by Claudia King
“I don't want to be with child,” she said. “Do you have any herbs I can take to prevent it?”
“There is no medicine for that,” Merith replied. “Not unless you want to kill the child after it has begun growing.”
“There is where I come from.”
“Well, not here. Just do what the rest of us do. You do know where a man's seed has to go to make a child, don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let him spill it somewhere else,” Merith said with a wry smile, the crass hint of her farm-girl accent rearing its head again. “I like to use my hands and some oil. Most men don't realise how good you can make them feel when you draw it out.”
Netya supposed she would have to take the concubine's advice. To her relief she was provided with food—sweet fruits she had never tasted before—and spicy herbal tea while Merith finished beautifying her with a little charcoal to accentuate her eyes and lashes. Afterwards she tried to ask about Adel and Kiren again, but despite Merith's obvious desire to gossip she remained stubbornly tight-lipped. Netya noticed the senior concubine Arunae hovering nearby, and she wondered whether someone had given her specific instructions not to let anyone spread rumours about the temple's new arrivals.
A tense afternoon followed as Netya waited for Eral to send for her. Whatever his business with the Dawn King was, it seemed to be taking him all day. Perhaps he had forgotten about her and found some other girl?
To keep from stewing in her own fears, Netya talked with the other concubines in between fending off the attention of visiting priests and warriors. None of the men were particularly insistent, though she got the impression that it would be unwise to turn them down too often. The concubines were adept at misdirecting attention and soothing hot tempers, however, and Arunae and Merith assisted in making sure that she remained untouched.
By the time dusk began to fall Netya's restlessness was driving her to distraction. She could no longer focus on the stories the other concubines had been telling her about the six great spirits, nor the tales of how the Dawn King had risen to power. She chewed her lip, gazing out of one of the narrow windows as her heel drummed against the floorstones. Would Eral keep her waiting all night? She did not think she could sleep feeling the way she did. Besides everything else, her wolf was scratching irritably at the base of her neck. She'd not changed shape in many days. Sooner or later she would have to, or else she might awaken one morning in her wolf's body without realising it.
A touch on her bare shoulder made her jump up from the bench she'd been sitting on. Arunae stood before her, the light of a clay oil lamp flickering over her face.
“The high priest would like your company now.”
—19—
Night Lights
The one thing that helped Adel still her thoughts in this strange place was the view of the horizon. Six years in the valley had made her forget what it was like to gaze out over plains that stretched as far as the eye could see. She had taken solace in that vast emptiness as a child, and again when she became Alpha Khelt's den mother. Standing at the edge of the a den with the whole world in front of her had always made it easy to forget what was behind her back. Tonight the Dawn King's temple was behind her, and inside that temple was Jarek.
Just thinking his name made her shiver. She wrapped her arms around the crimson gown that clad her body, heard the creak of the boards beneath her feet. The platform she stood upon jutted out from the side of the temple mid way up its tiers, commanding an open view of the surrounding lands. Jarek had called it the temple watch, a place he often visited by himself when he could not sleep. He was not there this night, nor had he been the night before.
Sleeping comfortably, are you? she thought bitterly, then immediately regretted it. Jarek was the wise one now, and she was the fool. He had spoken the truth the day she arrived. They were in the same place, but they were still not together, nor could they be. The divergence in their lives had grown greater than mere distance apart. He was a high priest of the Sun People now, she a den mother of the Moon People. So why did she feel such childish joy in her breast mingling with such terrible sadness?
Half of her was thankful that he had kept his distance since she arrived. In a way it was easier not to see him. Yet the other half of her was angry. There was more for them to say, years of stories to be shared, dozens of new ways he could make her smile and laugh and...
She gripped the wooden barrier in front of her, the wind whipping her hair into her face as she stared down the steep slope.
I love you, she thought, in a moment of weakness. I love you so desperately, Jarek. All I ever wanted was this. All I ever waited for was this.
She had been so close to letting him go. Netya had convinced her to relinquish that pain, to finally cast away that burden like a handful of sand in the wind. Only the thinnest thread of hope still clung on, and that made it all the worse. Had they reunited a year later she might have looked at Jarek the same way he looked at her now, with tender fondness, but fondness that held no hope for rekindling the love that had once been. And had they met a year earlier, she might have thrown caution to the wind and embraced him with all her heart, doing and saying anything to ensure they were never again parted. Now she was caught upon that fragile thread of hope that was neither strong nor weak; a fly stuck to a web, not knowing whether to writhe free or remain still.
If only she had a pack around her whose worries she could make her own. Now that she was away from her people she realised what a shield they had always been, protecting her from herself. When it was Netya's future she had to worry about, or Fern's, or Caspian's, Orec's, or Wren's, then she had little time to worry about her own problems. That had also made her blind to her failings, she understood that now, but at least she had always known what to do. Now that security was gone. All she had was Kiren, and if not for her she might truly have been lost.
What is this weakness in myself? she wondered. What have I become?
She was a curiosity of the Dawn King's, it seemed. The old ruler summoned her to his private chambers daily so that they could talk about their respective peoples. He was forthcoming about almost anything Adel asked him, yet she remained guarded in her own answers. Descriptions of the Moon People's customs and the nature of their spirits were enough to keep Atalyn enraptured for the time being, but sooner or later she knew she would run out of stories to tell about those things. Eventually he would want to know where their dens lay, who their alphas were, and how their warriors fought. These were things she would not tell him. She understood now, from her time in the Sun People's lands, that it was the Moon People's fearful mystique that kept their enemies at bay. They might be a pack of wolves, but the Sun People were a sea of rats. Weak individually, but unstoppable in their numbers. All Atalyn had to do was command his people to march upon his enemies in force, and the Moon People would be driven from their lands within a matter of years.
Adel was reminded of this every time she gazed out at the sparks of all those settlements in the distance. There were so many of them, and countless more beyond. Perhaps Jarek had been the fortunate one. He had found his place among this great convergence of humanity before it swallowed the world around it. Adel had seen fragments of this in her dreams, she realised. A world where the Sun People spread, building great temples and villages that swelled to unimaginable size, transforming the land around them with works of wood and stone and endless, endless fields. Was that the fate of things? A future where, countless generations from now, the Moon People would be gone and exist only as part of legend?
Perhaps that would be for the best, she thought. Her kind fought and spilt blood over pointless notions of pride and honour. These Sun People had those same failings, but they were secondary to the needs of their survival. Fragile people were forced to cooperate, to innovate, to breed quickly and bow down to aggressors instead of fighting them to the death. This did not make them weak, as so many of Adel's kind thought, but strong. They were powerful. Ti
tanic, even. Adel knew that she could no longer run away from this place as Kiren wanted. She needed to stay. She needed to make Atalyn her friend. That was the only way she could ensure the Sun People's trickling forays into their lands never became a merciless deluge.
These were the things Adel knew she had to do, yet her mind could not have been further from doing them. Her conversations with the Dawn King were rhythmic, her afternoons with Kiren distracted. Even her interactions with the women who shared the nearby domiciles felt strangely unimportant to her, and so she had fallen back into the comfortable rhythms of the stern den mother. They thought she was a mystic from a distant land, a new concubine of Jarek's, a healer to tend the Dawn King, or a dozen other fanciful things. So long as she behaved as if she was above answering their questions they never pushed too firmly, and Kiren was largely incapable of answering at all.
A concubine of Jarek's, she mused. Would that not be such a wonderfully simple life? In her youth she had considered such a future. Turning her back on everything, running away to start a family with her love somewhere beyond the reach of her father. But that had not been her destiny, and it was too late to reconsider it now. Now she might bear the destiny of an entire people upon her shoulders, yet she could not focus on it thanks to the foolish, lovesick whimsies of the child she had once been.
A smile suddenly spread across Adel's face, a manic, almost hysterical thing. She wanted to laugh, yet the reason for her laughter made her want to cry.
Was this why I always saw an echo of myself in Netya? Not for her misfortune, nor her intellect, but her tender, lovelorn heart? Is that my heart? The heart I could have had? The heart I always denied myself.
She covered her face with a palm, breathing deeply until she regained her composure. She was alone out here, but she knew there would be a warrior near the doorway leading back into the temple. There was always a warrior somewhere nearby.
She could not be out here with her thoughts any longer. She wiped her eyes, finding them dry, and hurried back across the creaking boards. To her surprise there was no lamp to mark the presence of a warrior inside the dark passageway. Everyone carried a lamp at night, but Adel was unused to it, and she did not like the way the little clay bowls became hot in her hand or blew out when they caught a sudden breeze.
She groped her way down the passage in the dark, wishing she could call upon her wolf's night eyes. With Jarek's help she'd avoided taking the herbs that inhibited her feral side, allowing her sores to heal and her fever to fade, yet the presence of so many Sun People was just as effective a deterrent for her wolf.
A line of windows cast dim light into the passageway when she reached the end of the tier, allowing her to make out the shape of the steps leading down. She descended to the third tier, where the concubines kept their domiciles in the southern hall and the lesser priests in the hall to the north, then made her way toward the chamber she shared with Kiren.
The sound of footfalls made her freeze. From the southern hall a light was approaching, accompanied by the sound of murmured conversation. She was not forbidden from walking the halls after dark, but Atalyn had advised against it, and more than once she had startled a warrior who had not recognised her. Thinking it better to try and avoid the light, she shrank back into the shadows beside the steps and waited. The footfalls came closer. Whoever it was had come from the concubines' domicile, most likely a priest seeking company for the evening. Adel held her breath as the lamplight flickered across the beams overhead, illuminating the face of the man carrying it. It was Eral, one of Atalyn's conclave of high priests. He had his arm around the waist of a concubine, and he was leaning in to mutter pleasant nothings into her ear. The girl carried herself with the kind of stiff posture that suggested she was not falling for his charms. They were talented, these women, and they understood that their duties to the menfolk were simply a craft like any other. Something about the attitude of this concubine drew a twinge of compassion from Adel, however. The girl's quiet responses sounded familiar and sad, as if her heart was not truly in it.
Adel blinked hard, fancying that she had seen Netya's face when the lamplight shifted, then the couple walked past, their silhouettes receding toward the steps down to the second tier, where the high priests kept their chambers. A draft carried the girl's voice back to Adel's ears again. It sounded so familiar that she stiffened suddenly, feeling as if a burning hook had just caught her beneath the ribs. As foolish as it made her feel, she stepped out into the open and called after the pair.
“Who is that with you, High Priest?”
Eral fell silent, paused, and slowly turned to look at her. With an annoyed squint he held out his lamp and stepped forward until the light fell upon Adel's face.
“Oh, this is a surprise. I'd not wander the temple this late when you're alone, Seeress. One of our guards might mistake you for an intruder.”
Adel ignored his snide tone. The boy had been trying his best to woo her since the day she arrived, and he was clearly not used to women who said no. Saying that she was Jarek's usually shut him up in the end, though it was always a tiresome process.
“I shall walk where I please,” she replied, gesturing to the woman standing in the shadows. “Now who is that?”
For a moment it seemed like Eral was about to take umbrage with her tone, but he thought better of it, smiling and taking a step back to put his hand on the concubine's shoulder.
“I wouldn't have thought you the jealous type, Seeress. Thankfully you're no longer the only dark beauty visiting us from lands afar.” He lifted the lamp with one hand and tilted the woman's face toward him with the other.
As soon as she saw Netya's joyful, wide-eyed expression, Adel knew it was her. She was dressed in the crimson of a concubine, her eyes darkened with charcoal, hair tied back in an elaborate plait, but the string of beads hanging beside her ear was distinctly Netya's. The question of how she'd come to be here was not important. That could wait for later.
“This woman is no concubine,” Adel said. “She will come with me now. I'm sure one of the other girls can entertain you tonight.”
Eral gave her an incredulous look, then let out a laugh. “Now I understand. A woman who prefers women, are you? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to settle for your mute companion tonight. Netya here has become a good friend of mine, have you not, Netya?”
Netya gave Adel an imploring look, clearly unsure of how to respond. She had no idea how much Eral knew about the den mother's true nature.
“She is an apprentice of mine,” Adel said. “I summoned her to follow me to this village. How you took her for a concubine I cannot imagine.”
“I was unsure of how to find you, Seeress,” Netya responded quickly, following along with the partial lie. “I thought this might be the best way.”
Adel suppressed a faint smile. She was proud of how quick-witted her apprentice had become.
“What is this game of yours?” Eral said irritably. “She arrived here with my friend Kale. I heard nothing of her being an apprentice to some... woodland mystic. I don't care if you have Atalyn's ear, you have no right to challenge a high priest. Now go back to your domicile, before you anger me.”
“Can't you see she doesn't want to spend her night sucking your cock, you prideful little fool?” Adel snapped.
The expression on Eral's face indicated that Adel's use of the Sun People's tongue had been more crass than she'd intended, but she was not about to take it back. Netya had spent enough of her life being passed around as a spoil of powerful men.
“Don't you dare tell me what I may or may not do, Seeress. I'll see you thrown from this temple before I—”
“That is not within your power,” Adel interrupted him. “I stay here by the Dawn King's will. Unless you wish to anger him, or Jarek, you should do as I say.”
She knew she was extending beyond her reach. She had no real power here. All she could hope for was that Eral feared Jarek and Atalyn enough to back down. He stared at her, mouth aga
pe, then looked to Netya, as if waiting for her to take his side.
“Perhaps another night, High Priest?” Netya put a placating hand on his arm. “I would not wish to be the cause of any trouble.”
Eral straightened up, clearly glad to have been given an excuse to back down, and took Netya's hand between his. He bent to kiss it, then said, “It would devastate me to put you in such a position. Another night, then. It seems the seeress has ruined my mood anyway.”
Adel bit her tongue, wondering whether it was her threat or Netya's coaxing that had swayed him. It was infuriating to feel so powerless here. That was one more thing she would simply have to get used to.
As Netya soothed Eral with apologetic words another flicker of light pierced the darkness, this one accompanied by the harsh creak of wood. Someone was coming up the steps from the second tier.
“Come along, Netya,” Adel said softly. Eral, looking embarrassed, cleared his throat and adjusted his tunic.
“Yes, off with you, and don't wander the temple this late without an escort.” His loud tone was clearly intended for whoever was coming up the steps: a hurried attempt to save face. He could not have people knowing that he had failed to charm two women within the past few days.
Adel made another hasty gesture to Netya when she saw who was coming up the steps. It was Thakayn. The priest of the Sister carried no lamp of his own, but the two warriors flanking him held torches that flooded the broad passageway with light.