by Amber Argyle
Still not looking at her, Otec opened the small roll of vellum to see a hand-drawn, delicate flower—it looked like some kind of lily.
“There are three petals and three sepals,” Matka said eagerly, her charcoal-stained finger pointing out each feature as she spoke. “The center of each petal is ringed with yellow and burgundy. Have you seen it?”
Otec sat back, considering. She was waiting for him to speak, and this time no one else could respond for him. He cleared his throat. “There is something like that, but I couldn’t say whether it is this exact flower.”
She snatched the vellum back and tucked it into a pocket in her tunic. “I must see it for myself. You will take me.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not even in bloom.”
Matka waved his words away like a buzzing fly. “I can tell by the foliage.”
Otec took a deep breath, shocked to discover he wanted to say yes—that he wanted to know this woman who saw the world in such infinitesimal detail. “No,” he said, hating the word even as it formed in his mouth. But he couldn’t leave his family when there were Raiders prowling on the clan lands’ doorstep.
His sister bit off her thread and then smirked as she handed him the shirt. He stood to put it on and caught Matka staring at his stomach just before he pulled the shirt over his head.
“I can pay you for your services, of course,” she declared.
That made Otec pause. His dream was to own land at the base of the mountains. Perhaps have a family of his own. With the wages he collected from his parents, he would be in his thirties before he could purchase the land, in his forties before he’d built up a decent-sized flock. “How much?”
Matka made a dismissive gesture. “Surely a few coppers would cover it.”
This time, he met her gaze and didn’t look away. “Are you trying to insult me?” Angry, he started away.
Otec was at the door when she called, “Three silvers.”
He paused and glanced back at her. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” She was studying her fingernails as if it didn’t matter whether or not he agreed. But the way her hands trembled told him it did matter. It mattered very much.
He sighed. Why were people always playing games? Why not just say what she wanted? “I can’t,” he said. “My family might need me.”
“Oh, go,” his mother said as she stood up to dump the potatoes in the cookpot. “Whatever’s happening with the Raiders won’t be over in four days. And we’re safe here.”
“Your brother will allow you to go, will he?” Otec said darkly.
He felt Matka’s gaze on him as she replied, “It was his idea.”
Otec stared at the floor in front of Matka’s feet and realized he’d already been left behind. The Raiders were weeks away, and he would return long before anything could happen.
“I’ll take you, but not your brother,” he told Matka. “In four days, one of us would end up dead.”
Matka hesitated. “He’s staying behind.”
Otec gave a curt nod and stepped into the sunshine, determined to find one wild-haired sister.
Otec crossed the meadow of close-cropped, dying grass dotted with haystacks. The air smelled of hay and the spice of decaying leaves. The days were growing short, so it would be night soon. He climbed over a fence and then wandered up a steep hill, scattering a herd of shaggy cattle.
He was just starting to grow nervous when he spotted Holla sitting by a little brook. She had her chin on her hands as she watched several snails inch across the surface of a white boulder in front of her.
“Why am I different?” she asked once he had climbed down to sit beside her.
Otec rubbed the back of his neck. “Everyone’s different, Holla. Sometimes those differences are just more visible.”
“Why does Jore hate me?”
“Because he’s ignorant.”
She wiped her nose. “A few weeks ago, someone called me ugly.” Otec tensed, not sure what to say. Her perceptive eyes seemed to peer inside him. “Everyone says I look like you, but no one seems to mind that you’re not pretty.”
It was true. He wasn’t considered handsome, but it had never really bothered him. “They mind that I’m awkward and shy,” he said. Holla shot him a puzzled look, so he added, “Men are supposed to be strong.”
That seemed to puzzle her further. “But you are strong.”
Throwing his hands in the air, Otec gave up trying to explain something that didn’t make sense anyway. “Just stay away from people who hurt you.”
Holla nodded in agreement. “And if you can’t, then kick them in the shins.” She grinned and let out a wild laugh. “Lok taught me that.”
Otec tried not to chuckle and ended up snorting instead. His sister laughed harder, obviously pleased with herself. He tugged on one of her braids, glad she could still smile.
He saw a block of wood and his fingers began to itch, so he snatched it up and sat on the cool grass. His knife peeled back the layers of wood one curl at a time. The uneven block quickly became an amorphous shape. Then the form began to appear, emerging from the wood as if by magic.
He took a deep breath, hesitant to tell Holla something that would upset her. “Matka wants me to take her into the mountains.”
Holla frowned and prodded the wandering snails back into alignment. “You just got back.”
With the smell of the fresh-cut wood strong in his nostrils, Otec used the tip of his knife to form the beaver’s beady eyes, the clawed fingers, the sharp, rodent-like teeth. Steadily, Otec added chips to the delicate whorls piled around him.
“I’m better in the mountains, Holla. I don’t like it when people look at me. I can’t talk around them.”
Holla picked up a slender stick and started snapping it into even segments. “You talk to me.”
He carved while he waited for her to sort out her thoughts. Holla wrapped the broken segments, held together by the bark, around her finger. “You don’t mind when I look at you,” she said.
Instead of answering, Otec changed the subject. “Maybe Dobber could come over for dinner.”
Her nose wrinkled. “He smells funny.”
Chuckling, Otec handed her the finished carving. Her eyes lit up and she carefully tucked the beaver into her pocket. Then she turned away, squinting at the darkening sky. “Oh! Mother says I have to be home before the sun goes down.” Abandoning her snails, Holla ran away without looking back.
Before dawn the next morning, Otec stepped outside, his breath a cloud in front of him. In the distance, he could see Matka waiting for him at the other side of the village, wearing the winter gear he’d sent to her, and carrying the bedroll on her back. In addition, she had slung a large satchel over one shoulder. He was surprised to also see two swords across her back. Unlike an axe and shield, swords took a great deal of training. Plus they were prohibitively expensive, which meant she probably knew how to use them.
Otec hurried toward her, only taking a dozen or so steps before the door to the clan house burst open. Holla hurtled out, still wearing only her thin underdress, her long blond hair streaming behind her. “You didn’t say goodbye!” She came to a stop just before him, her face red. Otec held out his arms to her, but she hesitated, obviously hurt that he would leave again so soon.
“I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”
Holla tipped her head to the side. “Sometimes you have to lose a sheep in order to save the herd. That’s what Father always says.” It was a saying the Shyle often used when faced with two impossible choices. She wrinkled her nose. “Does that have something to do with why you’re leaving?”
Otec nodded. Holla stepped forward, touched her warm hands into his cold cheeks, and looked into his eyes. “You’re scared,” she whispered.
He tried to laugh it off. “I’ve been in the mountains all my life. They don’t frighten me.”
She didn’t smile as she stared past him. “Matka is scared too.” He turned to glance at the highwoma
n, who was watching them from a distance. “She has bad dreams,” Holla added.
“How do you know?”
Holla didn’t respond, but her eyes darted up and Otec saw the same strange owl from yesterday. Perched on the barn, it seemed to watch Matka with its eerie yellow eyes.
Otec let out a long breath. “I’ll look out for Matka, all right?”
“I know. Clanmen always look after the womenfolk,” Holla said in a deep voice, trying to imitate their father, then laughed at her own joke.
Otec leaned down and kissed his sister’s forehead, then sent her inside. He crossed the village, heading for Matka without looking at her. She fell in beside him, effortlessly matching his longer strides. He eyed her feet. “Go back to my mother and ask her to get you some warmer boots. Those are too thin.”
Matka lifted her chin. “These boots are made by some of the finest cobblers in the world. They keep my steps silent, yet I don’t feel the rocks.”
They’d drawn even with the tangle of tents at the outskirts of the village. Otec stopped. “They’re not warm enough. I’ll wait here.” No need for another teary farewell.
Muttering under her breath, Matka spun around and headed back. A moment later, Jore slipped into view, the bruise around his eye an ugly purple. Otec tensed, not sure why the highman had waited for him.
“I’m truly sorry about your sister,” Jore said in a low voice.
Of all the scenarios Otec could have envisioned, this wasn’t one of them.
Jore turned and took a step away, but then paused and said over his shoulder, “Remember this moment, clanman.”
Otec narrowed his gaze. “Why?”
Jore’s eyes swept across the sleepy village, his expression sad. “Just remember.” Then he slipped out of sight.
Frowning, Otec pivoted with the intent of going after Jore to ask what he meant, but Matka jogged up behind him and said, “Let’s go.”
He glanced at the well-used but serviceable boots on her feet. He thought they might be his younger brother’s.
“Which way?” Matka asked.
Otec pointed midway up the taller mountain that flanked the pass to the clan lands. They had taken no more than a few steps out of the village when a shadow passed overhead. He glanced up to see the enormous owl fly overhead and quickly move out of sight. Otec shuddered, his skin feeling itchy.
Otec was keenly aware of Matka walking beside him. The way she moved with purpose. The way her gaze lingered on her surroundings, as if she had to absorb every detail before she could look away. But she didn’t seem aware of him at all, which bothered him. And it bothered him that it bothered him.
“Just ask,” she said, startling him out of his thoughts.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe she hadn’t been as oblivious as he’d thought. “Ask what?”
She tipped her head back, staring at the watery blue sky. “What Jore and I were fighting about—it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters that he hit you.”
She let out a long breath. “Why do you care?”
“Because it’s wrong.” The grass ahead shifted. Relieved to have something to focus on, Otec pulled out his bow and took three arrows in his hand.
Matka lifted an eyebrow. “There are many, many wrongs in the world, Otec. You can’t right all of them.”
The rabbit finally hopped out from the grass and looked at them, its nose quivering. Otec drew and released within the same breath, his second arrow ready to fly if the first missed. It didn’t.
He put away his unused arrows. “But you can try to right the ones directly in front of you.” He trotted to the rabbit, took out his knife, and killed it cleanly, then began dressing it.
Matka watched, arms folded. “That’s a very simplistic approach.”
Otec wiped blood from his hands onto the grass and looked up at her. She stared up at the bursts of orange, yellow, and crimson splashed across the mountainside. “Something in particular bothering you?” he asked.
She turned away. “Doesn’t matter anymore. He promised.”
Otec raised an eyebrow, then tied the rabbit to the back of his bedroll and they started out again.
“Did you take my drawing?” Matka asked.
His ears went red again and he didn’t answer, didn’t tell her that it was in his pocket even now.
“I went back for it later that night, but it was gone. You were the only one there.”
“Why would I take your drawing?” he said tightly.
“So you did take it.” She huffed as if pleased with herself. “Why?”
It wasn’t so much the drawing as the person who drew it—a woman who realized the world wasn’t a bunch of big shapes, but very fine details stacked upon each other to form a whole. It was the details that mattered, the details that breathed life into art.
Otec wanted to show her one of his carvings, to get her opinion. But his skills were rudimentary at best. He didn’t have the tools he needed to make something truly remarkable.
“Very well, clanman. Keep your secrets. But when we return, I’d like it back.”
“Why? You can always make more.”
She didn’t answer at first. “That one was special. I wanted something that could make me feel this place after I left. Do you understand?”
When Otec didn’t answer, she grunted. “No. You wouldn’t.”
He stiffened, stung by her rebuke. Not wanting to talk anymore, he started climbing the mountain before they even reached the best spot. They were both too out of breath to speak much after that.
Just before nightfall, Otec found the cave—really more of an indentation a half dozen arm-lengths deep. He’d slept here before, had made the fire ring of stones. “We’ll sleep in the cave.”
Matka eyed the small space with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll take my chances out in the open.”
He pulled the bundle of shredded tree bark from his bedroll and fluffed the fibers. Then he struck flint to striker until the welcoming smell of a campfire filled his nostrils. He fed the little flames gently. “I wouldn’t recommend it. There’re bears and wolves in these mountains.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I can handle myself.”
Otec put a few larger sticks on the fire. “The wolves and bears don’t know that.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
A laugh burst out. “Why? Is it working?” The moment the words left his mouth, horror washed through him. But Matka only chuckled.
The fire was going pretty well now. Otec set up a spit, and while the rabbit roasted, he divided the bread, cheese, and carrots his sisters had packed for them.
He glanced over at Matka to see her folding fibrous squares of paper into a shape that resembled a goat, with little triangle folds for the horns. He squinted through the smoke and thought he saw words written in a strange script across the surface.
Whispering a prayer he couldn’t make out the words to, Matka set the goat on fire, holding it in her hands until the embers nearly touched her fingertips. Then she released it into the fire, closed her eyes, and leaned forward to breathe in the smoke, which suddenly smelled sweet and musky.
Otec watched her, entranced and a little uneasy. “What was that?”
She sat back, a smile touching the corners of her mouth. “A prayer of thanks to the Goddess.”
“Goddess? I thought you highmen followed the Balance, as we do.” To his people, the goddesses and their fairies were merely stories for children.
“Even the Goddess is subject to the Balance.” When Matka dropped her head, the firelight darkened the hollows of her face, giving her statement an aura of foreboding.
Otec shivered. “Which goddess—summer or winter?”
Matka didn’t answer for a moment. “Both.”
He glanced up at a flurry of wings to find the owl landing in a tree not far from them. Its gaze flew to Matka.
Her face instantly went blank. After that, Otec gave up tryin
g to get her to talk. They shared a silent meal as the sun went down and the temperature plummeted. They hadn’t gone very far up the mountain yet, but already he could see his breath. It wouldn’t be long before snow fell, trapping the entire village.
After showing Matka how to lay out the furs, hide side out to keep her warm and dry, Otec curled up and immediately fell asleep.
He awoke with a start sometime in the night, automatically reaching for his bow. One of the lambs was crying out in fear. Otec was cursing Thistle for not warning him and had come halfway out of his blankets when he realized it wasn’t a lamb. Matka was crying out. He froze, not sure what to do. She was speaking in Svass. He didn’t understand the words, yet he couldn’t miss the pain beneath them.
Wearing only his wool socks, he crossed the cold ground to kneel next to her. She was tossing and turning, her short hair sticking up at crazy angles. He gently rested his hand on her shoulders and shook her. “Matka, wake up.”
Her eyes flew open and she threw a punch. Otec managed to turn aside to avoid the worst of it, but he knew he’d wear the mark of it on his cheek. Her eyes cleared and a look of accusation crossed her face. “What are you doing?”
He rubbed his jaw. She knew how to hit. “You were having a nightmare.”
Her gaze strayed to the tree where the owl still watched her. Matka immediately looked away, clearly terrified of the creature.
“This is ridiculous,” Otec muttered. And it could be dealt with easily enough. Before he could change his mind, he grabbed his bow and strung it.
Matka kicked off her furs and started toward him. “No, don’t!”
Ignoring her, he nocked an arrow and released. The owl dropped, landing with a solid thud. Its wings beat uselessly against the ground before it grew still.
Matka swayed on her feet. “You should not have done that.” She turned to look at him, genuine anger in her gaze. “You’ve drawn their attention!”
Otec tossed his bow down. “Whose attention? It was just an owl.”