Seble, along with three younger tribeswomen, surrounded a horse-like creature. The creature the color of the sea on a cloudless day. The creature made entirely out of water.
Ren was way past screaming, “What the fuck,” at every freaky thing she saw. At this point, she was kind of getting used to seeing creatures of fucking myth.
Seble chuckled as she looked down at Ren. Offering her a hand, Ren took it. “A Niln.” She said, her other hand escaping through the creature’s watery mane as she groomed it. “They’ve called the Wilds their home for, eh, years and years.”
Silver eyes glinting beneath thick black lashes stared back at Ren as she gazed at the Niln, slack-jawed.
“They have begun moving further inland, toward Moira’s Heart, ever since the black tower showed up on the beach.”
Ren’s first thought was to pet it. But she had a better idea. Slipping Mia’s phone from her belt, she held it up. Trying to get the entire Niln thing in the frame.
An inky aura froze her. The crowd parting around them muttered in reverence, ready to kiss their foreheads to the deck as the stairs toward Ren’s right creaked.
The Shamaness. Her voice boomed as she spoke in island-speak. The people muttered back and continued their daily tasks, weaving their way around her. Far around her. Creating a wide gap on the boardwalk.
“And what is this?” the Shamaness said, stealing Rens shot. She moved quicker than Ren could blink. Snapping her fingers around Mia’s phone, her nail-guards clinked as they stabbed the screen. An audible crunch squeezed through the Shamaness’s clenched fist as the phone crumbled away to nothing. Starlight dust raining through the hole in the Shamaness’s fist. Scattering across the boardwalk.
31
A turquoise aurora hung above the rafters of the Shamaness’s hut. Ren gasped as she entered, the Shamaness releasing her hand as she clasped her own behind her back.
“I know what you’ve done, Outsider.”
Ren gritted her teeth.
“I am proud of your accomplishments.” She said, that inky aura visible now. It pulsed at the center of the Shamaness’s chest, spreading out wide like the liquid tentacles of an octopus. “You’ve learned our foundations from Elder Lindiwe. You’ve sparred with Shield Seble. Our Air Scion has taught you the basics of breath and controlling the Rage.” Ren gawked. “Yes, I know. Don’t think I haven’t been watching.”
Ren threw up her hands. “Okay, okay.” Fucking stalker. “After you decided to break your promise,” she was treading on thin ice here, but Ren could swim. Cold water wouldn’t shock her. “I decided to find my own way.”
The tentacles thrummed out in an undulating wave, springing from the Shamaness’s body like the sun’s rays. “I promised nothing.”
“You promised to help me find my friend once I ‘found what was lost.’” Ren said, air-quoting the last bit. “Pretty sure I found it.”
“Moira’s Rage?” the Shamaness barked a laugh. “You think I sent you into the Wilds to become a Scion?”
“No.” Ren snapped. “You sent me out there to die.”
The Shamaness clapped her hands together. “And you have proved invincible. Unfortunately, that is not why I’ve guided you here today, Outsider.” Egg-sized prayer beads clinked and rattled as the Shamaness flicked a careless glare toward Ren before giving Ren her back. “You’ve disobeyed me. The Air Scion cannot vouch for you—he tracked the Kirabo for your benefit. Yet,” the tentacles stretched. Dropping to the floor, they slipped across the thatch like spilled ink. Creeping toward Ren. “You found nothing. The Kirabo have vanished. Your friend,” Ren let heat build up inside her. She wouldn’t let the Shamaness take her by surprise again. Never again. “Your friend is most likely dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, but I do.” The Shamaness wouldn’t look at her, but amusement tinkled in her voice. “They sacrifice on the full moon. Do you think your friend is important enough to be spared? Your other friend wasn’t. Ah, what was her name?”
Ren slowly shook her head. Took a step forward. Was the Shamaness baiting her?
“Outsider, what was her name?”
The tentacles danced. Sprung out toward Ren like the limbs of a spider. They scuttled up and down her arms. Where fire burned on her fingertips, the tentacles doused it with shadow. Swallowing her power, draining her dry. The crystal at her neck glowed blue. White. A strangulated whine scratched through Ren’s throat as the tentacles pulled her down, swiping her feet from under her. Her chin hit the ground first. Then her body. The Shamaness’s aura forced her forehead down.
What was her name? It wasn’t Ren’s voice. It was Itzel’s. Commandeering and infinite. Say her name. Say it!
“Itzel.” Ren gritted out. Her jaw worked against her. Her voice, her mind, her body. The shadow tentacles entered her, moving her arms and legs. Her limbs jerked into movement like a marionette. One leg slid under her, then, another. She kneeled, pressed her palms into the flooring and bowed. Forehead to the deck.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Rens face burned. Her jaw clenched, eyes bulging as they teared up. What kind of fucked up magic is this? Lindiwe had told her that there were four parts to Moira’s power: Passion, Rage, Breath, and Lifeblood. The Shamaness had one—but which?
The tentacles pressed further into her back, slimy, slick and cold. Passion. It has to be Passion.
“I told you: forget. I told you: you are us, now. I told you: forget your past. And what do you do?” her voice rose an octave. With each word, one tentacle would bite into Ren’s back. Then, another. “You disobey me. You run to the Kirabo camp and find that it is gone. The Mafioso has flown it somewhere else. Lindiwe has taught you the Maxims, yes?”
Fuck you, bitch.
A tentacle drilled into the base of her spine. Ren yelped.
“Answer me, whelp.”
“Yes!”
“Then, you know—obey the commands of Moira’s mortal shell. Do you know who that is? Who Moira speaks to? Who our goddess leans on when it comes to mortal matters?” the Shamaness cut a hand through the air, nail-guards flying. “Me!” she thundered. “I am the goddess!”
Three tentacles hovered over the knob on Ren’s neck. They dripped like lapping tongues, the saliva scalding as it hit Ren’s skin. Steam hissing up from every droplet. Ren grimaced, bit her tongue and ignored the urge to scream. This was some freaky-ass shit. She needed to leave. She did not belong in a world like this.
But Ren still choked out: “You are no goddess.”
That’s when her world went black.
32
The Shamaness taught her to be afraid of the dark.
When the black curtain lifted, pearly-white strings glinted in the dull light of a burning stick of incense. A dream-catcher dangled over Ren. Kato sat near her, hand on his knee as he waited for her eyes to open.
“You’re alive?” he said, leaning over her. His tone one of shock. “The Shamaness—they dropped your body off like you were a corpse. Another one.” He gently added. Taking her hand in his, he threaded his fingers through the gaps. “You must stop fighting her, Ren. A fight with her is a fight you will not win.”
Everything was blurry, moving around like minnows in a pond. Ren stared at the back of her hand as Kato held it. Saw black lines slither along the length of her veins. The black disappearing up her forearm. The longer she stared, the dizzier she became until she dropped her head back to the pillow and stared up at the dream-catcher.
“She tried to kill me?”
“She knows your limits.” Kato said, squeezing her hand tighter. “She pressed them. As far as they could go.”
Fuck her. “She controlled me—Kato, she knows I disobeyed her.”
He groaned but said nothing.
“She said that she was a goddess.”
Letting go of her hand, Rens fingers fell limp onto the bedroll. “She’s got a god complex, doesn’t she? She’s fucking crazy—”
Kato shushed her. “The tribe f
ollows her regardless.” He said. “Goddess or human, there is no difference. She is our leader. Moira’s conduit.”
“She’s fucking insane and—you know what?” all this talk was making her lightheaded, but her anger was coming back again. Replacing the cold, biting fear. “I bet you already knew that. I bet a whole bunch of you pricks already know that. The Kirabo—people keep saying, they are us. The Kirabo are dissenters, aren’t they? People who won’t put up with the Shamaness’s shit anymore?”
Kato’s mouth became a grim line. Bringing his hand to his chin, he sighed heavily. “Seble tell you that?”
“No—but it’s fucking obvious now!” Ren snapped. “Tell me it’s not true. Lie to my face, go on.”
Kato shrugged. “It’s true.”
Ren dropped her retort, so sure he’d lie to her. “Whoa—really?” Ren snorted. “But they sacrifice people to cure the Scourge or whatever.”
“Simply because they do not trust the Shamaness doesn’t mean they wouldn’t trust someone even more…insane.” Kato said matter-of-factly. “The desperate flock to the desperate.”
Like flies to shit. “There’s something else you’re keeping from me.”
At that, he scooted away.
“About Ava. About the Outsider Scion.”
Still silence. Orange bled through the teakwood walls, signaling the setting of the sun.
“Who killed her?” at this point—it was obvious. But Ren needed to hear him say it.
“What good will knowing that do you?” Kato spat back. “Are you going to avenge her? Are you going to go to the Outsiders on the shore and tell them what happened to their gift?”
Their gift?
“How long have they been here?”
“Long enough.” Kato snapped. “They’ve killed off everything. The Shamaness is only doing what she believes will save us. What’s left of us.” He sighed, shaking his head. “We are dying Ren. The only way to save ourselves is to pull together.”
“Even if that means mingling with murderers?”
“We are being attacked on two fronts.” Kato said. “One: at the Wall. And two: here. At home. We are being pulled taut and soon,” he clapped his hands. Ren flinched. “We will snap.”
“The Shamaness killed Ava, didn’t she?”
Silence. It poured from him like rancid filth. Dousing the hut. Flaring up Ren’s temper.
“Didn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Kato sighed. “She did. And I failed to save her. I saw the signs too late. If you’re going to punish anyone, you should know that it was my fault. Mine alone.”
Ren pushed herself up. Saw his face in the gloom. Chiseled and rough, though there were soft lines around his eyes. He had the body of a guy who belonged on the cover of a magazine, not in this dingy place. “You didn’t kill her.”
He wouldn’t respond. Tracing his thumb along the thatched flooring, he concentrated on it. Ignored her as best he could.
Guilt constricted around Ren’s chest like a tight corset. It wasn’t right that he felt so bad about the death of some woman. The Shamaness killed her—not him. It wasn’t right that he was beating himself up. Taking the blame for what someone else did.
Then, something dawned. Was that why he was being so nice to her? Why he was so willing to help and open his home to her? Was it because of the guilt?
Ren’s heart sank. She dropped back to the bedroll, her eyes fixing on the dangling dream-catcher he had crafted for her. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Kato.” What use was telling him—point blank—that it wasn’t his fault? He’d need to find that out on his own. “But I don’t blame you. I’m sure no one does.”
What mattered is that he blamed himself.
33
A strawberry sky drained the golden halo of the setting sun as the villagers gathered at the edge of the Wilds. Teenagers broke away from their parents, shuffling into a semi-circle around the Shamaness and her Scions.
“Shy?” Seble asked, not even attempting to see past the crowd of bobbing heads. “You should be up there, you know.”
Ren knew. But the Shamaness had forbidden it. Elder Lindiwe had told her and Kato of the Shamaness’s decision to bar the Fire Scion from tending to the ceremony. Something that apparently had never been done.
“I fought for you.” Lindiwe had told her, the woman’s painted eyes sunken. “But the Council has turned against me. I am sorry, Ren.”
It didn’t matter. Ren didn’t know what to do in a coming-of-age ceremony. Standing up there surrounded by a babbling circle of teens would have probably given her the creeps. She saw the Shamaness’s hatred for her as a blessing in disguise. Deep disguise.
But Seble didn’t need to know all that.
“Guess there wasn’t any time for a late player.” Ren said.
Seble squinted. “What does that mean?”
“That there was no time to teach me.”
“Pfft.” Seble spat, hooking her thumbs into her belt. “You see that thing up there? The bronze bowl?”
Leaning forward, Ren narrowed her eyes to try and get a clearer view. In front of the Shamaness stood a bronze bowl on a pillar. Blue liquid glowed white in the light of the dying sun, a thin veil of mist hung from the rounded lips of the bowl like a flowing gossamer gown.
“Yeah.”
“All a Scion does is pour half of the contents of their crystal,” she pointed at Ren’s breastbone, “into that bowl. We call it, Moira’s Elixir. Dreamers drink it. Then, they’re taken into the jungle.” Nodding, Seble stood on tiptoe. “And that is that.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Yes.” Seble said, still pressing. “So, if it sounds easy, why are you not up there?”
Ren bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping.
Seble didn’t get the hint. “We have never had an Outsider Scion take part in a Dreaming ceremony before.” She went on, unperturbed by Ren’s naked glare. “Are things different for Scions who are not native Mesh? Is that why you’re hanging back here with me?” she snorted a bit of laughter. “The only reason I am no further up is because I,” she tapped her finger on her forehead, “was once an Oathbreaker. Still full of sin, I suppose.”
“So, you broke a promise?”
“A promise sworn in blood given over the Great River.”
Ren wasn’t sure what that meant and frankly, she didn’t really care. But one thing did bug her. “Then, is the Shamaness an Oathbreaker?” in the line of people standing before her, two sets of scathing eyes snapped back.
Seble gave her the stink-eye before sneering at the faces that turned. Throwing up her hands, she screamed at them in island-speak. With collective gasps, they snapped their gazes to the front. “I am not the only one who understands English, Outsider. Careful with your tongue or I may have to cut it out.”
“I’d like to see you try.” Ren said, rolling her eyes.
Seble pinned her with a glare, but Ren simply shrugged. She didn’t really want to talk anyway—especially if their conversation kept going back to why she was being excluded.
Okay—maybe it hurt a little that they didn’t want her to partake in the ceremony. Just a little.
Ren snorted. Fine, it hurt a lot. Right when she was starting to feel like she may have possibly belonged here, she’s reminded that she’s an Outsider. Not a native and certainly not a Mesh. Just another reason why she needed to go back to the States. The only reason, really.
The Dreamers began lining up single file before the bronze bowl. After they leaned down to take their first tentative sips from it, some collapsed. Others teetered away in a whirling stupor almost as if they were drunk or high. Some took too much and were yanked away by heavily armored women with more upper body strength than a black bear. Fireflies lit up the evening, little orange torches weaving their way through the air as those who had drunk of Moira’s Elixir were deposited into one of two Niln drawn wagons. The wagons stood side-by-side, but only the one on the left was nearing its capacity.
Elder Lindiwe had explained this much to her. One was for those doing the Dreaming ceremony, the other was for the brave children who planned to tumble into the Wilds with nothing but the clothes on their backs in the Dreaming Anew. They’d search for Moira’s Blessings just as Ren had all those weeks ago. Months? Ren had been tricked into that suicide mission, but these children—Ren counted five—knowingly went to their deaths in the hopes of finding Moira’s Blessings or being ripped apart by the silvery teeth of a Tevran. Ren thought it was absolute bullshit. There had to be better ways to awaken their magic. There had to be a safer way. But no one thought to find it. This place was steeped in the fetid stink of tradition that did more harm than help. Maybe that’s another reason why their own people formed the Kirabo as well, to get away from sending their kids to the slaughter in the name of tradition and coming-of-age.
Man, was tradition a bitch.
But it was somewhat beautiful too, Ren had to admit that. Magical. Sensational. She wouldn’t find this back in the States unless she entered some crazy death cult.
“Wish them life.” Seble told her as the wagons filled and the line emptied.
“Don’t you mean luck?”
“No.” Seble said. “Life.”
The crowd sang. Hands whipped multi-colored pieces of cloth in the air, whizzing them high above their heads in a tornado of movement. The Shamaness opened her arms to the escaping carts and sang. The ground beneath Rens feet trembled as joy weld up in her like a balloon. She waved, jumping up and down as the Dreamers waved back. Somewhat diluted by the Elixir, but still joyous. Still ecstatic.
Until a hail of arrows rained down from the Wilds.
34
Crossing her arms, Ren spun them open, flinging a line of fire across the sky. Wood burned. The surrounding Mesh screamed as commands ripped through the frenzy, shrieked in island-speak. The Shamaness.
Wild Magic (The Island Book 1) Page 10