by Lori Holmes
They left as quickly as they came, disappearing back into the trees. As soon as they were out of sight, Nyri ran, bawling at the top of her lungs. Everyone was staring at her as she ran and stumbled through their midst.
She climbed up into their tree and threw herself at Juaan.
“Nyri!” he protested sharply. He attempted to free himself but she clung on and he quickly gave up. He crouched to look into her eyes. “What’s wrong, Nyri, Nyri, Nyriaana?”
“Daajir was mean,” she whimpered, words tumbling out. “He said you were evil. That you’re a monster. He told me not to be near you. Th-that you’ll eat me in my sleep. He said he was watching. He hurt me.” She touched her chest to indicate her meaning.
There was no mistaking the burn of anger. “Did he now?” He was touching her wrist and she thought she heard him think …frightening a baby, I’ll wring… “Do you think I am an evil monster, Nyri?” he asked.
She shook her head violently in denial.
“Then that’s all that matters. I don’t care what Daajir thinks or does. He can’t hurt me.”
“He won’t!” she declared. “I protect you. He is wrong.”
He smiled, amused by her vow. “Thank you.”
She began to shiver. Juaan rubbed her shoulder. “Are you cold?” She nodded wordlessly in answer, tucking her chin into her chest and wrapping her arms around herself as far as they would go. She felt the gentle poke of a finger on her arm. “That’s what happens to naughty children that play in puddles.” The corners of Nyri’s mouth dared to turn up in an almost smile. Juaan plucked an acha blanket from the nearest bower and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Thank you.”
“I have to look after my fierce protector, Nyri, Nyri, Nyriaana.”
She giggled suddenly, her upset forgotten. She couldn’t help it. He sat upon one of the moss piles. Without thinking, she crawled into his lap. It was warmer here.
“C’mon. Sleep.”
“Nooo. Not sssleepy,” she slurred, clinging to him. “Tell me a story.”
He sighed.
“Please?”
“Will you sleep if I do?”
She nodded in answer.
“What would you like to hear?”
Nyri thought for a moment. “I want the one about the Thal boy and how he tamed the great hairy monster in the ice.”
And so Juaan began.
Nyri never heard the end. She didn’t even remember hearing the beginning by morning. The only thing she recalled was the sound of a dearly familiar voice, wrapping her in a cocoon of safety and warmth as she was lulled to sleep. Daajir was wrong. If she ever had to name anyone as evil, it would never be Juaan.
* * *
Nyri ran through the trees. For the second time in her life, it was not towards her people. She was running away. Ninmah was low in the sky. She knew that should mean something, something important, but she could not place the concern now. There was only one thing she wanted. She needed.
She did not run to him because he might save her people, she did not run to him for some half-formed vision. She ran to him for him, just him.
It was only through sheer luck that she encountered no one in her present state. The Pits arrived before her. The nearest hole offered comfort. If she had paused for one moment to think, she would have known how crazy her actions were but an old instinct drove her flight. She threw herself recklessly to the bottom.
She was pinned to the ground before she could breathe.
“Juaan,” she croaked.
He let her up immediately. “How many times?” he swore. “Don’t surpri-” He stopped short when he saw her appearance. She remained crumpled on the ground, hitching breath. “What’s wrong?” The powerful wave of concerned energy was as reassuring as it was surprising in its strength. “Did I hurt you?”
Nyri shook her head. “No,” she sobbed. “But nothing will ever be right again!” She buried her face in her hands to stifle her hysteria. She had broken her promise to Baarias. She had put him in harm’s way. There was no doubting they would take her from him now. “What have I done?”
He stared at her, bewildered. He was obviously at a loss as to how to handle this situation: his captor sobbing her heart out in his prison. Then he caught sight of her arm. “You’re bleeding!” He was at her side in a heartbeat. Nyri did not think he even gave it a thought. She wasn’t the only one driven by instinct, it seemed. “What happened?” he hissed.
“Daajir,” she choked. “I-I hit him and he cut me with your knife.” Nyri flinched as she listened to her own words. What was happening to them all? She stared at her smarting palm as she would a snake. She had never struck anyone before.
Juaan’s hand tightened on her arm, her blood slicking his fingers. There was no mistaking the burn of anger. “Why?” The question was a snarl.
“He wants to do something stupid, something terrible. He’s created a poison. He wants to use it on you. On the Woves. But I can’t let him. I can’t let him. If he finds you…”
“He better hope that I do not find him.” He was furious. The strength of his anger took Nyri aback. He started away from Nyri and she was suddenly terrified he was about to climb out, threat of wolves be damned.
“No!” Nyri grabbed his arm. “Stay with me. I need you, Juaan. I need you now. Please. Stay. I need…” she trailed off helplessly, unsure of what she was asking of him.
His head turned from Nyri to the rope and then back again. Slowly, unsurely, he sank to the ground and sat a little distance away. “What do you need?”
Unthinking, Nyri closed the distance and did what she had wanted to do since finding him again. She threw herself at him and curled into his side. She was shivering and he was so warm despite his bare skin. She had forgotten his furs she thought distantly.
He sat, rigid as a stone. Nyri did not think he was even breathing.
“Please,” she said before he could pull away. She was tired. She was so so tired. His arm was tentative as it went around her shoulders. Warmth enveloped her. Nyri couldn’t fight anymore. Her eyes grew heavy as she turned her face into his chest, nuzzling the skin there. “Just… speak to me.”
“About what?” he said, his low voice tight.
“Anything.”
He murmured something about her forgetting his furs and the cold. She listened to his voice, letting it sooth away her cares. The last thing she remembered before unconsciousness pulled her under was his lips as they pressed gently into her hair.
When Nyri awoke it was to the dim light of dawn. She felt unnaturally warm and that was strange but nice all the same. It was hard to imagine moving but she supposed she had better get up. Kyaati needed caring for. Her eyelids were sticky and it hurt to peel them back. Wincing, Nyri cracked them open, fully expecting to see Kyaati staring sullenly from across the tree. She blinked, surprised when she was met with the view of a bare stone wall visible only between the gap in a fading green skin.
Nyri was fully alert in an instant. The horror of the previous evening came back in a rush of cold dread. She had hit Daajir and he had cut at her with a knife. She had run to Juaan and… she was still here! She was inside his make-shift shelter, nestled in the moss.
Nyri tried to scramble to her feet but her motion was hindered by the heavy arm that covered her side. She stared at it and then at its owner who was curled protectively around her. Nyri’s eyes widened further. Now she knew why she was so warm.
Green eyes opened and fixed on hers. His reaction mirrored her own. He immediately snatched his arm away and rolled free. Nyri felt a brief sense of loss and a wave of cold.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed. “I-it was cold and you didn’t bring my furs back.” His breath plumed on the chill morning air inside the shelter and Nyri noticed that the ground outside was crisp and hard with a thin covering of frost.
Nyri stared at his naked chest feeling guilty and… disappointed. To her, the contact had been for comfort and the need to be ne
ar him. For him, it had been merely an act of survival. What did you expect? Her inner voice was exasperated by her continued foolishness. That he had begun to care for you as much as you care for him? For a few blessed moments last night, his protective reactions had allowed her that beautiful illusion. Now it shattered with the dawn light.
Nyri got hastily to her feet. “I have to go,” she said. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.” She was in serious trouble now. Her mind flashed to Kyaati and her heart gave a nasty lurch. She would be awake and Nyri was nowhere close. Cursing, she dashed for the rope and hauled herself up. Juaan did not speak. His back was to her, head bowed. It tore her heart to leave him and she quailed at the thought of what awaited at home.
She ran as much of the distance as she could, heart pounding in her ears. One story after another chased through her thoughts, each one as pathetic as the last. She wondered if Daajir had informed the Elders of their fight and her apparent madness. Nyri’s breath quickened.
She was badly winded by the time she reached her home. It was only just light but her heart dropped when she detected two presences high above. One was Kyaati, who was very much awake. The other was Baarias. It was worse than she could ever have imagined. Nyri wanted to run back into the forest and exile herself inside the Pit with Juaan. She did not know how she could face Baarias with him knowing she had left Kyaati on her own.
Muscles weak with dread, Nyri had no idea what force of will made her climb that tree.
Baarias rounded on her the instant she clambered inside. His face was a mix of anger and bitter disappointment. She could never take Baarias’ disappointment.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. “You promised me. You promised me you would not go off into the forest alone again at night. Now I hear you have been fighting with Daajir and I come here to find Kyaati on her own. Explain to me what in Ninmah’s name is wrong with you!”
All Nyri could do was stare at him, her face red and worn and her clothes ragged and bloody. Her mouth opened and then closed when no words came.
“I can explain,” came a soft voice. They both turned to Kyaati, who was sitting dully on her cotton moss bower. Her voice had the sound of one who had not spoken in days. She hadn’t. Nyri frowned at her.
“Daajir was being insensitive to me, Nyri confronted him,” she said. “She wasn’t here because I asked her to fetch me some honey. It’s not her fault she left me. I insisted.”
Baarias knew she was lying. Nyri could see it in his face but Kyaati’s expression dared him to question her. In the end he gave an angry sigh and let it go. Almost. “I won’t ask where the honey is, then.” He looked pointedly at Nyri’s empty hands and at her untouched bower before turning to leave. “Clean yourself up, Nyriaana. When you have recovered yourself, see me in the healer’s tree. I have news.”
Nyri nodded mutely in response, her insides squirming nastily as Baarias disappeared. She turned to Kyaati. “Why did you do that?”
Her friend lay back down and stared up at the interlocking branches overhead. “It’s nothing that you have not done for me in the past.”
“Yes, but… this is different. It’s not like it was when you were sneaking away with Yaanth. Why defend me?”
She shrugged and said no more. Nyri let it rest. It wasn’t like she needed to attract more attention to her disappearance. Her nerves tingled as Baarias’ parting words replayed in her mind. She had no doubt now that Daajir had already told the Elders of her crimes. She had struck another Ninkuraa. She had openly spouted heresy in front of him. She dropped her head into her hands in open despair.
There was nothing she could do now. She would have to face the consequences of her actions, whatever they may be. She brooded as to whether her life could have gotten any worse as she forced Kyaati to get up. She went through the motions of the morning in a daze, though she wasn’t blind to the sidelong looks she drew when she passed along. Nyri kept her eyes down. In the end, she could avoid it no longer. She had to face Baarias.
She paused, frightened, on the threshold of his dwelling.
“Do you know what is happening?” she asked Kyaati in a tense murmur. Her friend simply shook her head, eyes distant. She had closed off once more. Nyri sighed, fighting down another wave of unpleasant nervous nausea. Mouth dry, she stepped inside.
Baarias was waiting with his back towards them. He did not turn as Nyri approached.
“I have been told to inform you that your teaching with me is done,” he said tersely. “You will not become a full akaab healer.”
For a moment Nyri was too stunned to feel anything. She had known it was coming but to hear it spoken was still a blow. Everything that she had worked so hard for, hoped for. Gone. It is time his teaching of you came to an end… Daajir’s words echoed through her mind.
“What has he done?” she whispered.
“All that he needed to.” He knew of whom she spoke. “He has convinced the Elders that I am filling your head with my traitorous beliefs and as such, you need removing from my influence. Did you wilfully go out of your way to break every promise you ever made to me?”
“No,” Nyri whispered brokenly. Reality was really catching up now. She was no longer to be Baarias’ student in the healing arts. He would never complete the mark of the akaab upon her brow. “Surely, Baarias, they can’t take me away.”
“They can and they have,” Baarias said coolly. “I can protect you no longer. Why in Ninmah’s name did you hit him?”
Nyri shook her head, feeling sick. “He wants to do something terrible,” she said, helplessly. “He made me so angry, Baarias. I had to tell him, I had to try and convince him that the path he is on will not help. He will destroy us! I tried to open his eyes as you opened mine.”
He glowered at her. “You were foolish.”
“I was foolish?” Nyri was suddenly indignant. “Daajir is going to get us all killed! You know the truth.”
“Yes and look where it has gotten me. The Elders have never wanted to Join me in case I passed on my heresy. I have no children, no family and I am constantly threatened with exile from the tribe. All I had was you, and now you have been removed from me, too. They will never listen.”
Nyri shook her head, helpless. “What can we do? There must be something.” Her head swam.
“There is nothing,” he said. “The decision was final. Daajir has called for an auscult. It will be held tomorrow when Ninmah sets. He has been secluded with the Elders all day. He is revealing his plans to Oraan and Pelaan. They came just long enough to tell me I would be teaching you no longer. I do not know what else they might be planning to do to you in response to your actions.” His face was grave.
Nyri’s throat closed, she tried to think of something to say in her defence but she was interrupted by the entrance of Omaal’s father.
“Baarias,” Imaani was anxious. “Omaal has had another nightmare. He cannot sleep. He is unwell.”
“I will be there,” Nyri’s teacher said. No. Not her teacher. Not anymore. Daajir had seen to that. Imaani whisked off, sensing the tension. Baarias shifted his gaze back to her. “Go back to your home, Nyriaana. You are commanded to remain inside your tree until the auscult tomorrow and await the Elders’ judgement. I pray to Ninmah they will see denying you the right to becoming akaab enough of a punishment.”
With that he swept out of the tree as if he couldn’t bear to look at her face any longer. Numb, Nyri sank down beside Kyaati, who had settled into a corner to stare at nothing. Her insides twisted nauseatingly. Even Baarias could not stand by what she had done. She twisted her hands together.
She was no longer to be an akaab. This left her with one other use. Same use as all the rest of the females of the tribe. Baarias’ teaching had been the last shield. She was acutely aware of Kyaati sitting beside her. There could be no greater punishment than that. How could she escape such a fate?
“You can’t,” Kyaati said. Nyri hadn’t realised she had left her thoughts so open. “It is ou
r fate. A happy fate in old times to be sure but not anymore. All that remains for us now is loss and pain. Only in death will there be release. I see no other hope.”
Nyri stared into her friend’s empty eyes. Eyes that had once been so full of spirit and fierce energy. Her hands shook. She never wanted that emptiness to enter her life. Nyri raged against it. There had to be some answer. There had to be a way to save her people. She would be willing to sacrifice anything for such a gift. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Please, she threw a prayer on the wind, hoping Ninmah and the Great Spirit would hear her plea. For the love you bear my people, your servants, show me the way. Save us. I will give anything.
Nyri was met with silence, only the wind answered, swirling outside Baarias’ home. A gust found its way inside but its touch held no comfort. It was icy. Ninsiku’s touch. She shivered and bowed her head. “Come on,” she murmured to her silent companion. “Let’s go home.”
Nyri led Kyaati back outside. A fine rain had begun to fall. Brown leaves danced on the air before settling on the ground.
“Delaan!” A voice called. Nyri looked up to see the little boy run to his mother, who swept him up in her arms, kissing him on the forehead before carrying him protectively up into the shelter of their home. She would have given anything for Kyaati not to have seen that. She glanced at her friend furtively from the corner of her eye. Her face was cold, devoid of emotion. Nyri wanted to speak to her, to soothe her and tell her it was all right but the words died in her throat. Anything she said would be a lie. Nothing was going to be okay.
The remainder of the day was spent inside Nyri’s tree. With nothing else to focus on, anxiety gripped her every thought. The auscult would be held tomorrow. Daajir would show the rest of the tribe his ‘weapon’, Nyri knew, and they would follow Aardn’s lead. What else would they do to her for striking him? Violence against a fellow Ninkuraa was not condoned. She briefly imagined being cast out. How long would she survive on her own? The odds were not favourable.
