“What’s a glass arrow?” she asks without turning around.
I sit back on my heels.
“It’s just a story my ma would tell.” It was like saying, Don’t be afraid, I’ll take care of you, but I don’t tell Daphne that.
“So let’s hear it.”
I take a slow breath, suspecting that this will end in her making fun of me. But for some reason, I tell her.
“Once, a long time ago, when the grass was grazed too thin and the game was scarce, Fox and Deer sang to Mother Hawk for food to end their families’ suffering.”
She snorts in her snooty way, but I keep going.
“She flew down from the sky with an arrow made of green glass and told them that she’d give it to the winner of a race across the country.”
“What were they supposed to do, eat it?” Daphne rolls onto her back, staring up at the woven roots overhead.
“Fox thought the race was a waste of time and went to the lowlands in search of food. So Deer ran the path Mother Hawk had chosen alone. Into the mountains, across the sky, and back down into the valley. When he was through, Mother Hawk gave him the arrow to do what he would. He gave it to Fox, who placed it in the bow, drew back, and pierced Deer through the heart.”
“Deer wasn’t too smart, was he?”
“Just listen.”
Daphne’s breathing is slowing.
“Deer’s blood seeped into the ground, and from that place grew enough grass to feed his family for generations. But Fox and his family starved.”
“Why didn’t the deer just kill the fox?”
“A deer can’t live off a fox,” I say, quoting my ma. “But a family can live off one sacrifice for a long time.”
“So give this magic arrow to me,” she says after a while. “I’ll shoot you and eat you.”
Daphne doesn’t get it. She wouldn’t. She knows nothing about sacrifice.
She’s quiet, but just when I think she’s fallen asleep, she speaks.
“I wish I was ten years old again.”
“Me too,” I say before I think about it.
“Everything’s wrong out here. Even the sky. It’s like … there are holes in it. Bright spots.”
“They’re called stars.” Pity softens my words. I can’t believe she’s never seen stars on a clear night.
“Why do they do that?” She fans her fingers to represent the glow. “It can’t be normal.”
I take a slow breath. “My ma said they were the souls of those who have passed, waiting to return to their new forms.” I eye her through my lashes, wondering how she will attempt to make me feel foolish.
She’s staring at me. “Your birth mother? Not a Keeper?”
I nod.
“You think she’s one of…” She points to the sky.
Unsure how to answer, I only shrug. Sometimes I think she’s up there. Watching. Waiting to return. Sometimes I think she’s already back in her new body, spreading her wings and soaring over the mountaintops, free from disease and the hunters. Free from me.
Sometimes I wonder if her stories were always just stories, and she is part of the earth, nothing more.
Silence. Daphne is looking back up at the sky.
“It’s kind of pretty I guess.”
I want to tell her I think so too, but she’s already asleep.
* * *
NIGHT COMES AND KIRAN’S fever rages on.
So I pray.
Really pray, for the first time in weeks. Inside, I am empty, and the song does not come easy, but I do it anyway. For Kiran. For myself. Because I can’t do this by myself, and Mother Hawk is the only one who can help him now.
I sing into the night, and as Kiran begins to shiver, I press my forehead into his chest, and weep.
“Please wake up.”
As if in answer, he rouses suddenly and stares straight into my face.
“It dudn’t work. The songs,” he says. I am off my knees before he finishes the thought, already pouring more water into his mouth. He sputters, jaw working as if I’ve offered sludge.
I try to keep him quiet, but he keeps talking.
“I used to sing, too. Long time ago. But no one could fix her.”
I want to ask who he means and what happened, but he’s blinking fast, fighting to stay awake.
“Quiet now,” I tell him.
“Diyou cud me?” he slurs.
“I had to take off the infection.” I don’t ask if it hurts; the pain is sharp in his eyes. “You need to rest.”
“I dream of you, Aya bird,” he says. And then he’s out.
When I turn back around, Daphne’s standing behind me. The smile I hadn’t known I’d been wearing fades immediately. She sits back down, giving me a strange look, and stares back up at the sky.
* * *
KIRAN TAKES A TURN for the worst just before dawn.
His unseeing eyes stretch open, and the sweat soaks through his clothing. The fever dreams take him. He begins to say a woman’s name: Kyna. With a pang to my heart I wonder if he loves her—the hint of a smile dawns on his mouth when he says the word. He tells her not to worry. He’ll come back.
I mop his brow and force more water down his throat. I change his dressing and apply a new poultice. I talk to him, remembering how Metea said this soothed my ma when she was having visions. I tell him all the best lies: that we’re safe, free, fat and happy.
Just as the red dawn is breaking, he sits bolt upright, staring at something behind me in the bushes. His breath grows shallower and his limbs are wild as I force him back down.
My heart twists. My face is wet with tears.
Kiran is dying.
I squeeze his hand, sending all my strength down his arm. I don’t even know if he can feel me near.
“What’s happening?” asks Daphne.
“I don’t know what else to do!” My cry doesn’t distract Kiran from muttering something else I can’t make out. “I can’t fix him. I’m not a doctor. He might be dead by the time we get him to a town.”
Every part of my body has grown tight in my desperation. I am failing Kiran. I have failed my entire family.
Daphne grows very quiet.
“Kyna needs a doctor,” Kiran says. I can’t tell if he’s mimicking me, or if he’s talking to spirits. I clap a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet, but his words have sparked something inside me.
“Where is the doctor?” I demand. “Where?”
“Three … three rivers crossing.”
I ask him where, but the answer is already waiting. I know a place, not far from my mountain, where three rivers collide. I could see it on the clearest days from the meadows near our camp. Is it possible Kiran and I have lived only a valley away our whole lives?
“Do you remember the snowy peaks above our home?” I ask, pretending to be Kyna, the person he keeps talking to.
“I’ll carry you to the top,” he mumbles. He’s jostling from side to side, and fresh blood breaks through his bandages. I hold him down.
“Do you think his people have a doctor?” Daphne asks.
“Be still,” I beg him, laying my body across his.
I can’t leave Kiran. He doesn’t deserve to die alone. And my mountain is still a day’s ride away, which means his camp is at least double that. I could run or ride Dell, but that would leave Kiran and Daphne defenseless if the Trackers return. The woods are dangerous enough anyway, the bear already proved that. And anyhow, what if I find a doctor, and by the time we return, Kiran’s already dead?
“Stop it,” Daphne tells me, worrysick.
I grind to a halt, realizing that in Kiran’s calm, I’ve risen and begun pacing, tugging on my hair and talking to myself.
“I’m going,” I say.
If there’s a chance that his people can help, I have to find them. If not, I will find Kyna, and bring her back to comfort him.
Or bury him.
I can’t think that way. I don’t have enough time to dwell. These next moments are too pr
ecious to waste.
“I’m going too, then,” Daphne says.
“You have to stay with Kiran.”
“Wait,” she says. “Clover, no.”
“I think I know where his people live. It’s near my camp. I’m going to find my family and bring back a doctor.”
“He doesn’t love you!”
I’d been reaching for my bottle of supplies, but stop abruptly at her words. She’s staring at me, arms outstretched, green eyes sharp.
“He loves Kyna. Not you. Don’t kid yourself that if you save him, he’ll choose you.”
I stand perfectly straight, and focus hard on controlling my voice so it doesn’t shake.
“There are bigger things in life than being chosen.”
I’m grateful for her sulk then, because it gives me the time I need to grind the dried bloodroot that I’d gathered so long ago in the solitary yard. Of the three stems I have, I only use one. I need Kiran to sleep so that his body can heal. I’m going to knock him out so that he stops twisting open his wounds.
I go over how much I need. Too little won’t touch his pain. Too much will kill him.
Oh please don’t let me kill him.
* * *
THE TEA STEAMS FROM Kiran’s tin cup, misting with the fog. Rain is coming, I saw it in the red dawn, felt it tightening the curls of my hair.
My hands shake; Metea’s voice whispers in my ear.
“More, little girl. Just a bit more, sweet girl.”
It was too much. Even then I knew it.
When I told her so, Metea held me tight in her arms and said, “She’s ready. Help her let go.”
I remember holding the cup, tilting it back as Metea held my ma’s head up. I was the one who had to do it. Her blood. Her only child. So that her soul could be freed from her failing body.
“You must be brave, Aya.”
“Drink,” I tell Kiran, propping his head up against his saddlebags. He’s tossing from side to side, and between that and my trembling hands, I can barely get the warm liquid in his mouth.
But I do.
It doesn’t take long—moments is all—and Kiran becomes deathly still. I place my fingers gently on his throat to feel his pulse. It’s so slow each space makes my own heart skip a beat.
A light rain begins to fall, and Kiran’s eyes drift close. His mouth goes slack. He looks dead. I check his heart three more times before peeling all the extra weight off Dell’s back. I place the knife beside Daphne, along with the remaining meal supplements.
“I’ll be back with the doctor.”
“So you’ve said.” She doesn’t believe me, I can tell.
I kneel beside Brax, rubbing his ears.
“Take care of them,” I whisper, then climb a large rock and mount Dell. As I turn away from the camp, towards my mountain, his howl splits the heavy air. It sounds like the forever kind of good-bye.
I dig my heels into Dell’s sides, and hold on as tightly as I can.
* * *
RIDING DELL IS A rush unlike any I’ve ever known. Kiran dreamed me a bird and he must be a seer because now I’m flying.
My legs tremble, latched on tight to her barrel body. My fingers ache from holding onto her mane so tight. I lean down over the saddle horn and keep my head low as the forest whips by.
Dell is a mountain horse; she knows this land. She doesn’t shy from anything—leaping over fallen trees and the streams that are swelling with the pelting rain. She keeps her head low and runs full out on the straightaway, chomping on the bit. It’s as if she knows Kiran’s in trouble.
We slow when the land makes us, but that’s it. Noon passes. Dusk falls. The rain doesn’t cease. The leather saddle becomes slippery, burns blisters between my knees, and it’s hard to stay on. I keep my eyes trained east, and when I see the line of jutting peaks loom out of the gray before us, my hope soars.
I am almost there.
The only way I know to Three Rivers is past my camp, so that’s the way I go. At last the woods become familiar. We pass a long, narrow rock I used to balance on as a child. The walk-up trees, bent so severely by wind that you can run halfway up their trunk. My hearing’s honed not just for Trackers now, but for children’s voices. I sniff the air for the smell of wood smoke, but the rain drowns out everything.
The sky grays, making me wish I had a Watcher’s night vision. I look out for traps and snares, hoping the twins have kept them up like I taught them. But we come across none.
I urge Dell on faster. We come to the cave where I’d taught them to hide, but there’s no sign anyone’s been there for months. We head through the meadows. No tracks. No snares.
We reach my tent. And it is standing. But barely. One side has collapsed; the broken wooden bones sticking out on the ground from under the torn hide patchwork.
“Salma!” I shout.
There is no answer.
“Tam! Nina! It’s Aya! I’m home!”
Nothing.
“TAM! NINA!”
I shove off Dell, swaying on weakened muscles from so many hours in the saddle. And then I’m running. Running to the rawhide walls, stripped down by the weather. To the one-time circle of stones around our fire, scattered by the rain and wind. To what remains of our supplies, left in ruins by the raiding animals. A few rusted knives, a steel pan, and even our old cast-iron kettle. Each is tied to a memory. Metea making tea. The crackle and hiss as Salma fries elk over the fire. The laughter of the twins. Memories as thick as the spirits haunting this place.
I yell until my throat goes dry. Until I can yell no more.
They are gone. All gone.
I fall to the ground, barely noticing the sound of the arrow as it whizzes through the air. It’s not until the point embeds in the mud beside my wrist that I realize I’m being attacked.
CHAPTER 19
I SPRING TO MY feet, loading my bow with an arrow even before it’s readied in my hand. I search in all directions, but see no one. Like a fool, I’ve left myself completely exposed while whoever is trying to shoot me hides in the dark.
I don’t wait. I run to an outcropping of trees. We’re on my land now, and I know the best hiding places. But another arrow comes out of nowhere and plunks into the stump beside my head.
From behind a trunk, I squint into the night. They’re likely not Trackers—they’d have guns. Could be Magnates on a hunting party, like the one that caught me. He’d used a spear on Bian. Maybe these Magnates carry bows.
From the darkness comes a whinny and the clatter of shod hooves over rock. Dell’s spooked, and for a moment, I consider going after her. She is my only means of escape. But another arrow comes, this one skidding through the dirt on the opposite side of the tree.
I’m stuck. The only way out is up.
I loose one arrow in the general direction I think they’re hiding and jump for the lowest branch, still high above my head. I reach it on the second try, but have to swing hard to pull my legs up. A cry tears from my throat; my heels grab, but the bark breaks free and my fingers are slipping.
At the scurrying sound below, panic pumps into my veins. My attackers are in the open. I’ve got to get up now. Then I’ll be hidden in the brush, able to pick them off one by one.
But something hooks around my hip. For an excruciating second I think it’s a wire, but no burn comes. It doesn’t rip through my clothes. It’s just a rope; enough to throw off my balance. I bite down hard, and hear the strain echo from my throat. My legs fall from the branch, and I hoist them up again, arching my back with all my strength to stay as far away from the ground as possible.
A whoosh of breath. Another rope striking my back, and this time it does sting. Then a hand fisting around the slack at the back of my pants, yanking me down. I fall in a heap, the air fleeing from my lungs.
I open my eyes to a metallic arrowhead, aimed right at my face.
Breath suspended, my gaze travels down the narrow wooden shaft to the weathered knuckles holding it, to the gray beard peppered wi
th leaf crumbles, to the long, stringy silver hair, and the faint scar, running from chin to collarbone, glowing a pale blue in the moonlight.
He drops the bow as though it is burning his hands, and stumbles backwards in silent surprise.
“Lorcan?”
His mouth is open now, and my mind fills with a sudden memory of the first night Kiran crossed the poisoned stream into the solitary yard to give me the broken knife handle. He’d wanted to talk to me, it had been so clear on his face.
One dirty hand rubs absently at his scar. I know that feeling. The knot-stuck-in-the-throat feeling. It strikes me that I haven’t seen Lorcan in years. He’s so much older now than he was the last time we traded. His skin is pulled too thin over his face. He hasn’t bathed in some time either; I can smell him ten paces away.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He looks behind him, to my fallen tent, and suddenly I’m furious.
“Tell me!” I demand. “I know you can talk!”
His eyes widen. A long beat passes, then he touches his throat. Just one finger down that long, straight scar. My ma used to tell me he had his voicemaker taken out because it was broken. I’m not so sure that was true now.
“You promise you can’t? Don’t lie,” I say. I’ve had enough of that.
He touches his scar again and opens his mouth. Just a breath of air.
I don’t know why, but I believe him.
“Salma and the twins, are they alive?”
He nods slowly.
“Did they move on?”
Hesitation. Nod. I sigh, relieved that they are still safe.
“You’ll take me to them,” I say. “But first I need you to take me to the Driver camp.”
Lorcan’s mouth drops open. He shakes his head adamantly.
“It’s okay!” I tell him. “I know a Driver who’s sick. He needs a doctor.”
Another vigorous no. He points to the scar on his neck, his eyes wide with warning.
I stand too, now that my legs have regained their strength. “If you mean that they can’t help him because they couldn’t help you…”
He grabs my arms so hard I yelp. When he releases me, he points again to the remnants of his injury.
The Glass Arrow Page 23