Voice of Crow (23 page)

“But it’s not!” She glided to a table and picked up a wooden carving of an eagle with outstretched wings. “My house is full of Asermon things. I love their art, so primitive and pure. So natural.” She stopped and stared at Marek, and he glanced away. “Hmm, I wish I hadn’t had them cut your hair. But it will grow back, long and wild.”

Marek didn’t want to think about how many months that would take. He had trouble just getting through the day in this place. But his short hair didn’t feel wrong for the circumstance—he was in mourning, even though no one had died.

Nilik’s wails softened, and Marek lowered him into the crook of his arm. The boy’s face was red and wrinkled from crying. He looked like a tired old man. Marek offered his finger to suck, and it was readily accepted.

“That’s better.” Basha sighed, and picked the rattle off the sofa. “He doesn’t like this one. What does he like? You may speak.”

He wanted to tell her Nilik was too young to like any toy, but knew she hated to be corrected. “He prefers sounds, actually. I could teach you some of his favorite songs.”

She gasped. “I would love that. I’ll send for paper, and you can write down the words.” She motioned to one of the guards, who bowed and left the room.

“I don’t write,” Marek said.

“Can you read?”

“No. My people don’t have the need.”

“Well, you’ll have need here. I’ll teach you.”

He gaped at her.

“Don’t look so shocked,” she said. “I can’t have my people incapable of reading street signs and vendors’ placards. You’ll get lost or taken advantage of.”

Marek’s thoughts raced. Someday she would let him leave the house, if he could earn her trust. Maybe then he’d find a way to escape.

“Thank you,” he said, “Your Honor.”

“We’ll start now.” She glided to a nearby table and pulled out a drawer. “I’ll show you how to write your name, which I seem to have forgotten.”

“Marek.”

From the drawer Basha withdrew a bottle of ink and a black feather. “It ends in a
k,
so you’re named in memory of someone. Who?”

Marek stared at the feather, which reminded him of the fetish Rhia wore around her neck.

“You may speak,” Basha said in a tight voice.

He kept his gaze on the feather. “A great-aunt. Marca.”

“And the child? Who is his namesake?”

“My wife’s brother, Nilo.” Marek looked at Basha. “He was killed in the battle with the Des—With your people.”

Her gaze dropped, and she stared at the contents of the drawer as if she’d forgotten why she had opened it. “My husband also.”

Marek held back a false declaration of sympathy.

“When they informed me,” she said, “I lost our child, still in the womb.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.

She approached him and gazed down at Nilik, who still sucked Marek’s finger. “I’ve changed his name to Demedor, after my husband. I need people to believe he’s mine.” She stroked the ends of her blond curl. “I do regret erasing the honor of his uncle, however.”

Marek kept his eyes on the child. “I know what it’s like to lose two at once. My first mate died in childbirth and took our son with her.”

She drew a finger along Nilik’s pink cheek. “But you found another,” she whispered. Then her lips twisted into a smile that chilled Marek’s blood. “As have I.”

“I wish I could come with you,” Damen said to Rhia.

“No, you don’t.”

“Maybe not.” He cast a glance at Nathas, who was helping Bolan load a cage with two Velekon pigeons onto the back of his pony. “It’ll be good to finally be together as a family.” Without looking at her, he said, “I hope I see you again, Rhia.”

“Of course you will.” She forced cheer into her voice. “Marek and Nilik and I will stop by to meet your new baby on our way home to Asermos.”

His thin lips tightened.

“You don’t think we’ll find them,” she said.

“I believe you have a fair chance.”

“Then why do you wonder if you’ll see me again?”

He stared out across the bay. “There are over two hundred Asermons and Kalindons in Leukos, maybe spread across the Ilion territories by now. Do you think you’ll be satisfied bringing home only two?”

“If it means keeping Nilik out of harm’s way, then, yes, I’ll have to be satisfied.”

“Rhia, we’re ready.” Alanka sat behind Filip on the bay mare.

Rhia waved to her, then turned to Damen. “Send a message to Asermos letting them know we left.”

“I’ll visit the Horse woman the moment we get back into town.”

She hugged Damen tightly. “I’ll miss you.”

“I miss you already,” he said. “Good luck.”

Rhia let go of her Crow brother and drank in the sight of his lean face. Maybe it was the last time she’d ever see him.

She mounted her pony, trying to remember the last time she’d ridden alone, without Marek sitting behind her. The horse’s back felt long, all to herself.

They rode off into the wilderness, with no road to guide them, only the sun, the stars and the memory of a displaced Ilion.

Filip kept the Atrean Sea in the corner of his left eye as he led the rescuers southwest along the coast. The blue sky ahead was filling with tall, bloated clouds that promised rain, if not the spring’s first thunderstorm, by the end of the afternoon.

After a day on the tiny boat, then two days in Damen’s house preparing for the trip, the travelers needed plenty of space. They rode close enough to see each other but far enough out of earshot to avoid conversation.

He relished the chance to spend time alone with Alanka. Her deep, even breath and slack arms around his waist told him she’d dozed off. It was probably the closest he would ever come to sleeping beside her.

The salty wind scoured his face and tossed the horse’s mane in black waves over her neck. The mare’s hooves squished the soggy ground. Long, red-tufted marsh grasses brushed her flanks, causing her mud-brown hide to flinch and shudder as though she were besieged with flies.

“This place smells strange,” the mare thought. “The grass itches, and my feet are sinking.”

“The footing’s fine,” he murmured. “It’s not so different from Velekos.”

“What?” Alanka’s arms tightened around his waist.

“Talking to the horse.”

“Oh.” She rested her forehead on the back of his neck and loosened her arms. As she drifted off again, they slid down to rest in his lap, inspiring a desire for something he couldn’t have. He took her hand off his thigh and held on to it.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Didn’t sleep well last night. Or the three hundred nights before that.”

He cleared his throat. “If you want, I have another idea about how to help you.”

She lifted her head. “With my magic?”

“Yes. Remember on the boat when we spoke of purifying rituals? In my country, these rituals involve asking the forgiveness of those we’ve slain.”

“How?”

“First we go to the temple of Rovas, the god of war, and pay a tribute for each soldier we’ve killed. The priest gives us a receipt, which we take—”

“A receipt? Like you get for buying eggs?”

“Precisely.” He continued before she could laugh at the notion. “We take that to another temple, where a priest of Xenia, the death goddess, speaks to our fallen enemies on our behalf, asking forgiveness.”

Alanka started and gasped. “Like a second-phase Crow.”

“Yes.” He clucked his tongue to soothe the pony, who had pinned her ears back at Alanka’s sudden movement. “By reconciling with the dead, we find peace.”

“Do the dead always forgive you?”

“In my experience, yes. They have nothing to gain in the afterlife by holding a grudge.”

She snorted. “My father gains nothing by holding on to part of me, but he still does.”

“Perhaps that’s a different problem with a different solution.”

“So Rhia says. Does your people’s ritual work?” Her voice quieted to a whisper as if she were afraid to utter the hope. “Afterward, you feel clean?”

“Yes.” He stroked her palm with his thumb. “Pure.”

“I can’t imagine.” She released a wistful sigh. “What about the nightmares and flashbacks? Will I stop seeing the faces of those men?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“I’ll ask Rhia when we stop.”

“You don’t want to ask her now?”

She nuzzled his neck and looped her other arm tight around his waist. “No. I don’t want to ask her now.”

He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips. Alanka seemed the last woman in the world who would find him appealing. His people had destroyed her family and her home. Their deaths plagued her mind, awake and asleep. He should have been a painful reminder of all she’d lost, of all the deeds that brought her shame, however misplaced. Yet she seemed drawn to him almost against her will.

A dull chill slipped over Filip’s neck. Perhaps Alanka was with him not despite his being a wounded Descendant, but because of it. Maybe she was using him to assuage her guilt over the men she’d killed in battle. He dropped her hand.

“Why do you like me?”

She stirred, almost sleepily. “What kind of question is that? I just do.”

“What is there to like? I’m not kind.”

“You’re kind to me. And you’re handsome and—and strong.”

“I’m not strong. I fall down weeping over wounded animals.”

“I find that sweet,” she said. “Besides, you could learn to block animals’ thoughts if you’d undergo the Bestowing.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I won’t, and if you assume I’ll change my mind, then you’ve misguided yourself.”

She was silent for a moment. “I like the way you kiss me.”

His arms jerked, causing the horse to stop. He imagined lying naked with Alanka in the grass that surrounded them, his wound bare to the bright sunlight.

No. He’d keep his legs covered somehow so she could see nothing but his face and neck and chest, which were whole and healthy.

But she’d want to see his leg. She’d be curious. She’d want to touch it.

“You want me because I’m your fallen enemy,” he said. “Not because of the man I am.”

“You think I’m with you out of sympathy?”

“It makes sense.”

“It makes
nonsense.
”

“I’ve seen battle shock in my troops. They go crazy—”

“I’m not crazy!”

“—and crazy people don’t know what they want or why they want it.”

She gasped, then her voice turned icy. “How dare you?”

“Admit it. I’ll never be the kind of man you need.”

Her silence deafened him, and he realized he’d gone too far.

“If that’s how you really feel,” she said, “there’s nothing more to say.”

He turned to her, to take back his foolish words, but she was already sliding off the pony’s haunches. Alanka stumbled when she hit the ground.

“I should speak to Rhia,” she said, “about my soul retrieval, and about the ritual you suggested.” She turned her face from him as she brushed off her trousers. “Thank you for the ride.”

He watched her walk back to meet Rhia, who sent him a wary look as Alanka approached. Then he urged the mare forward, keeping the sea in the corner of his eye.

It was easier this way. Somewhere across those waters lay his home, his family, his reckoning. He should face it alone.

Rhia crossed the fog into the Gray Valley.

Koli’s drumbeat kept her anchored to the world outside, which already felt less real than this wretched place. The light from the invisible sun bleached the rocks a pale yellow, while the dead tree looked darker than ever.

No one met her this time. She called the names of Razvin and Skaris, but only her own voice echoed back.

She noticed that the tree seemed to have grown—not taller, but wider. Its branches hadn’t extended past the second pile of rocks the last time she was here.

She approached it, thinking of the dead tree Crow had revealed in a vision during her Bestowing. That one had been paired with a living tree, full of leaves, flowers, fruit and birds. The Gray Valley offered no such alternative.

As she neared the tree, one of its branches stretched to touch her. She gasped and drew back. It was alive after all. She waited for its twigs to bud leaves, but they remained bare and brittle. Any strength the tree pulled from the unforgiving terrain and sun was dedicated to extending its grasping limbs in a twisted parody of life.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Rhia shivered at the sound of Skaris’s voice, but she didn’t turn to face him. He wasn’t the one she’d come to see.

“Why, yes, Skaris,” he answered himself. “It is quite pretty, just like me. And by
pretty,
I mean, of course,
ugly.”
He dangled the captured crow over her shoulder, swinging it by the feet. Its wings hung straight to the side, flapping feebly. Its black eyes had turned a dull brown, and it no longer tried to peck Skaris’s hand.

She turned from the tree and brushed past the Bear to walk down the rocky valley, her feet feeling wooden beneath her.

He kept pace on her left side. “Look, I can make it talk.” He grasped the crow around its belly and squeezed. It rasped a halfhearted caw. “Not as loud as she used to be. Are you, Rhia?”

She kept walking.

Skaris whistled a few notes of a Kalindon reel, as though they were two friends on a morning stroll. “You probably wonder what I want in exchange for this.” He held up the crow.

“Razvin!” she called to the hills.

“No, that’s not it. I want Marek dead.”

Her pace faltered, but only for a step.

“Then he can join me here forever.”

Rhia knew that wasn’t true. When Marek died—many, many years from now, she prayed—he would pass to the Other Side even if Skaris held a part of his soul. Crow didn’t punish victims.

“We’ll play with this bird, just me and Marek,” the Bear said. “Won’t be long now before I see my old friend.”

Rhia wanted to run, but she knew it would encourage Skaris’s taunts. She kept her pace steady and her face flat.

“Boring,” he muttered. “Not like last time. That was fun.”

A shout came from a high ridge on her right. A wolf pup was dashing down the hill, scattering dust and pebbles.

Razvin appeared at the edge of the ridge and called down. “Alanka, no!”

Rhia ran toward the pup.

“Where are you going?” Skaris jogged beside her. “Don’t you want this?”

He tossed the crow on the ground, far to Rhia’s left. She stopped.

Razvin chased the pup, who tumbled down the steep incline, paws over head, before regaining her footing. Dazed, she shook herself, then peered back at Razvin, ears tight against her head.

“Alanka!” Rhia took a tentative step forward as the crow fluttered and flapped in the corner of her eye, unable to take off.

She cursed Skaris under her breath, then squatted and pursed her lips to call the pup.

The little wolf wavered, then raced toward Rhia again, ears flapping, tongue lolling. Razvin was gaining on her, but his pursuit made her gallop faster. She leaped into Rhia’s arms, a wriggling mass of fur and claws.

Rhia turned to run. In the distance, the bare black tree pointed the way. It was too far. She’d never make it before Razvin caught her.

She faced him, the pup squirming in her arms.

“Give her back.” The Fox’s smooth tone had turned menacing. “This instant.”

“No. She doesn’t belong to you.”

“She doesn’t belong to you, either.”

“I’m not taking her for myself.”

He glared at the pup. “After all I’ve done for her.” His breath faltered. “Doesn’t she know how much I love her?”

“She knows it better than anything. It’s killing her.”

His dark eyes moistened. “But if she leaves, I have nothing.”