“His was your kin,” Ulric said bitterly, finally struggling back to his feet with Freia's aid. “Never, never do we kill our own kin.”
“Then you would have let him suffer,” Adel replied, the words croaked out through her tears. “A seer cares for her pack. All you know how to do is hurt them.”
“You dare say that to me after I threw my life between you and our enemies? This was no honourable death for Carim.”
“And that makes a death good, does it? To die with honour?” She stood up and rounded on her father, hating him all the more for forcing her to let go of Carim while the warmth still lingered in his body. “Well, what do you have now? The Sun People burned our winter supplies. Who will go out and hunt for more? Who will protect us if our enemies come again?”
“The warriors who fell here today gave their lives for you, Adel—”
“Stop!” she exclaimed. “Stop pretending I know nothing! I know we would have had the strength to protect our home if all those men you sent out to die were still here! I respect our warriors. I honour the sacrifice they made for us today. This is their calling, to protect us from our true enemies, not the false ones you have created.” She bared her teeth, bright blue eyes swimming in tears as she stared down her father in front of his men. “You are the one who does not honour them. You throw their lives away for nothing, without thought, without care. All because you value your pride more than your own pack.”
Ulric lurched forward, but he stumbled again, and with Karel's aid Freia was able to hold him back.
“Father, don't,” Adel's brother said. “It is the battle. It has made her upset. Women do not know how to endure these things.”
The alpha began to speak, but Adel talked over him, raising her voice and drawing herself up tall. She commanded the full attention of all the remaining warriors now.
“No more wars with our rivals. The Sun People are our only enemy now. If you submit to Kotal, he may even lend you his aid in fighting them.”
There was a heavy pause. All eyes were fixed on Adel and her father. Even Alpha Neman and his followers had fallen silent as the confrontation played out. Then, Ulric voiced a bitter chuckle.
“Who do you think you are, girl, giving commands as if you were my equal? All your life I have tried to make you into the woman your sister could have been. I see now I should have tried harder. Our clan bows to no enemy. In our weakness, we grow stronger. In times of suffering, we find our true strength. This victory proves it.”
Adel's lips parted, but no words emerged. She stared at her father in shock, incredulous that even now, with so many of his warriors lying dead around him, he seemed oblivious to the destruction he was wreaking upon his pack. In one last desperate attempt to break through to him, she searched her father's face for any trace of the compassion she remembered from the man who had played with her and Uriel out on the plains. All she found was the grimace of a hardened warrior, one who was still unable to accept defeat.
“I wish you were dead,” she whispered.
A sharp intake of breath sounded from someone behind her, but she did not care for the impropriety of her words. What could her father do? Beat her while he was still barely able to stand? He would only make a fool of himself trying.
“And you say I am the one who cares nothing for my kin,” Ulric said. “Even now, I still love you as my daughter. I will put your life before mine whatever may come, as any true warrior would.”
As inconceivable as it seemed, Adel sensed the tide of her people turning against her. She could feel it in the hard stares of the warriors nearby. Ulric was alpha, and she was but a girl. Even if her words seemed wise, what did they matter if her father disagreed with them?
“Prove you truly love me!” she said, grasping desperately for the one final thread of hope she had left. “I spoke to Alpha Kotal at the gathering. He said he would make peace if you submitted to him, or if I became his son's mate. You say you care for me? Then give up your pride so that I may keep mine.”
Ulric glowered at her. “He dares try and take my daughter from me? I would never send you to another pack.”
“Then make peace!”
The alpha shook his head. “No. We will have peace when our enemies submit to us, or when they lie dead upon these plains.” He gestured to the bloody scene around him. “Now, you have spoken enough.”
Adel resisted the urge to take a step back as Ulric drew himself upright, letting go of his injured arm and clenching his fists. She was not afraid of him. Let the others see their alpha make a fool of himself as he tried to hit her. He had not the strength for it.
“Karel,” he said, grabbing his son by the arm and pushing him forward. “Punish her.”
The young man looked at his father uncertainly, but the alpha's blue eyes held the stony strength his body lacked. Adel tensed, edging back toward the outcrop. Her brother gave her an apologetic look as he stepped forward. Unlike her, he knew better than to disobey their father.
“Forgive me, Sister,” he said as he approached. “You always bring this upon yourself.”
Adel did not think anything could have hurt more than the pain and anger she felt in that moment, but still she recoiled in agony from the impact of Karel's fist as it broke her nose.
—15—
Forsaken
They looked down on her. They scorned her. She heard them muttering about the selfish, disrespectful girl who had turned what should have been a moment of mourning into a confrontation with her alpha. The alpha who had just risked his life to protect them.
Swollen and bruised, with blood still running down her face, she refused to submit to the pain of her injuries. She tended the wounded alongside the other seers, determined not to let her shame break her. Freia tried to offer her help, but she froze her mother out with cold silence. For years she had been trying to help her clan, and all she had received in return was their judgement. Judgement, and more bruises.
She spoke to no one as the pack pieced itself back together in the aftermath of the battle. Those who had remained behind during the gathering reappeared from the west as the afternoon wore on, mostly alive and unharmed, and Adel overheard the tale of how they had fled the den once they realised they lacked the strength to fight so many Sun People. Alpha Neman and his followers collected their dead and set pyres a short distance away, permitted by Ulric to remain in his territory until their ceremonies were complete and their wounds tended.
When Jarek sought her out she only shook her head at him, telling him with her eyes what she could not say in front of the others. They could not talk. Ulric could not see them together. If the alpha learned that they were close, then he would have yet another means through which to punish her. But despite her warning look, Jarek stood staring at her for several long moments, fists clenched at his sides as he saw her bruises and the blood running from her nose. His throat bobbed as he forced down a furious swallow, a hand rubbing across his face as he looked for Ulric among the scattered group. Adel only shook her head at him, gesturing in the direction of the river to the east. She saw him depart a short while later, and once night fell she took the shape of her wolf and went after him.
It did not matter if anyone followed her this time. After everything that had happened that day, it was difficult to care about much at all. Her body throbbed. Her muzzle was still clogged with the scent of dry blood, and as the den disappeared behind her she did not look back. They had never made her happy, Adel told herself. She had given them so much, and they had spat in her face when she tried to help them. They were fools, loyal to a man who brought only pain and death upon his people, and they were all either too blind to see it, or too weak and cowardly to make a stand.
These were the things she told herself, for it was easier than giving in to the crushing despair in her heart. She was strong, but a person could only cast themselves into a churning river so many times before they were dashed against its rocks. Her father would never see reason, at least not from her. If
she allowed herself to continue caring for her people, then she would be condemned to watch helplessly as Ulric led them to ruin day after agonising day. She could do that no longer, not after what had just happened.
When she arrived at the edge of the pool Jarek was there waiting for her, and he swept her into his arms the moment she reverted from the shape of her wolf. Her hands threw themselves around his neck without thought, her face buried itself in his shoulder, and she clung on until the pain within her broke and she wept freely.
For his part he only held her, stroking his seer's hair gently and running his fingers up and down her back until she was ready to speak.
“You were right,” she said at last, her voice thick and stuffy beneath the throb of her swollen nose. “Take me with you. To your clan, to the lands of your fathers, I do not care.”
“You're sure? What of your own pack?”
Adel shook her head, wiping her eyes on the back of a hand. “I would have gone to Kotal's son for them. I would have. Just knowing they were safe, I— But they will never be safe. Not with my father leading them.”
Jarek nodded, his chest heaving as he held her close. “I understand.”
“What good would it do if I stayed? I cannot change anything.”
“Adel, I understand.”
She gripped his shoulders hard, pulling back so that she could look at him. “Then tell me I am right! Tell me I am not being weak and selfish.”
Jarek smiled at her, rubbing some of the dried blood from her upper lip with his thumb. “You are not weak, and you are not selfish. You don't have to be a goddess, Adel, though you will always be that to me. Sometimes you must do what is right for you.”
“That is all my father ever does,” she said.
“You don't have to be afraid of being like him.”
“I am not afraid—”
“Shh,” Jarek interrupted her. “I know you aren't afraid of the things other people fear, but you are still afraid. You've heard the way people talk of you at the gathering. To some, you are a goddess, and that is what you feel you must be. Perfect in every way. Beautiful, wise, kind, and powerful.” He stroked her cheek, then kissed her lips softly. “People were never meant to be all these things. You will drive yourself to madness if you try.”
“I want to be an alpha. I want to prevent all the things my father cannot.”
Jarek gave her a comforting smile. “But that is something a woman can never be.”
Adel closed her eyes, resting her forehead against his chest. “Then I must leave with you. Take me away from this place. I want to forget it all.”
Clasping her hand in his, Jarek led her to the edge of the stream. “Ride on my back. If we stay with the water, they won't be able to find us.”
Adel nodded, a strange sadness washing over her as Jarek took the shape of his wolf and lowered his body so that she could climb on. All her life she had been rooted in place, bound to her cause like a sturdy sapling, weathering all storms as she grew stronger day by day. The moment she climbed on Jarek's back, she would no longer be that person. She would be a seedling swept up in the wind, drifting where she willed, searching for a new place to settle. It was terrifying. A farewell to everything she had ever known. A farewell to those hopeful dreams she had shared with her sister.
But perhaps those dreams had been binding her to something that would have destroyed her in the end. An impossible goal. A path fraught with strife and hardship, leaving her miserable and bitter by the end of it. With Jarek, she could be something else. Even if it meant turning her back on her dreams, at least she could be happy. Jarek was no man of status. A silly fool who made her laugh. Perhaps that was all a person needed to be. Maybe she could be such a person too.
Taking one last look at the pool behind her, she remembered all of the fond memories she had shared there with Uriel. Those were the things she would keep hold of. When she swung her leg over Jarek's back and curled her fingers into his fur, it felt like a great weight had lifted from her soul. The rush of the wind and the spray of the stream soothed her pain as they ran away to the south. As sad as it was, there was something beautiful in the air that night. An end to one life, and the beginning of another. That was what Adel focused on. Every day she would mourn what had been left behind, and the lives that had been lost, but that mourning could no longer define her. She needed to live for herself.
Neither Adel nor Jarek paid any heed to their surroundings as they fled, oblivious to everything but the comfort they sought out in their future together. They did not look back, and they did not see the wolf watching them from the edge of the clearing.
Karel crouched in the shadows, staring after the pair as they splashed away down the stream, perhaps torn between giving chase and running back to his alpha. Maybe he had followed his sister out of guilt for what he had done, or perhaps because Ulric had ordered him to. Whatever his reason, he remained crouched among the bushes until Jarek and Adel were out of sight. Reverting from the shape of his wolf, he walked back to the edge of the pool, running his hands through his hair. The young man glared down at his reflection, staring at himself until he could bear it no longer. The surface of the water broke with a splash as he hurled a rock into it, disturbing the birds nearby in a flurry of beating wings. He turned his back on the hidden grove and skulked away into the shadows. Before long, the pool was still once again.
—16—
Neman's Pack
Adel and Jarek had to stop and rest before long, for they were both still exhausted after the run from the mountains. Exhausted in body, and exhausted in mind, with more than enough worries to keep them awake for days had they not been so physically drained. They curled up together in a tuft of dry grass beside the stream after having put a comfortable distance between themselves and Ulric's territory. Adel's people were used to her disappearing, especially after her punishments, but they would come looking for her eventually. With a little luck all they would find would be an old trail leading to the pool before disappearing at the edge of the stream. Even if her pursuers followed the watercourse, it was just one of many tributaries branching off from the river, and the farther south they went the more tangled the streams became. Finding which outlet they had followed and where they had emerged from it would be too arduous a task even for Adel's stubborn father.
Glad to settle down and allow her swollen nose time to heal, the young seer put her head on Jarek's shoulder and closed her eyes, trying to block out the images of what she had witnessed back at the den. Most of all she tried not to think about Carim. Mercifully, her exhaustion overcame her distress, and before long she succumbed to a dreamless sleep that lasted until noon the next day.
They struck a more reserved pace as they moved on. Adel had healed enough to take to her own paws again, and she would not allow Jarek to carry her despite his insistence that she should rest. He was charming in his concern, but she could not forget all of her old sensibilities just yet.
“When will we reach your den?” she asked when they finally left the streams and waterways behind them, emerging on to dry plains with clumps of trees and rocky moorland on the horizon.
“Whenever you'd like, my seer. We can run fast and be there before dark, or we can wander and arrive tomorrow morning.”
Adel nodded. “Then we should go fast. I want to see how your people live.”
“Never one to stay and watch the flowers when you could be climbing a mountain, are you?” Jarek replied.
Adel caught herself before she said something sharp in response, remembering that she was free now. She did not need to be so guarded when she was alone with Jarek. “I like flowers. But I would rather watch them from the top of my mountain.”
He laughed at that. “Your words say more about you than you know. This way, then. You see where those trees meet the hill? Just below the rocks there, that is where my clan make their den.”
The pair picked up their pace for the rest of the afternoon, hurrying southward as they reached th
e end of the plains and began to cross into the weathered uplands beyond. It was less lush territory than Adel was used to, filled with tall, dry-looking trees that only sprouted vegetation on their highest boughs. Twigs and dry grass crackled underfoot, and the air took on a clear, faintly sweet fragrance. Though it was not the rich territory of a powerful clan, something about it seemed beautifully fresh and simple to Adel. Perhaps it was merely because it was different, and things that were different provoked no memories that tied her to the past. Every waking moment for Adel was a struggle not to fall back into the pain and anger that she had left behind in the north, and the territory of Jarek's people helped to purify her thoughts, every breath of wind seeming to cleanse her body and mind.
The dry, fragrant browns of the uplands grew warmer as they navigated their way between trees and outcrops, eventually coming to the place that Jarek had described. The den was set into the side of a steep hill clad in exposed rock, several earthen dwellings lining the middle slopes along with a handful of natural caves. To the west, the edge of the hill sloped down sharply to meet a forest of pine trees that sprawled up its back, and among the carpet of dry brown needles a thin outlet from the river trickled southward.
“Not so grand a den as yours,” Jarek said, gesturing to the smoke that rose from a mere half dozen fires outside the caves, “but quiet and warm, like the nest of a bird.”
“I would welcome a warm nest over my father's huts.”
The sun had almost set by the time they crossed to the base of the hill and began their ascent, and Adel was ready to sleep again so that her nose could continue mending. Part of her hoped that Jarek's people would take no notice of her as she slipped quietly in alongside her companion, but it was impossible for a pale-skinned woman to avoid attracting attention among Neman's clan. A group of women hurried forward from the fires, and Adel recognised the seer she had spoken to years earlier leading them. The animal skull she wore atop her head was cracked, and her dark eyes had begun to fog with the milk of old age, but they still held a fierceness that Adel respected.
Daughter of the Night: A Book of The Moon People Page 14