Flight

by Jae Waller

  “You have to tell the Rin-jouyen. They have to know why so many people died today.”

  “I know, Kako. But . . . we already had a schism once, and . . .”

  “Fen.” I stared at him. “What is it?”

  Fendul stopped pacing. “The Dona-jouyen didn’t come back to settle on our land. They found out we were continuing Liet’s plan. I guess they thought going to war with us, their blood relatives, was better than interfering with nature.”

  “They—” I slumped onto the table. “Aeldu curse us all.”

  I’d been collecting iron links since I left home, but could never join them into anything that made sense. Now they melted, twisted, forged into a chain — the whole bloody history of the Rin-jouyen.

  When I looked up, Fendul was on the floor with his back against the wall, head in his hands. “Fen. Are you okay?”

  “I shouldn’t talk about it now. You’re hurting.”

  “So are you.” I pushed off the chair and sat next to him.

  He ran a hand over his face. “I know how Nili felt last year. I wanted to kill Parr. That kind of anger . . . terrifies me. But I should’ve done it so you didn’t have to.”

  “I’m glad it was me.” I gazed into shadows among the ceiling rafters. “If you killed him, I might’ve spent the rest of my life hating you. Resenting you for deciding for me.”

  “You might hate me anyway before this war is out. This is my life now. Dealing with our enemies and making impossible decisions. I’m going to mess up sometime.”

  “No one expects you to be perfect.”

  He sighed. “I know today wasn’t my fault. But I keep thinking . . . I brought the Rin here. It was supposed to make things better. Instead it made us an easy target.”

  I chewed my lip. “Nei. If the Corvittai attacked us in Anwen Bel, Rhonos couldn’t have warned us. The Iyo wouldn’t have been there to help. We’d all be dead.”

  “Everything leads back to death though. Ever since the fighting that led up to the First Elken War. We’ve been stuck in a spiral for a hundred years and I don’t know how to stop it.” Fendul stuck his hunting knife into the floor. “Look how we grew up. The next generation will be just like us.”

  I picked his knife up and spun it around. “Who did you kill? Before today.”

  “The Dona scout that got into Aeti Ginu. My uncle said he killed her so no one could accuse my parents of involving me in the war.”

  “I remember that.” I set the knife down. He’d been fourteen, just like Yironem.

  “I don’t know what to do, Kako. We have to defend ourselves, but it feels wrong putting a sword in a nine-year-old’s hands. I’m supposed to protect the Rin and I don’t know how in Aeldu-yan to do that.” Fendul’s shoulders shook. He rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought I’d have my father longer than this—”

  “Oh, Fen.” I slid my arm around him. “You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

  He twisted around to bury his face into my shoulder, and then it was my turn to stroke his hair as he cried. I remembered finding him in our plank house after his mother was brought back to Aeti Ginu. I held his hand, and for three whole days we didn’t argue.

  When his tears ran dry, I kissed his hair and gently pulled away. “Stay there.”

  I got up with a wince, took the chipped bowl from the shelf, and held it upside down over the smoky candle, casting the room into darkness. Heat radiated over my hands. I tipped the bowl up to check as the smooth clay turned black.

  “Kako,” was all Fendul said.

  The soot flaked into dust when I scraped my hunting knife through it. I washed my hands in a basin, scrubbing off all the grime and blood, then called a drop of water into the bowl and stirred it with my knife. I sat next to Fendul, washed his upper right arm, and unfolded the silk packet from my purse.

  Somehow the bone needle had survived. If my parents were watching from Aeldu-yan, I didn’t think they’d mind me using their wedding needle for this. I took a deep breath and dipped the point into the black ink.

  Fendul sucked in a breath as I pierced his skin next to the interlocking lines. His muscles tensed, but he was silent as I filled in the pattern. Dip, jab, repeat. I wiped away the blood with the silk square. The okorebai tattoo was designed so it could be completed any time, by anyone. After the Okorebai-Rin died in the First Elken War, Fendul’s great-great-grandmother had been tattooed on the battlefield with healing supplies.

  The pale silk was mottled black when I finished. I rinsed the lines, tore a clean strip of cottonspun from the bandage on my thigh, and wrapped it around his raw skin. “I don’t know what the words are.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. This is enough.”

  I washed everything and dumped the water over the porch, pausing to close my eyes and breathe cool night air. Back inside, I stood and just looked at Fendul. He’d turned twenty-one in midwinter while we were apart. He’d grown into a man, but I’d never seen him that way until now. He’d always been the boy I grew up with.

  He stared straight ahead, elbows on his knees. “I’m the youngest Okorebai-Rin in longer than I know. First time in six generations we haven’t had an Okoreni-Rin.”

  “That’s easy to fix.” I twisted my braid. “Aliko’s been trying to get your attention for years. Ai, she’s even pretty.”

  “Aliko’s as dumb as a rock.”

  I laughed. “Is that how you talk about me behind my back?”

  “No. That’s how I talk about you to your face.”

  I slid down the wall on his left so I didn’t bump his tattoo. The candle sputtered and went out. Fendul fumbled at his side and pulled out the irumoi. The blue glow wrapped around us like a blanket. I undid my hair ribbon and untangled the vines from my braid.

  “Did you love him?” he asked. “Parr, I mean.”

  “Nei.” I rested my head against the wall. “I liked him. A lot. After Tiernan . . . it was nice to be wanted.”

  Fendul set the irumoi on the floor. His breathing quickened. He knelt in front of me and took my hands. His skin felt scratched and raw. “Marry me.”

  “What?”

  “Marry me. Stay with the Rin.”

  I choked with laughter. “I betrayed the man I love — I killed the first man I slept with — and you want to marry me?”

  “We might not love each other like that. But I do love you, in a way. We trust each other, and — you know I’ll never leave. Or try to kill you.”

  “Oh, Fennel,” I said softly.

  “I need your help, Kako. I can’t do this without you.” His hands tightened around mine. “I need someone who’s not afraid to tell me when I’m wrong. You never let me off just because I was okoreni. You pushed me to do better.”

  “I can’t help you, Fen. When I left Aeti I thought I knew what to do, but I don’t, not at all. Look at me — I’ve fucked up everything—”

  “You did some stupid things. I won’t lie. But we have to get out of this spiral. We have to stop tearing each other apart and build ties with anyone we can, even the Ferish. Especially them. You already did that. Parr betrayed you — but Rhonos and Iannah haven’t.” Fendul wove his fingers into mine. “We will mess up. It’s bound to happen. But we have to do something different. Maybe you and I can figure it out together.”

  “I hope you’re better at leading the jouyen than you are at romance.”

  He looked down and smiled. “I haven’t had any practice with either.”

  I bit my lip. “Isu wanted me to marry you.”

  “I know. But that’s not why I’m asking.”

  “Fennel.” I pulled one hand free and tipped his chin up. My fingers wandered from his jaw to his crow amulet. The faint light of the irumoi made his skin seem to glow from inside out. I was curious — maybe because this would be my only chance.

  I
kissed him. He returned it hesitantly, reaching up to stroke my hair. His lips were warm and soft, and even this part of him I’d never touched felt familiar. Some part of me that was lonely and aching whispered say yes.

  But another part was louder.

  “I’m sorry, Fen. I can’t marry you. Not now.” I ran my thumb over the carved crow. “I love you, but I’m too much of a mess. I need time. I’m not . . . over Tiernan. Not really.”

  “Stay with the Rin, at least.”

  “I will for a while. Until we sort out . . . all this. But I’m not sure I can stay forever.”

  Fendul nodded. The strands of my hair fell from his fingers. He sat back against the wall, his arm brushing mine.

  We lapsed into silence. I closed my eyes and listened to the ebb of the wind, the drone of a mosquito, Fendul’s breathing slow and deep next to me. Rain beat down on the roof and faded again.

  When I woke, my head was on Fendul’s shoulder. I rubbed my stiff neck and stretched. The farmhouse was hazy blue, a muddle of light and shadow. Fendul didn’t stir as I stood and cursed the pain in my thigh.

  I wandered outside into cool, damp air. Anwea nickered and went on chomping grass. Fat drops of dew clung to the porch. I leaned on the railing and watched the sky turn pink. A wren warbled. The world sharpened, turning clear with the dawn.

  The door creaked. Fendul came to stand beside me. He’d peeled the resin off his chest, leaving a deep gash flaking blood, and taken the bandage off his tattoo. “I’m so hungry I almost want to eat that rotting onion.”

  “Me too. Wish I could eat grass.”

  He rested his elbows on the railing. “How long do you think you’ll stay?”

  I pressed my fingers to my lips. “A month? I can promise that much.”

  He nodded slowly. “A month it is, then.”

  I looked up at his serious face. “Ai, let me see your identification.” Fendul took the card from his pocket. I peered at the letters below the red elk sigil. “Your second name is listed as Rin.”

  “I don’t know what you expected.”

  “I don’t know either.”

  He slid his arm around my waist as light erupted over jagged peaks. Streaks of pink clouds radiated across the sky, glowing gold over the mountains. “What are you going to do after a month?”

  “Settle things with Tiernan. Beyond that . . .” I ran a finger through the dew. “It feels like the whole world’s spread out around me, and it’s just . . . empty. The only thing is this storm beyond the horizon. I can’t see it yet, and I don’t know what will happen when it hits. But I have to be ready.”

  36.

  TRUTHS

  It was the smell of burning flesh I’d remember most of all. The Iyo had worked through the night cutting and drying wood. I’d heard of pyres being used in the Elken Wars, but never seen one. There were nine on the cliffs, massive structures of arrow-straight spruce in criss-crossing layers, with pine branches for kindling. The Corvittai were laid in rows on top.

  “Ninety-seven, including the ones at the lake,” Airedain said when he returned Nurivel. His eyes were bloodshot, his crest of hair tousled. “If there were more, they fled.”

  Tokoda ignited three pyres. The Tamu lit another three. After Fendul did two, he passed the torch to me. I ignited the pyre with Nonil’s body. Fire in life, fire in death.

  The Tamu were taking their dead back to Tamun Dael. A group of Iyo had dug graves for the Rin in South Iyun, each at the foot of an old rioden. The triangular site was near a junction between two streams. The third side was open — an invitation to expand the burial ground if needed. The Iyo had gathered crow feathers, too. They remembered.

  Dunehein and I performed Isu’s burial rites together. We each cut one of her palms and spoke the death rites. He couldn’t climb into the grave with his wounded leg, so Rikuja helped me place Isu’s body in the ground. I turned her palms skyward so she could receive the earth, then laid a crow feather on each side of her. I carved a kinaru in the rioden, and Dunehein carved Isu’s tiger lily crest around it.

  Hiyua finished guiding another burial at the same time for a Rin woman with no relatives. She came over to give me a hug. The smell of fish oil reminded me not just of my mother, but of Isu, too.

  “I still remember the day we buried Aoreli,” Hiyua said. “I thought I’d done something terribly wrong. Why else would the aeldu take my eldest daughter away? But they must’ve forgiven me, for it seems I have two daughters again — if you’ll have me.”

  I couldn’t speak around the lump in my throat. I just nodded.

  Behadul was the last to be buried. Someone had brought kinaru feathers from the lake — pure black wing primaries, as long as a person’s arm. Only five of us knew why Fendul asked Yironem to lay them in the grave. They looked like swords, the same colour that Behadul’s grey braid once was.

  One of the worst parts, I thought as I gazed at raw patches of soil in the underbrush, was viirelei and itherans didn’t know each other’s funeral rites. When jouyen went to war, they knew to burn anything stained with the blood of the dead. I wondered if the Corvittai would care if they knew. I wondered what we didn’t know about them.

  •

  Tokoda granted us use of the visitors’ plank houses. There were fifty beds a house, but no one wanted to be apart, so we crammed in one and spread extra bedding on the floor. We shared food, tended the wounded, comforted children who had no surviving relatives. For every person old enough to have attuned, two more hadn’t.

  Fendul gathered the Rin by the hearth that evening. Not just current Rin, but everyone who married into the Iyo, plus their families. I stood next to him, our people seated on bark mats around us, as we explained everything. The arguing lasted well into the night, long after the children fell asleep and oil lanterns were lit. A few people demanded we elect a new okorebai. I said they might all be dead if Fendul hadn’t made amends with the Iyo. One woman threatened to go with her son on the next boat leaving Toel Ginu. Hiyua said no jouyen outside the Aikoto Confederacy had any obligation to protect them. By sunrise, Fendul was still okorebai and we still had sixty-two Rin.

  Elkhounds showed up soon after, demanding to speak with the viirelei seen leaving Caladheå to the southeast the night Parr was killed. Tokoda refused to let them enter Toel Ginu until they relinquished their spears. At the central firepit, surrounded by people, Fendul told them that we went straight from Falwen’s office to the pyre site. Airedain and Jonalin confirmed we’d spent the rest of the night helping gather the dead. Tokoda, arms crossed, said that if the Elkhounds were more suspicious of two injured viirelei than a company of Corvittai, the Caladheå guard was more broken than their spears were about to be.

  At my request, Airedain left to find Tiernan and tell him Parr admitted to killing Marijka. I hoped he could convince Tiernan not to go after Suriel. I hoped it wasn’t already too late.

  Five Rin died of their wounds. Five more burials. Three Rin attuned. Counting Yironem, there’d be at least four initiations at the autumn equinox.

  Mostly, I was too busy to think. Yironem helped me set snares and forage food. I made willowcloak and tulanta tinctures, dried wood for fires, gathered bogmoss for dressing wounds. Two young girls who’d been orphaned in the battle tagged along. Anwea tolerated them stroking her smooth coat, and only tried to eat the girls’ hair once.

  Nili sat outside, sun or rain, stitching cottonspun so people could burn their bloodstained clothes. I saw the pain in her face whenever she moved her injured leg. She supervised her own group of tag-alongs as they embroidered cloth scraps or wove bark, anything to keep them busy. Segowa spent a day with them before returning to Caladheå.

  Only once did Nili cry, late at night when everyone was asleep. She showed me two pieces of black cloth that drummers wore around their wrists, half-embroidered with sprays of rioden needles. “I was making them for Taworen for the equin
ox. I don’t know what to do with them now.”

  “You don’t have to decide right away,” I said. “But if he’s in Aeldu-yan, he’ll be happy if you finish them.”

  Envoys arrived from other Aikoto jouyen — the southern Yula and Kae okoreni first, Tamu next, northern Beru and Haka two days later, all accompanied by three or four other members of their jouyen. No doubt they’d attuned to travel so fast. A few fights broke out around firepits. There hadn’t been a meeting of the entire confederacy since the Third Elken War, the year Fendul was born.

  Fendul asked Hiyua and me to attend the summit. Tokoda promised us protection so we could speak freely. The Iyo outnumbered all other jouyen and no one seemed keen to challenge them on their land. Still, Tokoda forbade weapons in the gathering place where the summit was held and posted guards by the Rin plank house.

  Even after seeing the Council inquiry, I couldn’t have imagined how complicated it was to coordinate seven jouyen. The southern ones resented the northern ones for our absence from the Third Elken War. The Kae criticized our alliance with the Rúonbattai, saying Sverbians committed as many war crimes as Ferish, while the Yula criticized us for not bringing them into the alliance. The Beru defended our decision to wake the saidu, which angered the others more. The Haka made a less-than-subtle threat to move into Anwen Bel, prompting a threat of retaliation from the Tamu, who occupied its coast.

  Fendul mainly just listened. Tokoda and Wotelem always referred to him as Okorebai-Rin, and by the end of the summit’s first day everyone did the same. No one cared we had killed an itheran politician except to worry about the impact of viirelei being blamed. As the weather cycled through sun, rain, and hail that battered the roof so hard we could barely hear, the summit turned to practical issues — learning about the Corvittai, connecting with the Nuthalha and Kowichelk confederacies, keeping our own jouyen from killing each other.

  Dealing with Suriel was more complicated. A Kae had flown over the mountains and felt traces of a tel-saidu, but didn’t know exactly where, or if it was even Suriel. The eastern winds stayed mild. I spoke more during that part of the summit, explaining what I knew of shoirdrygen and the void. With no room for argument in his voice, Fendul said Tiernan was to be left alone. I suggested making contact with Ingdanrad’s mages and to my surprise everyone agreed.