Daughter of the Night: A Book of The Moon People

by King, Claudia

  “Suhmeen?” He raised his eyebrows. “Your people don't speak this word? Mine and the Sun People do.”

  “No. What does it mean?”

  The youth smiled. “A girl who is pretty, but not like a flower. Like a... a bird that soars in the sky.”

  “You think me pretty when my face looks like this?” Adel had barely glimpsed her own reflection in the surface of the placid water, but she could tell from the swelling and the pain that she was anything but pleasant to look at.

  “A few bruises can't hide the rest of you, even for a girl as pale as the clouds.”

  Adel's glower remained firmly etched into her features, yet for whatever reason she no longer felt like yelling. Instead, she succumbed to the aches of her body and sat down at the edge of the pool, slipping off her moccasins and dipping her toes into the water. She kept her gaze averted from her unwelcome companion, trying her best to pretend he wasn't there. Perhaps soon he would tire of his pointless fishing and depart.

  True to his word, he did not bother her with any more questions as they sat in silence, him occasionally tugging on his line while she soothed her bruises with handfuls of cool water. It was not the peaceful solitude Adel had hoped for, but at least it was better than being back at the den.

  The afternoon wore on, and still the trespasser from Neman's pack did not depart. He seemed perfectly content to waste the entire day on his fruitless attempts at fishing, occasionally pulling his line back in and affixing another small shred of meat to the crossed wooden barb tied to the end.

  “How is it that you think this place is yours?” Adel said at last, needing somewhere to vent her simmering frustrations. “It is far from your own territory.”

  “It is. That is what I like about it,” he replied. “I can come here up the stream and disappear for days. No one can even follow my scent.”

  “Well, I found this place with my sister many years ago. I like it because no one ever comes here. So, unless you want my father to learn of you hiding in his territory, you should not come back.”

  “He can't mind one lone wolf in all this land of his. Why does he need so much? What does an alpha do with it all?”

  “Satisfy his stupid pride.” Adel grimaced at her own reflection. “Tell other alphas where they can and cannot walk. Boast of it at the gathering. What else do alphas waste their time doing?”

  The young man chuckled. “I like your company more than the fish. What do they call you, Seer Adel?”

  “My name is—” she began, before catching what he had said and fixing him with her coldest glare. “Why do you mock me if you already know my name?”

  “I thought it might make you smile. Everyone knows your name, but in all my years I have heard nothing but tales of that frown you wear on your face. I can see the stories were true.”

  “All your years,” Adel scoffed. “You are barely a man. Why do you talk like a fool?”

  He shrugged. “A fool doesn't need to worry over anything but what his foolish tongue says next. Better than worrying over an alpha's lands, or a warrior's battles.” His expression tightened for a moment, but the brief look of discomfort soon passed. “My name is Jarek, if you'd care for it.”

  “I would not. But at least you show some respect by giving it to me. If you know who I am, then you know my status.”

  “Does it matter, out here? I come to this place to forget about such things. Is it not the same for you?”

  Adel averted her eyes. It was true, she supposed. In a fool's way he did have some sense of wisdom about him, for it was shame and anger that had driven her out here in the first place. She didn't have to worry about those things when she was alone. The wind and the trees cared not for her status, nor did they judge her for it.

  “I try to,” she said, “but now you are here.”

  “I am not of your pack. Your status means little to me, and I can see mine means nothing to you. Perhaps we can forget who we are together.” Jarek idly tugged on his line, and Adel gave him a questioning look.

  “What did you come here to forget about?”

  “A little of nothing, a little of everything,” Jarek said. “I came with my mother's sister to visit Alpha Ulric. They returned from your camp last night full of talk, and not much of it good. The elder seers don't think highly of your leader. He's a man who invites the spirits' wrath, they say.”

  “Maybe they are right.”

  “Or maybe they've breathed too much smoke from their vision herbs. You could tell a seer her shadow was too long and she'd try to find meaning in it. Anyway, they talk too much for me. I'd rather fill my head with my own thoughts.”

  “So would I,” Adel murmured. Much to her surprise, she realised that the anger filling up her chest had disappeared. The hatred for her father had grown cool, and the hurt had dulled. She was no longer on the verge of weeping. For a moment, it almost felt like she could voice the things she had only ever shared with Uriel. Not because she was in any way fond of Jarek's presence, but simply because he was not of her pack. She could say whatever she wanted to this young man without having to worry that it might finds its way back to the ears of the elders.

  The realisation made her tense up and shoot to her feet, suddenly deeply ashamed. How could she share the things that had always been secrets between her and her sister? And in their special spot, no less. It felt like a betrayal. A dilution of Uriel's memory.

  “What is it?” Jarek said.

  “Don't come back here,” she whispered, then snatched up her moccasins and fled back into the undergrowth. Uriel was gone, and there was no one who could take her place. All Adel had were her special memories, and her solitude by the pool. She needed the strength to endure her hardships alone.

  She ran back the way she had come, going all the way to the river before stopping to rest. She needed no one, nor their sympathy. Not her father, not her brother, and certainly not foolish outsiders from strange packs. A paradoxical worry gripped Adel from both sides. Jarek's presence had frustrated her, incensed her. She would rather have been alone. And yet, had she been left to her own thoughts, would the pain of her burdens have grown too much to bear?

  As much as she hated to admit it, having someone to talk to had helped heal something brittle and raw within her.

  —6—

  The Night's Magic

  Adel did not return to the pool again for a long time. She knew it was unlikely that her infrequent visits would coincide with Jarek's more than once, but her private refuge no longer held the promise of solitude it once had. Yet despite her fears, she made the run all the way to the river as often as she could. Sometimes she ventured beyond, coming almost within view of the shrouded grove, before turning back at the last moment. The regular journey began to strengthen her limbs, turning skinny arms sinewy and lending a tautness to her slender figure. It would be many seasons before she ever began to approach her father's strength, she knew, but to her relief he did not speak of finding her a mate again in the weeks that followed, nor did she have to endure another beating.

  The summer reached its end without any further talk of the matter, but Adel sensed it was only a temporary respite. At the great gathering that year she was treated to the elders of many other clans commenting on her eligibility, speaking of sons or brothers both handsome and skilled, great warriors who would forge unbreakable bonds of friendship with Ulric's pack should they be joined with his daughter. She glimpsed Jarek among the assembly as well, but she responded to his teasing smiles with a blank stare every time. To her relief he did not attempt to approach her at any point during the gathering, preferring instead to stick with his own clan.

  Once more Ulric and Kotal had their arguments, and once more another year passed with neither alpha willing to relinquish a shred of his pride. It was said that the other packs from beyond the mountains were embroiled in fighting of their own as well now, with a young alpha named Miral challenging the authority of the stronger clans and weakening their standing as he steadily r
ose in status year by year. With so many of their rivals hobbled by the unrest, Ulric and Kotal were both poised to lead the most powerful pack among all of the Moon People. It was simply a question of whose will broke first.

  So the machinations of Adel's elders continued, and another year turned. At the young woman's insistence, her mother relinquished the final secrets of the seerhood to her that winter: the knowledge of poisons and draughts of power. It was usually forbidden for apprentices to learn such magic, but Adel mastered her lessons so quickly that there was little left to teach her. She learned of plants and toxins from animals that could induce sickness, dangerous premonitions from the spirit world, and even death. But it was the draughts her mother taught her to brew that fascinated Adel the most. Complex to make and steeped in ritual, they could confer the most vivid of visions upon seers and imbue warriors with the strength to ignore pain and fight like wild beasts. It was these latter concoctions that she soon found herself preparing alongside the other seers whenever the men went north to fight. Not all of them partook, for many preferred to keep their heads clear and their wits sharp, but Carim was one of those who never refused the aid of the seers' magic.

  Adel had resented her sister's mate for several years after she died. It was easy to direct her pain at the man who had come between them. Age, however, had tempered Adel's scorn, and her empathy for Carim's suffering had eventually outstripped her dislike for him. The loss of Uriel had cut him deeply, and he seemed to lack the strength to move past it. He had withdrawn from the rest of the clan, isolating himself at first, and then volunteering to go north every time there was a chance to fight. Many days sometimes passed before he returned from his patrols, often wounded or starving, only to head out once again as soon as he had been nursed back to health.

  Adel could understand, in a way, having dedicated herself to similarly single-minded pursuits in the wake of Uriel's death. Carim had needed his isolation too, but his path had been a far more destructive one. She only hoped that he would find a way to come to terms with his pain before he went north one day and never returned.

  The young man's scarred face regarded her in silence as she prepared his draught one evening in early spring, the war chants of the other warriors thrumming in the distance as they mustered their courage for the fight to come. A band of Alpha Kotal's hunters had been spotted ranging up and down the river near the edge of Ulric's territory, and the time had come to drive them back into their own lands.

  “You do not owe my father such loyalty,” Adel said as she simmered the broth of sharp-smelling ingredients in a clay bowl over her fire.

  Carim blinked, one eyelid closing while the other merely twitched over the sightless white lump that had been left after a wolf's fangs pierced his brow and carved a furrow through his eye. His hands jittered in his lap, something Adel had noticed happening more and more frequently since the previous summer.

  “He gave me the only thing I have ever cared for,” he replied.

  “You care for more than just my dead sister, and you shame her memory by carrying on fighting,” Adel said. “She hated this.”

  Carim gazed through her, as if not having heard her words at all. “When I first fought, she healed me. Her spirit will come back to tend me again. I can remind her of that day. I can call her back.”

  “Speak to the seers if you wish to talk with her spirit, or one of these days you will end up joining her.”

  “Do you think so?” The look he gave her was almost hopeful. “Does she ever speak to you? In your visions?”

  Adel swallowed, peering down into the bubbling broth. “No. I have never sought her out.”

  “She visits me in my dreams often. For a time it is almost like we are together again.”

  “Dreams are fickle and full of tricks. It is not her true spirit you see.”

  Carim smiled. “Maybe not, but it makes me happy all the same.”

  “It would make Uriel happy if you stopped this fighting. Then perhaps you would have more time to visit her in your dreams.”

  The young warrior's expression turned sober, and the twitching of his hands ceased for a moment. “This fighting can never stop, Adel. You are a wonderful seer, but you know nothing of war. We will fight until our pack falls, or Kotal's does. It is the only way.”

  “It cannot be.”

  He shook his head. “This will end in pain and blood. I know it will. I have seen it. I only hope it is the blood of Kotal's clan and not ours.”

  Carim's words chilled Adel. She did not want to consider it, but what if he was right? The two alphas had fought for years now without ever reaching an accord. Would it only end when one of them broke? She swirled the contents of the bowl with a stick, the conversation falling silent as Carim's hands began to shake again and he gazed off into the distance. When the draught was ready, he drank the contents of the bowl without waiting for it to cool.

  Adel's head was abuzz with painful thoughts that night. Worries over the past, worries for the future. Sadness and pity for Carim. She wished she had some kind words to share with him, but comfort had always been Uriel's skill, not hers. Whenever she tried to help it always sounded harsh or judgemental, like the lessons of her mother. She thought back again to the boy she had met at the pool. He had spoken in a way that judged nothing. How had his light, lazy voice sounded again? She tried to recall, but the memory had grown foggy.

  Unable to sleep, she threw her furs aside and slipped out of her hut, taking the shape of her wolf and running across the moonlit plains to the east. She was faster, stronger now, and the journey to the river was both quick and easy. When she approached the pool for the first time in many moons she found it as silent and tranquil as ever, the trees trailing their drooping boughs into the edges of the water to scatter leaves upon its surface. Adel curled up upon the nearest bank, resting her wolf's muzzle upon her forepaws as she watched the water until her eyelids drooped, and she slept through until morning.

  Every night thereafter she began visiting the secret spot, glad to find it empty, but always somehow curious as to whether she would stumble upon Jarek again. It took the passing of a full moon before she heard the soft plap, plap, plap of something splashing in the water as she approached through the undergrowth one evening. She paused, remaining hidden in the bushes, then crept forward as quietly as possible until she could peek out through a gap in the leaves.

  Taller and broader than she remembered, Jarek stood alone on the far side of the pool, the dappled moonlight filtering down upon his body as he drew back his hand and cast a stone out into the water. A yelp of surprise left Adel's muzzle as the flat piece of rock spun, dropped, and then bounced off the surface, making several smaller hops until it rattled up against the bank a few paces in front of her.

  Jarek grinned at the noise from the bushes. “Is that a girl I know, or a wolf I don't?”

  Adel emerged from her hiding spot, reverting from the shape of her wolf and bending down to pick up the stone. “How did you do that?”

  He spread his palms wide, continuing on his own train of thought rather than answering her question. “A wolf I don't, and a girl I do. But at least now I know they're one and the same. Your animal is pretty, just like you.”

  “And you still talk like a fool.” Adel tossed the stone back across the water, but this time it plopped noisily beneath the surface without a single bounce. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I thought you didn't want me to come back here again. I was afraid you might be angry.”

  “I am angry,” she shot him a glare to confirm it, “but I still want to know how you made the rock jump like that.”

  “A kind of magic. Would you like me to show you?”

  Adel nodded.

  “Then come over to my side. I'll allow it, just for you.”

  “It is not your place to allow anything. You know this isn't your land,” Adel muttered, but she hopped over the small outlet and took a few steps toward Jarek, coming to a halt just out of arm's reach
. He beckoned her in closer, but her feet remained resolutely planted. Much to Adel's distaste, instead of respecting her distance he instead decided to close the gap himself, his bare arm brushing up against hers as he opened his palm to show her another small piece of stone.

  “You can only do it with stones like this. The flatter, the better.”

  “What is so special about flat stones?” Adel said.

  Jarek shrugged. “I think because they are wide and thin, like the wings of birds. It helps them fly through the air.”

  “Stupid. Rocks are not like birds.”

  “And people are not like wolves, but they can still share the same spirit! Open your mind, Seer, and you may learn a thing or two.”

  “I already asked you to teach me this magic, did I not?”

  Jarek grinned. “So you did.” He tossed the stone in the air, catching it deftly and aligning the edge along the inward curve of his forefinger. “You hold it like this, and then throw. If you let it roll off the edge of your finger it will spin and stay flat, then skip across the water instead of sinking.” A flick of his wrist demonstrated the technique again, sending the stone skimming across the surface of the pool.

  “That is not magic. It is just a trick,” Adel said, but her eyes remained glued to the stone's trajectory as it bounced over the water all the same.

  “Show me how you do it,” Jarek replied, bending down and tossing her a flat stone. Adel fumbled the catch, grasping handfuls of air several times as the water-smoothed rock bounced off her fingers, before awkwardly managing to trap it between her side and the crook of an elbow. Her companion laughed at her clumsiness, and she snapped her head up to fix him with an icy stare.

  “Don't you dare mock me!”

  “Why not? You can mock me if you'd like, then we can both enjoy making each other laugh.”

  Adel opened her mouth to retort, but she could think of nothing to say short of calling him a fool again. She lowered her gaze, drawing back her arm and flicking the stone viciously across the water. It plopped beneath the surface with all the grace of a drowning bird.