Sisters of Syr (The Moon People, Book Four)

by Claudia King

  “How dare you break my commune.” Netya turned to him, aghast. Caspian pulled her into his arms, and her mock-outrage dissolved into laughter.

  “I may be a tolerant man, but the spirits have had far too much of you as of late. Come up to the cave with me. Fern said she will join us.”

  “Is she not still warming Terim's hearth?”

  Caspian raised an eyebrow. “I think the two of them grew weary of one another over the winter. She has her eyes set on Kolami now.”

  “Always a greater and greater challenge.” Netya smiled, cupping her mate's cheek and standing up to kiss him on the lips. “I am sorry we have had so little time together. Kiren and Adel—everything these past seasons has been one endless struggle.”

  Caspian hushed her with another kiss. “The summer is coming now. Orec's clan are settling back down. Unless any of them decide to kill each other during the next moon I will have nowhere else to be but in your furs.”

  “Do you think they will? Start fighting again, I mean?”

  Caspian shook his head. “Not like before, no. For all the trouble it caused, losing the winter food might have been the best thing for the pack. Warriors have little time to worry about honour and personal slights when they are starving. An extra hunter at your side is worth a dozen shamed rivals.”

  “So Vaya helped them, in the end.”

  Caspian gave her a wry smile. “Or whoever it was. Orec told me to find the true culprit, but I've not looked very hard. It's soon forgotten now. The Sunrise Hunt gave everyone better things to talk about.”

  Netya's brow peaked with interest. She always liked hearing about the goings on in Orec's clan. It provided a distinct contrast to the daily life among Adel's pack, a contrast that seemed even more important to understand in the wake of the recent unrest.

  As the pair of them headed back toward the den, each with an arm about the other's waist, she asked, “Has Kin been enjoying his first victory in the Sunrise Hunt? I've not spoken to him since winter.”

  “Enjoyment is the wrong word,” Caspian said. “It has given him more than that. You remember how he was when he first joined us?”

  “Trouble.”

  “And cocky. I think the years did a good job of breaking his overconfidence down, but when he brought home that legendary buck of his he had something to truly be proud of.”

  Netya nodded. She had heard the tales of Kin's victory second-hand, how he took Kale out with a bow to wound the great buck before chasing it half way across the western valley by himself. He had barely been able to drag the beast back home before nightfall, creating a great upset during the final moments of the hunt and a raucous night of celebration thereafter. Some of the seers said they had heard the songs of the warriors echoing all the way into the valley, though that seemed fanciful to Netya.

  “He has respect now,” Caspian continued. “Responsibility. Orec allows him to join us sometimes when we discuss matters of leadership. He may be judging how well the boy takes to the responsibilities of an alpha.”

  “I am happy for him,” Netya said. “He grew close to Vaya, didn't he? For a while after she left he seemed lost.”

  “Perhaps she gave him courage somehow. He claims not to think of her any more, that they were only winter lovers, but you know that necklace she made from Great Rook's claw?”

  Netya nodded.

  “He keeps it looped over his new buck skull, right above the entrance of his cave. No one can avoid seeing it when they pass by. I think it is the only part of that woman she left behind.”

  “No, she left more than that,” Netya said. “She brought great unrest. More than Orec's pack ever faced before.”

  “They've fought off more dangerous foes.”

  “But none that lived among them. She made the pack turn on each other, even me and Adel.” Netya frowned at the memory. “I will not pretend I am ungrateful she is gone, but the spirits guided her here for a reason. There was purpose in our crossing paths again.”

  “Seers see purpose in everything. Can it not be that a problem simply came our way, and we revealed our own strength in overcoming it?”

  Netya smiled, shaking her head. “I prefer to think the spirits brought her here. They had lessons to teach, and this was their way of imparting them.”

  “I say we taught ourselves.”

  Netya let go of him and made a little twirl in the grass, her gown spiralling out around her as she lifted her hands to the sky.

  “The endless question! The will of the spirits, or the will of the people? I think you fall on the warrior's way of thinking, Caspian.”

  He chuckled and grabbed her back to him, taking her staff and hefting it over his shoulder. “I am no warrior, nor any seer. Just a man.”

  “And a man I am glad to have,” Netya said softly, pausing to lean in against his chest. It was good that she had him grounding her. This comfortable weight she could always return to when her spirit came loose. Whenever she felt doubtful or alone, Caspian was always there for her. In their shared moment of intimacy their thoughts both strayed to the same place.

  “Do you think Adel is sad to be alone?” he said.

  “It is not being alone she fears. It is... giving up on the hopes of the past.” Netya sighed.

  “She has been quiet lately. I worry for her.”

  “I think she needs time. There may never have been a moment in Adel's life when she truly doubted herself before now.”

  “Pride can be a calamitous thing to lose.”

  “I do not care if she is a weaker leader for it. I just want her to be happy.”

  Caspian nodded contemplatively, gazing up at the den mother's cave as they approached the northern ridge. “Do you think that is possible?”

  “I hope so.” Netya followed his gaze. Even now, she could not guess at her mentors' thoughts. Just as she had predicted, a fire flickered atop Adel's cave, the shape of a lone figure huddled behind it. “I do hope so.”

  * * *

  Mother Fox gazed up at her, cracked fragments of obsidian shining from long-dead eye sockets. The pelt was bare in places, once vibrant red fur faded to brownish grey. It looked brittle. Hollow. Fearsome still, but bereft of its spirit. The fox was cunning and quick, beautiful, elegant, and dangerous when cornered. As Adel looked down at her headdress she saw none of those qualities any more. Only a frightening, ashen mask, more effigy than animal. Was this the spirit she followed? In her dreams Mother Fox was still young. In her dreams, she was still with him.

  She clutched her headdress to her chest.

  I scold Netya for being the dreamer. Then why do I still dream?

  Every morning she awoke angry, scolding her night visions for their frivolous charm. It was no good to her any more. She needed clarity. Purpose. Indulging in uncertainty was something she could ill afford with so many people relying on her.

  There had been a time, so many years past, when she had been ready to forsake the status she now held. She would have given up on all her aspirations of becoming a den mother and embraced a simple life. Jarek had wanted that for them. He had seen the sharp edges of her soul and sought to blunt them with his charms. She had always thought him a fool. Her sweet fool. But perhaps, somewhere deep within that foolishness, there had been a wisdom she was blind to. The same wisdom Netya seemed to share. The wisdom of letting go.

  Her skin prickled, anger rising at the very thought. That was giving up. That was settling for the mundane rather than reaching for the divine. Her whole life she had striven for something better. Something perfect. Never settling, never compromising.

  She took a deep breath, forcing her gaze to turn inward. She could imagine herself to be perfect. She could picture her will as unbreakable. Yet what if she was not perfect? What if, just as Netya had said, she was blinded by the same stubbornness that had claimed her father? And what if, rather than making her strong, that stubbornness was a weapon that could be turned against her? Many years ago she had seen a similar pride in Vaya. That pride
had been the huntress's undoing. Was she so sure of herself that she could no longer question the person she had become? Did she fear what she might see?

  Her thoughts roiled, dragging up fistfuls of sickness from her stomach. The very notion of it was wrong. Yet if she did not at least consider it, if she did not ponder the possibility, was she not proving those thoughts correct?

  As a girl she had always gone to the hidden pool in times like these. There, in her secret meeting place with Jarek, she had been able to forget everything else and laugh. What was it like now, she wondered? Had the pool dried up? Did the trees still hang low over the water, closing the secret spot off from the world around? She felt the urge to go back there. To run through the mountains and plains, far across the land to the places of her youth.

  There was one small, singular time she had felt the echo of those old memories return. The time she had been alone in her cave with Orec, and he looked at her the way Jarek once had.

  Anger returned, trying to expunge the idea from her thoughts. Rather than fighting it, she let it pass.

  He is not coming back to me. He is beyond my reach, whether in this world or the next.

  Adel put down her headdress, staring at it for a long time before reaching forward to pry the obsidian chips from its eyes. The hide was stiff, almost tearing beneath her fingers as she worked the polished stones loose. Once they were gone Mother Fox looked a little more like her old self again, but the eyes would forever remain hollow and agape. With a sad smile Adel ran her fingers over the brow of her spirit guide.

  “Rest now. You've done more than I could ever ask.”

  There would always be a place for Mother Fox in her cave. She would craft a perch for her, pride of place among her other effigies, until time finally wore the pelt down into dust.

  Setting her headdress aside, Adel looked over to the dead fox Huntress Fern had brought her earlier that evening. It was a female, just as she had requested, fully grown and sleek of fur. The colour was not quite the same, a tinge of yellow goldening the red, but otherwise it possessed as fine a pelt as any seer could ask for.

  Lifting the dead animal into her lap, Adel ran a hand across its fur. The faintest hint of warmth still lingered in its body.

  “Mother Fox,” she said. “Child of your spirit. Honour me with your guidance.”

  Taking her knife, she slipped the obsidian blade beneath the creature's chin and drew it downwards, letting the blood coat her hands and the entrails fill her palms. Her work was meticulous, taking just as much care to honour the dead beast as to preserve its hide. The sun was down by the time she finished, but the light of her fire still allowed her to work. Spitting the carcass over her coals, she set the pelt down alongside her old headdress while the meat cooked. The pair would never be the same. No two beasts ever were, yet their spirit held the same character. The wisdom of Mother Fox would guide her in a different way this time.

  It would be difficult. In her recent talks with Orec, Netya, Caspian, and the other senior clan members, it had been all she could manage to simply hold her tongue, letting the others work out their problems rather than interfering. Such inaction made her feel weak and helpless, but it seemed better than giving in to her temper. Sometimes she still had to put her foot down, but she was trying her hardest to be patient, listen, and trust in the wisdom of those around her. She refused to ask Caspian about it directly, but she had even begun to watch the way he burned markings on wood to record hunts and measure the food and firewood they had gathered. It had always seemed a foolish waste of time to her before, but she could not deny that he had a sharper memory for these things than anyone else. Perhaps it was not just his wits, but his markings that helped him to remember. Perhaps, just like Netya, there were still things she had yet to learn.

  It was time for a change. She could resist it no longer. Seeing Netya's blood on her fingers that night had struck her with the clarity she needed. Of all the acts she had been responsible for as den mother, no other had filled her with such a hideous upwelling of regret. Alpha Khelt, a man she had spent many years of her life fighting, had hurt Netya the same way on another snowswept night up in the mountains. The regret had shown her a glimpse of the things she might do if she continued down this path. Every one of her decisions had a consequence, and even if some of those consequences were difficult to bear, they had been made in the name of a greater good.

  There was a point, however, when necessary evils became unnecessary, and leaders began destroying the things they loved by clutching them too tight. She could not control everything. She could not force her people into being something they were not. Yes, by imposing her will upon Orec's pack she might eventually have bent them into the shape she desired, but was that worth crushing their spirits?

  She had begun considering these things more carefully in recent days. After the first group of scouts had returned with no news of Vaya, she had sent out no more. Letting the huntress go was a blow to her clan's honour, there was no denying it. A woman like Vaya would spread tales of what had happened, bold and boastful of her escape from the witches. Octavia's clan would grow smug, and talk would spread at the next gathering. People would realise that the fearsome witches were not so infallible as they once thought.

  In the one hand Adel had held her pack's status, and in the other Kiren's future. The girl had been ready to leave, with or without exile. Driving her away, depriving Netya of her apprentice... that would have been sacrificing something good in the name of fear and power.

  What if fear and power are all you have?

  The den mother grit her teeth, looking between her old headdress and the fresh pelt beside it. She took a deep breath, and the fingers that had been digging into her palms slowly loosened. Kiren was not a prize to be stolen away from Octavia and turned against her. Why did she have to be? Could the girl not be a friend? An emissary of trust between their two packs? Adel remembered someone else once treating her as a tool, bargaining her away for pride without regard to her value as a person. She could not let herself become like that. She had to unlearn these past few years and remember the person she had been before then.

  The den mother shivered as a gust of wind dragged at the flames, a lingering breath of winter caught up in the valley's air. She was trying, but some things would haunt her forever. Even if she could let go, would she ever be able to forget? Looking to the sky, she watched the crescent face of Mother Syr shining through skeins of cloud. If Jarek still lived, the moon spirit would be watching over him that night too.

  “Tell me, moon spirit, please,” she whispered, emotion straining her voice. “Is he alive?”

  As always, the moon said nothing.

  —Epilogue—

  The temple of the Dawn King cast its moonlit shadow over the heartland plains, marker and monolith to the power of the Sun People. Its stature alone was a sign that they had tamed the lands around them, bringing peace and safety where once there had been wilderness. From the temple watch to the band of the horizon, every house, village, and farm fell under the Dawn King's benevolent eye, and at the crown of it all sat the seat of his power.

  Six rough-hewn pillars built from discs of segmented stone lined the approach, one for each of the great spirits. Son and Daughter sat first and lowest, then Brother and Sister a dozen strides behind them. Father and Mother framed the temple gates, and from the great crossbeam atop them swung fur banners stained ochre red. Then the temple itself, a house of stone and wood so grand that it almost swallowed the small hill upon which it had been built. Stacked in tiered floors up the slope, the hill's support gave it the impression of a dwelling that rose many floors higher than even the most extravagant works of craftsmanship in the surrounding village. It was as if the gathering halls of a dozen great houses had been picked up and joined together, their outer walls plastered with flaxen sand and mud into which murals had been drawn and patterns layered.

  From the temple watch—an outdoor balcony half way up the hill—a richly-dresse
d figure looked up at the moon. It always called to him, though the time in which he could have freely answered that call was long gone. Instead he could only watch, leaning out on the barrier that guarded the edge of the platform, and enjoy his quiet vigil alone. He reached up to remove the bronzen ringlets from his hair, one for each thickly coiled braid. When he gazed down at the pile of metal in his dark-skinned palm, he saw riches enough to feed a family for seasons.

  Metal. More of it came to the heartlands year by year as bold young men made their pilgrimages to the west. It dressed everything in the temple, from the beams and furnishings to the high priests like himself.

  He smiled, flicking one of his rings out into the darkness. A faint tinkle sounded as it bounced off stone and rattled down into the dust at the base of the hill. The children of the laypeople often played down there while their parents waited for audiences with the priests. It was custom for a full family to be in attendance when they made a request of the temple, mother, father, son, daughter, brother and sister. Those who matched the six pillars of the great spirits were favoured above the rest. Few could, however, and so they often brought friends pretending to be family. Most of the other high priests were oblivious to this, but he walked among the laypeople often. He heard their talk, and he did not begrudge them their hopes. Whichever family's child found his ringlet tomorrow would leave the temple with a far greater blessing than they had expected.

  “High Priest,” the silken voice of Arunae, one of the temple concubines, crept across the balcony behind him. Bare feet creaked upon the boards, and her palm slid over his bicep a moment later. A touch of breath warmed his cheek. “An aspiring pilgrim seeks an audience. She requests she be allowed to join the men when next they journey.”

  The high priest smiled, glancing sideways at her and pointing up at the moon. “Does she see the sun out tonight? She should know the time for audiences has passed.”