I find myself watching him intently, riveted by the too-slow motions of his emaciated body. After another bite, he places his cup on the floor and folds his hands in his lap. “I am not Maicoh.”
“That’s getting repetitive…”
A smell.
I sniff the air. It’s bitter and metallic. My heart suddenly hammers in my chest, and my gaze darts around the pithouse, to the shadows and the swaying disembodied heads, which now appear even more misshapen. Blood. That’s what the smell is. Blood and stale sweat.
And so close to me. Terrifyingly close.
I almost leap out of my skin when a filthy red-shirted warrior peers down through the roof entry and calls, “Finally! We’ve been searching for you for a moon! The Blessed Sun sent us to escort you and Maicoh back to Flowing Waters Town, Blessed daughter.”
Forty-four
Tsilu
A dawn of distant storms.
Lightning blasts the butte on the far horizon. I watch the bolts flashing down and wait for Thunderbird’s wings to soar through the sunlit sky over my head. When they do, the rain-scented air rumbles, and the hair on my arms stands on end.
Wasp Moth—who leads the way along the winding dirt path at the base of a tan sandstone mesa—says something over his shoulder to Blue Dove. She answers, but I can’t make out any of the words. Blue Dove and my brother follow behind Wasp Moth. Grandfather and Crane walk next in line. I walk three paces behind them, and Weevil and Iron Dog march behind me. The escort of ten warriors from Flowing Waters Town brings up the rear. They are soundless as ghosts. Each time I turn to peer at them, they glare at me.
We are barely two days’ travel from Flowing Waters Town, and everyone seems possessed by dread. What will happen when the Blessed Sun knows the truth? The soul pot is empty. Nightshade’s breath-heart soul long ago made the journey to the afterlife.
Whom will Leather Hand murder first?
To calm myself, I concentrate on the stone pillars that hunch like old women by the trail, singing with the wind. Eyeless, their stubby sandstone arms reach for me as we pass by.
Crane softly says to Grandfather, “Sorry about last night … shouldn’t have allowed her to provoke me.”
“She’s good at it, isn’t she?” Grandfather says with a smile.
“She’s terrified. But I should not have—”
“Not your fault. It’s just that we must be very careful now. Revealing too much, too soon—”
“That’s why I’m so angry with myself.”
Crane turns to study the warriors bringing up the rear, as though checking their positions, and the pale light of morning washes his face with shades of amber and ash. When he gazes at me he asks, “How are you, Tsilu?”
“Fine.”
Grandfather can tell from the tone of my voice that I’m not fine. He slows down to wait for me and protectively puts an arm around my shoulders. Walking between Grandfather and Crane eases my fears a little. For the first time since dawn, my knees stop shaking.
“Don’t worry,” Grandfather tells me. “All is well.”
“It’s not, and I know it. We were coming to rescue you, but all we did was give the Blessed Sun two more hostages.”
“Two or twenty, doesn’t matter.” He pats my shoulder tenderly. “There is more here than meets any of our eyes.”
“What do you mean?”
His hair falls around his face as he looks down at me. “Don’t you hear their steps? Spirits we cannot see Dance around us. For now, our goal is just to listen to the rhythms of their feet. Everything else is noise.”
I have to think about that for a time before asking more questions. There are inhuman rhythms in the world around me: Juniper branches saw back and forth, and old needles patter the ground. On the right side of the trail, a shed rattlesnake skin shivers and flips in the breeze.
But the Dancing feet of Spirits do not reveal themselves to me. Probably because, at this moment, it’s not necessary for me to hear them. Or maybe because I am not worthy of hearing them.
In either case, I trust that Grandfather hears them, and so I listen more carefully to the sounds surrounding me on this golden morning.
Especially to the very quiet voices of Crane and Grandfather. They speak with the easy intimacy of men who’ve known each other since birth. Men who’ve seen the worst life can throw at anyone and survived because they had each other. This new knowledge is so strange for me. I can’t piece the fragments together yet, but if I’m right about some of them, where does Grandfather Tocho fit in? Crane and Maicoh are my true family. How do they even know Grandfather Tocho? When did they meet? Why did my father leave me with a stranger—even if he did bring me back to life? I’m not complaining. I love Grandfather Tocho with all my heart, and I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to raise me. He’s the best father I could have had. I’m just desperate to unravel the intricate weave of lies.
Because somewhere in that weave is the truth of who I am.
I keep wondering if I should have told Crane or Grandfather that I know Maicoh is my brother. Maybe I should have. But I don’t understand the ramifications yet. Crane wants me to believe Maicoh is his son and my father. But if Maicoh is truly my brother, as well as Crane’s son, then Crane is my father.
And Grandfather … He once told me he believed I had no family left, because surely someone would have come looking for me. I know all these falsehoods are part of web of deceit designed to protect me and what’s left of my family, but it seems too elaborate, too desperate, for that purpose.
When Blue Dove and Maicoh raise their voices, Grandfather and Crane go silent, trying to hear what they’re saying. Blue Dove whirls in the trail and marches back toward me with a tense expression on her beautiful face. The wind catches her twisted rabbit-fur shawl and flaps it around her.
“Come with me, little girl. It’s time we had a serious talk.” She walks off toward the toppled boulders that crowd around the base of the cliff.
“Grandfather?” I twist to look up at him.
His narrowed eyes are on Blue Dove, assessing her intentions. “I’ll be right here. Tell her anything she wants to know.”
Blue Dove sits on a boulder ten paces away and snaps her fingers at me. “Get over here, child,” she orders. “I don’t have all day.”
My knees start shaking again.
Weevil and Iron Dog trot forward, push Crane and Grandfather aside, and flank me, using their fists to punch me in the shoulders to keep me moving forward.
Iron Dog says, “Hurry up, girl.”
“I am hurrying! You don’t have to strike me!”
After I ease down atop the boulder, facing her, I ask, “What do you want?”
She flicks a hand to dismiss the warriors, then looks me up and down. “You really are a homely girl. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
Involuntarily my shoulders hunch forward, as though my body is preparing for more hard fists. “Is that why you wished to speak with me? Because I’m ugly?”
“No, of course not. It just shocks me a little. I didn’t know there was anyone anywhere as unattractive as you,” she says through an irritated exhalation, and turns to frown at my brother. Maicoh is watching us with eyes as hard as ice. “How are you related to the albino?”
“He is not of my clan. Nor of my People. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve never heard anyone speak of an albino relative.”
She’s watching me very closely, noting the twisting of my hands and the way I’ve clenched my jaw. “And Crane? How are you related to him?”
“I’m not. The first time I ever saw him was at the council meeting with you.”
Cold disdain lines her face. “You are a very poor liar. Not enough practice, I suppose. You should have grown up in Flowing Waters Town. You’d be a highly skilled professional.”
Unwisely, I quip, “As you are?”
She gives me a coy smile. “Absolutely.”
On a ledge above us, a hawk perches with its feathers fluffed out for w
armth. Its head moves back and forth, scanning the valley bottom for juicy mice or voles that might be scurrying through the dry grass.
“Well, let me tell you what I think,” Blue Dove says in a friendly voice. The corners of her mouth have turned up. “I think Tocho, Crane, and the albino are all your male kin. I can tell just by the way they look at you. In fact, I think they’ve spent much of their lives trying to protect you from people like me.”
“Bad people?”
She chuckles. “People who’d just as soon murder you as look at you. Or, maybe, murder you because they had to look at you.”
Artfully, she grasps a lock of windblown hair and tucks it behind her ear. I bite my lower lip and keep quiet. She uses humiliation like an obsidian blade to slice away at people until they are reduced to bloody pulp.
When her gaze moves to my brother, she slits her eyes. They seem to be engaged in a monumental staring match. My brother has his blue hood up, and his body is slightly canted away from us to keep his sensitive skin in the hood’s shadow. But his expression conveys so much threat that I can’t look at him for long. He scares me.
Blue Dove breaks eye contact with him and turns back to me. “Since you are important to Maicoh, Crane, and Tocho, you are also valuable to me. I considered killing you because you are such a burden on this trip, but I’ve decided I’m going to let you live.”
Her smile is the stuff of nightmares.
“Thank you.”
“Now…” She adjusts herself upon the boulder and sighs as she gazes up at the mesa top high above us, where streamers of cloud blow across the blue sky. “Let’s talk about the empty soul pot. It bothers me. I saw nothing, but you saw something, didn’t you?”
“Just a black hole. Like a tunnel.”
“Nothing else? No people? No monstrous creatures emerging from the depths?”
“No.” Shaking my head, I timidly add, “There were a few tiny specks of light floating around the bottom, but I think that was just my eyes. I’d been staring into the fire and—”
“You know,” she says as though oblivious to the fact that I was still answering her question, “my father is probably going to kill you. Unless you prove helpful in some way.”
Lowering my gaze, I fight to compose myself. The only footprints on the ground are mine and those of a hopping mouse. Traders tell terrible stories of what the Blessed Sun does to young girls. When I think about them, I have to work hard not to let her see my hands shake. But she doesn’t miss how my quick breaths smoke in the cool air and drift away through the junipers.
Blue Dove smirks in triumph. “You are smart to be afraid. I assume you’ve heard stories about my father?”
I take a quiet breath and hold it for a time. “Yes.”
After five heartbeats, she finally says, “He hates repulsive girls, especially useless repulsive girls. Father’s first child, the child he had with Desert Willow, was a useless repulsive girl. Blessed Spirits, no one even remembers her, except for that fact.” She pauses. “What was her name?”
“I didn’t know you had a sister. Is she—”
“Dead, I hope. When she was barely a woman, Father forced her to marry that madman, Ravenfire. I suppose I should feel sorry—”
“Ravenfire?” The name is familiar. Bits of lore spring up from my memory, things Grandfather told me when I was a child. Leather Hand the Cannibal had kept Ravenfire imprisoned in Flowing Waters Town for thirteen long summers. He’d finally gone completely mad. Tried to kill himself several times, but Leather Hand refused to let him die. “Wasn’t he the man who betrayed Matron Night Sun?”
“Yes. Betrayed his own grandmother to my father. Her fate was horrify—”
“You don’t even know your sister’s name?”
Blue Dove gives me a cold look. “If you interrupt me again, child, I’ll shove a stiletto in your windpipe.”
I close my mouth. Swallow hard.
For a time, she grimaces, as though thinking foul thoughts, and finally says, “Something like Yellow Gill or Yellow Quill.”
Very quietly, I say, “Did she die?”
She takes a deep breath. “Might as well have. Can you imagine being married to a madman? Not only that. For every person who considered Ravenfire a hero for betraying his grandmother, two more considered him a traitor. Assassins kept hunting him down. I heard he finally took his family and headed up north to live with the barbarian buffalo hunters.” As though speaking to herself, she whispers, “The stupid little fool. Did Ravenfire actually believe my father would reward him? Father uses people then casts them aside. All people.”
I have the unpleasant feeling that she believes that includes her. And why wouldn’t she, after what happened to her innocent sister? Is that what’s really bothering her? She is afraid of what her father will do to her when she returns home? Because of the empty pot?
Blue Dove rubs her chin, as though considering her future. Her facial expression is peculiar. Speculative. Hateful. Plotting her next move.
“Blessed daughter?” Wasp Moth tramps away from the group, toward Blue Dove. He looks annoyed. “If we wish to reach the signal station before sunset, we should get moving. Otherwise, we will not be able to inform your father that we will arrive late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Try to think, you moron!” Blue Dove snaps and jumps to her feet with her fists clenched. “Dispatch a man to run ahead and send the message. Then start marching! I’ll be right there.”
“Of course, Blessed daughter.”
Wasp Moth rolls his eyes and walks back through the group of warriors, taps a man on the shoulder, and the messenger heads up the trail at a distance-eating lope. Then Wasp Moth waves the group forward, and the entire assemblage moves to snake along behind him.
Grandfather, Crane, and Maicoh walk at the end of the group, guarded by Weevil and Iron Dog.
I quietly ask, “May I go now?”
“Yes, repulsive girl.” Blue Dove clutches her cape closed at the throat, fending off a gust of cold wind. “Start walking. And if you value your life or the lives of your relatives, think of something you can tell me that will make you useful to me.”
Forty-five
Tsilu
After dusk, a cold wind sweeps down from the snow-capped mountains to the north and blasts me where I sleep beneath a gray limestone overhang, my head pillowed on Kwinsi’s pack. Grandfather sleeps beside me. At least I think he’s asleep. He hasn’t moved in more than one hand of time.
It’s shocking how the world has changed since we joined the main road to Flowing Waters Town. There are so many people!
Across the rolling desert landscape to the south, fires flicker everywhere. The large clusters must be towns in the Straight Path nation, or maybe war parties, but most are individual camps, like ours. Victims of destroyed villages? The camps form straight lines, as though set up along roads, rather than winding rivers. That puzzles me. If I were fleeing, I would not camp along a road, even if it was the fastest way to travel. I’d head for the untrammeled backcountry, where the only trails are made by deer and elk.
In a low voice Grandfather inquires, “What do you see out there, Tsilu?”
I whisper back, “Grandfather, who was Ravenfire?”
He seems surprised and lifts his head to look at me. “Oh, well, that’s a very long story. Why do you ask?”
I stare at him, noting the way the night’s gleam outlines his deepest wrinkles.
“Blue Dove told me something today that made me wonder about him.”
“Really? What did she say?”
Out in the distance kit foxes break into song, serenading the darkness. I listen for a moment. Their yips echo, reverberating off the canyon walls.
“She said that Leather Hand had an ugly daughter named Yellow Gill or Yellow Quill, and when she was barely a woman he forced her to marry the madman Ravenfire.”
Grandfather reaches out to affectionately move a windblown lock of hair away from my face. All the love in the world shines in
his eyes. “Did she tell you what happened to them?”
“Partly. She said Ravenfire was considered a hero by many for betraying his grandmother, Matron Night Sun, but others wanted to kill him for it. Assassins kept chasing him, so he took his family to live among the barbarian buffalo hunters in the far north. Was he a bad man? A traitor?”
Grandfather pauses for several heartbeats, and I see him frowning up at the Star Road that stretches across the sky just beyond the limestone outcrop. His lips move in silent words. Is he praying to his ancestors? Or for the thlatsinas to take his hand and lead him to that inevitable road now, before he must answer?
“It’s a—a hard thing to explain, Tsilu, except to say that he was very young, just a boy, and we all make grave mistakes in our youth.”
“But he betrayed his own grandmother, didn’t he? That’s more than a mistake. It’s unthinkable. How could anyone—”
Grandfather interrupts, which he rarely does. “If I tell you that I find no comfort in the fact that effect simply follows cause, and that I judge none as guilty, can you—at the immense age of thirteen summers—understand?”
“I … I don’t know.”
My hands fumble around beneath my cape, tugging my sleeves straight while I think about that. Can I, even a little, understand the truths that an old man has acquired through a lifetime of experience?
“Then you forgive Ravenfire for what he did?”
Grandfather stares at me for a long time without blinking. “I want to forgive. I very much want to believe that all the summers of suffering were necessary to pay for justice. But part of me will always weep that the price was too high.”
“What do you mean by justice?”
“Ah…” he says with a wry smile. “That question has watered the ages with its tears.”
I reach out to squeeze his hand and find his knobby joints cold. “That’s not much of an answer, Grandfather.”
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