your mattugr, you are tasked with killing the god Peruxolo.”
* * *
THEY WANT ME TO WHAT?
I repeat the words three times in my head before they take root.
“Should you complete your mission, you will be granted the highest honor available to
a mortal. You’ll be welcomed…”
I stop listening. Nothing else matters. He couldn’t say anything to lighten the revelation.
The most powerful being in our land, and I’m supposed to kill him.
My father must truly loathe me to demand such a mission of me. He’s ensured that I will never come back home. Surely an immortal cannot be killed.
“… time for you to leave now,” he says. “You’ve had plenty of time to say your good-byes. Go now or face eternal exile from Rexasena’s Paradise.”
I don’t dare look at my mother. I don’t want to see the joy that lights up her eyes. I don’t want to see the faces of those I trained with ever again. It’s bad enough that each step I take is echoed with the cracking of a nutshell. So I look to the one group of people I still can count on. Salvanya, Tormosa, Alara, Ashari, and Irrenia. My five sisters huddle together. Tears on their faces. Love in their eyes.
That is the last image I see before turning my back on my home.
The last image I see before I leave my life and brace myself for death.
PART 2
THE
WILD
CHAPTER
5
Birds squawk loudly from the inna treetops. I focus on their drab brown-and-gray wings. I imagine that I can fly and take myself away from this horrible place.
The last time I walked this way, I was with Torrin.
I’ve kept to the road. It doesn’t seem as though I’ve been walking long, but I’ve already reached the clearing where our village paid tribute to Peruxolo just two nights ago.
Peruxolo. The god I’m supposed to kill.
A bitter laugh bubbles up from my chest. A god cannot be killed. I’m not meant to return home. I’m meant to die. My father sent me here to die.
This is it. The farthest anyone travels away from the village. Beyond this point, the wild is lethal.
But I have to keep moving. If I’m not moving, I’ll be forced to think. And thinking isn’t an option right now.
Warrior of the Wild Page 5