Serpent Cursed (Lost Souls Series Book 2)

by Bree Moore

Quinn

  Fingers trailed through Quinn’s feathers. Preening, they called it, which of course he knew but he’d never experienced it like this. Usually he picked through his own feathers, straightening them, rearranging some, plucking out annoying bits of fluff. The women who attended him now stroked luxuriously through his wings with expert hands, pausing to massage knots out of his tense shoulders where the wings connected with his shoulder blades. He was in bliss, pure bliss. Another woman rubbed grease through his hair and brushed it to a fine sheen. Despite his having not had a bath, he looked and smelled far better than he had in days. Yet mentally, he was miserable.

  Harper should be there with him. Becca should be there with him. Instead, Harper was who-knew-where on the run, accused of murder, and Becca was imprisoned in a shack with that prissy journalist, awaiting word of her fate.

  “Your shoulders are so tight. You must relax,” the young woman working his shoulders said, her voice trailing over his shoulder and into his ear. She was pretty. Thin, with long dark hair like his, dressed in one of the caribou skin vests that allowed slits for her wings. Here, everyone kept their wings out when it was practical, tucking them against their backs. The sound of rustling feathers filled the flat-topped tent they sat in.

  “How do you keep from bleeding when your wings are brought out?” He blurted.

  The younger women both giggled. The one brushing grease through his hair spoke. “It is a special salve. And eventually, the skin becomes strong enough to resist. Did your parents not use the salve?”

  “No. A witch healed it with her magic.” His skin twitched, and he shivered remembering the day he’d met Violet Petrov. He was glad that phase of his life was over.

  An older woman held up her pot of animal fat and smiled, indicating that she’d like to come closer and rub it into his skin. He nodded approval. His vest had already been removed.

  It soothed the ache in his arm from the scratches he’d received fighting the serpent off. They appeared to be healing like any wound, which gave him some relief. He didn’t want to know what a mix between his race and the namigiak would look like.

  Everything here felt strange, but he wanted to experience this. He wanted to understand the life his people, his parents, had lived and why they had left. He wanted to know if it was the life he should choose.

  His chest shone in the lamp light. The older woman stepped back and waved her hands. Two young women brought a headdress forward. It wasn’t like the enormous ones Quinn had seen represented by the tribes in the western United States. It was made of a ring of tufted white and black fur, about half a foot long. Strings of beads dangled from the leather band. Two black raven feathers dangled on the sides, both decorated with beads as well. Careful hands slid it over Quinn’s head until it rested heavily on his brow. The woman clapped her hands.

  “Your grandfather will be proud. His own feathers were given to make this for your father, and now you wear it.”

  “Will he…will he be there tonight?” Quinn asked.

  The old woman laughed. “Of course he will!” She accepted another small clay pot from one of the younger women. This one held a dark substance that she scooped out with two fingers and smeared on Quinn’s face.

  “What is this celebration about, exactly?” Quinn said, feeling the heavy face paint move on his skin.

  “It is our traditional coming-of-age ceremony. You would have gone through it on your fifteenth year. There is dancing, and drumming, and feasting, and sacred agreements made, including the presentation of your future wife.”

  “What!” Quinn practically yelped and sprang to his feet, his wings flaring out and knocking the two younger women aside. One giggled as his feathers brushed her. He ignored her, facing down the old woman who looked at him calmly. “I can’t be married.”

  “Not married,” the woman snorted. “Only engaged, as you might see it. Of course, there will be an exception made and the contract dissolved if you are found to not be compatible, but the process will go much more quickly since you are far beyond the typical age of union among our people. A few months instead of years, perhaps.”

  “No, absolutely not. I haven’t met any of the people here. I haven’t even met my own grandfather. I won’t be presented for marriage!” He bit his tongue before mentioning Becca. They had agreed to not mention that to avoid putting his people more on guard than they were. But he wouldn’t go ahead with this engagement ceremony with his girlfriend sitting in a tent as a prisoner, and if that meant spilling the beans about their real relationship, then he wouldn’t hesitate.

  The older woman pursed her lips, frowning at him. She leaned near the girls and spoke quietly to one, who shot a glance at Quinn and then dashed off through the tent flap. The other girl knelt and picked up the items Quinn had overturned when he stood.

  “I am glad you have brought your feelings to my attention,” the woman said gravely. “Having a disruption like this during the ceremony would not have been respectful to the gods. I have requested that your grandfather join us. He will explain things to you, and hear your feelings on the matter.”

  Oddly enough, the women in the tent both bowed before they left. Why would they have bowed?

  Quinn felt ridiculous standing in the center of the tent, wings fully spread and dressed in ceremonial garb. He pulled his feathers tight against his back, but there wasn’t much else he could do without ruining the work the women had put into his appearance. They’d let him keep his jeans, after offering a pair of caribou skin pants that Quinn had turned down. His chest was slicked with grease and painted with the thick black paint. His hair was brushed and adorned with the furred hat and raven feathers. He found himself fingering one, then remembered what the woman had said about the feathers coming from his grandfather and released it, letting it dangle out of sight.

  The tent flap moved, and a man with salt and pepper hair ducked into the room, wearing a vest like Quinn had before and a similar headdress. It was like looking into a mirror in fifty years.

  The man beamed at Quinn and slapped a hand on his shoulder. Did everyone dress like this to celebrate a coming of age, or did this man play a special role as Quinn’s grandfather?

  “You look like Miksa,” the older man said. “But your eyes belong to your mother.”

  “You’re my grandfather.” Quinn studied him more closely, but with the anger swirling around his heart over Becca it was hard to feel anything like he had anticipated.

  “Yes. I am Panuk Aguta, chief of the Tulukaruq tribe.”

  “You’re the chief? That means my… I…” Quinn clamped his mouth shut before he made a fool of himself. Not just family. Not just his tribe.

  Chief Aguta looked at him seriously. “Your father was not keen on taking my place as leader of the tribe. And your mother tired of our way of life. A traveler we intercepted once told her of the world and she pined after it, to the point of not thriving, though we gave her everything. We have sought you and your sister as the final hope for continuing the noble family line leading this tribe.”

  Quinn clenched his fists and released them slowly, flexing them. “I haven’t been here a day, but you’ve imprisoned my girlfriend and betrothed me to a stranger in the same breath. You’re asking me to commit to lead this tribe when they don’t know me, and I don’t know them? Surely there’s someone better suited.”

  The chief considered him, then walked to a far side of the tent and opened a small wooden box on the floor. He closed it without getting anything out, stood with the box in hand, and walked back to Quinn.

  “Tradition has kept our people alive. Without it, we would scatter to the four winds and be hunted for our wings, have them cut off and displayed as trophies in government halls. Would you have that fate for us?”

  “No, but I—”

  His grandfather held up a hand. “Let me speak. I do not say this lightly. The woman you have brought among us is a deadly danger to us all, but the world beyond even mor
e so. I would rather you stay here than have you leave feeling that we have betrayed you, the way your parents did. We might have a hope of finding your sister, as well, and she will also be given the opportunity to accept the leadership of these people if you, the elder sibling, turn it down. I will understand, no matter your decision, but you must decide by the end of this ceremony. Either you feel the call of this land, of this people, in your bones and blood or you do not. You will know.”

  “What will you do to Becca? How could I accept the leadership of a people that would have her killed?” Quinn tried to get a sense of these feelings the chief spoke of, but he could not. The anger simmered and his head spun with words he could use to save Becca’s life. “She did not ask to become a serpent-woman. She means no harm to anyone.”

  “And yet she will harm. But because you ask it, we will not exterminate her. She will be given supplies, provisions, and set out to find her way from here. Her survival will be by her own merit.”

  “And the journalist?”

  Chief Aguta frowned. “Is he your friend as well?”

  Quinn shrugged. “No. But I’m not sure he deserves to die.”

  “He might tell others of our existence here in the wilds of Alaska. They might come looking, and we will have to be ready to kill those men. Is it better to end one life now or many later?” Those serious, dark brown eyes watched Quinn, studying his face.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said at last. He looked into his hands, then dropped them to his sides. “I’m not ready to make decisions like that. Decisions that choose between two people and determine their value based on their usefulness to me.”

  Chief Aguta nodded. “It is wise that you know yourself. And encouraging. I believe you will know when the time comes what your answer will be.”

  “You’re positive, then, that my father won’t return? Do you know what happened to them?”

  “They visited us, many years ago. More than a decade. They encouraged us to join a cause of rebellion that was being fanned into a roaring flame in the lower states. I could not risk losing all of our people in one fell swoop by putting ourselves in the hands of passionate but reckless leaders who did not understand us. I turned them down and turned them away.”

  “A rebellion? What rebellion?” Quinn hadn’t heard of such a thing in all of his searching for his parents. And so far, no widespread, organized movement had come to light in the U.S. since then.

  Chief Aguta’s eyes hardened. “I do not recall the name. It may have changed. It may have dispersed. I do not bother to track the fate of a violent radical group who does not care for the lives of its members.”

  “That seems harsh.”

  “Do not judge things you do not know.”

  Quinn trembled with the anger that washed through him. He tried to have an open mind, tried to come here with the hope that he could fit, that this could be a place for him to live and avoid the fate that awaited him with naturalization. “That’s literally what you were asking me to do just now. Judge whether I can be a good leader. Judge whether we should take an innocent man’s life. Don’t you see the hypocrisy?”

  Chief Aguta rubbed his jaw and tilted his head to one side, considering Quinn. “My ideas and beliefs must seem barbaric to you after a lifetime spent in more modern civilization.”

  Quinn sighed. “No, just not consistent. It’s confusing. And there’s so much that’s new. I don’t want to be engaged to anyone, and I don’t want to be in charge of choosing whether a person lives or dies.”

  “Then you must accept my judgement and leadership as I make those decisions for you. That is what it means to be chief. Trust that I will take the information you have given me seriously, and that your words will contribute to my final choice. As for the betrothal, it can be delayed for now. The ceremony will not be much disrupted. I thought the coming of age ceremony appropriate, since you did not receive one, but we should have considered your feelings as well.” He smiled somewhat sadly. Quinn immediately felt guilty, but he didn’t say anything.

  A woman lifted the tent flap and peered inside. “We are ready to begin. The moon has risen.”

  Chief Aguta raised his head. “Thank you, Nuniq.”

  The woman left.

  Quinn touched one of the feathers hanging from the band on his head. He’d forgotten they were there.

  “We need you here, Quincey King,” the chief said. “In this ceremony you will receive your tribe name, the name you will be known by as long as you stay here. And we hope you will stay. If you choose to leave, our tribe will never speak your name again. It will be as if you never came. Choose wisely, for your choice is permanent. There is no room for the undecided here.”

  Quinn’s back stiffened. He nodded curtly. The decisions he faced weighed heavily, a suffocating weight settling deep into his lungs.

  “But first,” Chief Aguta said, a smile touching the creases in his cheeks, “we dance!”

  The drum beats throbbed outside. A deep, throaty singing began. The chief ducked from the tent, and Quinn followed more slowly, standing behind the tent flap, feeling the music sink into his skin and sinew, bringing his blood to life. He closed his eyes. For one night, he would be Tulukaruq. For one night, he would belong to this people.

  He stepped through the tent flap and stood before a bonfire that reached to the sky with licking flames and shooting embers. Women danced, wings out and spinning in dark circles backlit by flame. It was a wonder they didn’t singe their feathers. Beads glittered on their headbands. White teeth flashed with their smiles. Quinn saw the chief across the circle, gesturing for him to take the empty place at his side.

  Quinn obliged, sitting at his left. He spotted Silla, but not Tarkik, and wondered where the serious-faced man was. Had he deliberately chosen to avoid this ceremony? If Quinn stayed, would Tarkik’s attitude toward him change?

  It didn’t matter right now. Quinn watched the singing, spinning dancers. The music was like nothing he had ever heard, though he heard some similarities to beat boxing. Percussive vocal whoops, yells, and beats filled the air. It wasn’t perfectly dark. Like the night before, it was as if the world were stuck on twilight.

  On a final beat the women froze in their last poses and dispersed. Quinn automatically brought his hands together, clapping in the silence, and all eyes turned on him. Laughter broke out among the tribe, and Quinn stopped, grinning at himself. Apparently they didn’t clap to show appreciation here.

  Men came forward next, and the drummer started again. Quinn leaned closer to the chief to get a better look at the wide-based drum, big as a man curled up.

  A man reached Quinn and gestured, urging him to stand. Quinn stood hesitantly and whoops and hollers followed him to the ring of dancers around the circle. The man clapped Quinn’s back and bobbed his head to the beat of the drum. He brought a leg up and slapped it, then brought it down and stomped it. He paused until Quinn mimicked the moves and then the man put his arms out and showed him another move.

  Quinn followed his motions, smiling nervously, but as the beats of the drum quickened, his tutor moved away from him and the rhythm took over Quinn’s limbs and he found himself moving without caring what others thought of him.

  His wings flared and beat wildly, making the fire wave and dance as he spun with the others. He leapt up nearly as high as the fire and landed in a crouch, wings out, staring at Chief Aguta as the man smiled.

  And then the music ended.

  Quinn breathed hard.

  The man from before found him and they shook hands. “I am Tukkuttok.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll remember that,” Quinn admitted.

  Tukkuttok laughed and for a moment, Quinn caught a flash of what it would be like to live here, surrounded by people who were like him, not just in skin tone, but in what they valued, in their wings and love of flight.

  He returned to his seat next to the chief and a line of women and men brought platters out. First empty one
s, a small dinner-plate size made of polished wood and bone. Then the food arrived. Rich, roasted meats and fish, long white roots, small bowls of bright berries. Quinn indulged in far too much, his stomach tightening against his jeans. He sat back groaning and rubbed his belly.

  “The land is rich this year,” Chief Aguta said. “I’m glad you get to see it at its best, but you should know that some years are not this plentiful. Some winters we cinch our belts and chew rawhide to take our minds off our hunger. We try not to rely on modern conventions and instead choose to live off the land, but we will not starve.” His brown eyes gleamed in the firelight.

  “I didn’t assume it would be easy.”

  “No,” the chief said. “But it is a simple life compared with the political and social complexities of many other places.”

  “That must be nice.”

  “It is.” The chief looked to the fire, gazing at his people as they laughed and ate. Quinn followed his gaze, amazed at all the wings he saw. Not everyone kept them out, but most. Tucked against their backs, flaring out as they laugh, flapping in irritation. One thing he expected was missing, however.

  “Where are the children?” Quinn didn’t hear any laughter.

  “Some are sleeping. But there aren’t many to begin with. Our women do not easily carry their babies, and fewer of our youth stay than go. We haven’t had a coupling this year, I think.” The chief’s beads on his chest clicked together as he moved.

  It made more sense now why the tribe had been so eager to pair Quinn with a mate, but he still couldn’t imagine marrying someone he didn’t know. Did couples pair for love or just to make children? It was something to ask later.

  A woman with silver streaks in her black hair glided forward with a cup on a platter. The chatter of the gathered crowd quieted to absolute silence. Chief Aguta gestured the woman forward and she knelt.

  “Quinn, meet your grandmother. Ahnah, our irnngutaq.”

  The woman smiled, deepening the creases in her cheeks. Quinn found himself smiling back at the rosy-cheeked woman. She raised the tray in her hands. Quinn glanced at the chief, questioning.