Eyes of Crow

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  A warmth enveloped her hand, and she looked down to see Lycas’s long, strong fingers wrap around hers. Their grip steeled her courage enough for her to enter the house.

  Her father approached them, but she looked past him to her own small bed, where her mother lay. Tereus spoke Rhia’s name, and his lips continued to move, but the rest of his words were lost.

  Lost in a roar of wings.

  The sound crescendoed until she could only feel and not hear the wail ripping her throat. Her knees buckled, and she tried to sink to the floor—through the floor, even—but Lycas’s grip tightened, and he yanked her to her feet. She tore free and covered her ears, squeezing her eyes shut as if the feeling, the certainty, came from the outer world and she could blot it out, turn away from it. But there was nowhere to turn. Crow was here to stay.

  Rhia backed against the door and fumbled for the latch. A harsh voice hissed in her ear.

  “What are you doing?” Lycas shook her shoulders. “She can hear you, stupid.”

  She sucked a breath, choking on her own cries of anguish. Her lips pressed together so hard, her teeth bruised them. When she opened her eyes, she saw her father step in front of Lycas. He pulled her tight to him.

  “Papa, I’m sorry,” she whispered against his chest.

  He stroked her hair. “I know. I knew even before you arrived that we could do nothing. But still I hoped—” Tereus cut himself off and moved to look at her. He smoothed back the strands of hair that tears had adhered to her cheek. “I wish you didn’t have to see it so clearly.”

  “I don’t just see it, Papa. I feel it.” Her soul seemed as heavy as a sack of wet grain, and she wanted to collapse, to succumb to the weight of her mother’s impending death.

  The large bird she felt on her shoulder was not real. She couldn’t see it with her eyes or touch it with her hands. But it touched her, its claws piercing her skin, and at that moment it was the most real thing in the room.

  “Go to her,” Tereus said. “And Lycas is right, you must be strong. Dry your eyes.”

  Rhia breathed in deeply, every muscle straining to maintain control. Her exhale was less shaky. She wiped her cheeks and the hollows under her eyes.

  Her legs moved of their own accord as they carried her across the room, and she was grateful to them. For the first time, she noticed Galen sitting on the floor at Mayra’s feet. He watched her with an inscrutable gaze as she passed.

  The weight on her shoulder and on her spirit grew heavier with each step. It was a relief to sink onto the bed next to her mother. She reached for Mayra’s hand, then hesitated. Mayra’s eyes were closed, her face slack, skin wan, dark hair carefully arranged on the pillow. She looked peaceful—and completely unfamiliar.

  Who was this stranger? A future corpse. Not her mother. It was safe after all.

  She touched Mayra’s hand, and her mother’s eyes opened. In an instant the distance between them vanished. Rhia felt light again, like only a daughter. She held back tears but knew her eyes shone as they looked upon the dying woman.

  Mayra’s thumb twitched on Rhia’s wrist, as if she were trying to squeeze her hand. She parted her dry lips to speak. Her throat strained with no result.

  “Shh,” Rhia whispered. “We can speak later, after you’ve rested.”

  Mayra narrowed her eyes in disbelief. She tilted her chin to beckon Rhia closer. Rhia leaned forward until their faces were a hand’s width apart.

  “Yes?” was all her mother said. Rhia looked into her eyes and nodded slowly. A tear fell from her lashes onto Mayra’s lips.

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I wish…” She gave Mayra a pleading look, expecting her to provide comfort or reassurance, as she always did when Rhia was distressed.

  Instead Mayra only stared at the ceiling, eyes wide and fixed. Her hand grew cold.

  “Mother?” In a near-panic, she shook Mayra’s shoulder. “Mama?”

  Mayra blinked and took a slow breath that seemed to pain her. Without looking at Rhia, she whispered, “I’m frightened.” Another long breath. “I’m frightened, Rhia. Help me.”

  Rhia’s glance jerked toward Galen. He kept his eyes on Mayra and sighed.

  The door opened behind her. The hulking figure of Arcas stood next to Nilo’s muscular frame. The two men were silhouetted against the sunshine outside so she couldn’t see their faces. A whispered conference with Lycas passed along the grim news.

  Rhia turned to her mother and felt on her back every gaze in the house, which was becoming crowded, stifling.

  Mayra’s lips moved to form one word. “When?”

  Rhia looked at Galen. “You can know,” he said.

  She turned back to her mother. “Wait a moment.”

  Rhia closed her eyes and clutched Mayra’s cold hand. She turned her mind to Crow, whose presence hovered, shimmering black and violet, near her shoulder. His spirit merged with hers, His knowledge and certainty spreading over and enveloping her consciousness like a pair of dark wings.

  Her mother had strength. Not enough to survive, but enough to say goodbye.

  “A day or two,” Rhia said at last. “I wish it were more, but—” She couldn’t finish the sentence: you don’t have enough life.

  Mayra relaxed, her hand going limp in Rhia’s. “I can sleep.”

  “Yes. Good.” She realized her mother had feared she would never wake up. “Do you need another blanket?”

  Mayra tilted her head from side to side, almost imperceptibly. Her eyes closed in the next instant, and her face went slack. Rhia stared at it, trying to etch every detail into her memory.

  A hand lay on her shoulder. “Let us speak in private,” Galen said.

  Rhia reluctantly let go of her mother’s hand and followed him toward the door. As she and Galen stepped out into the sunshine, Rhia looked back to see her father sit by Mayra, his head bowed.

  The bright day mocked her mood and the darkness that would always dwell within her now. The air was so clear and sharp she could even see the distant brown face of Mount Beros to the northeast, unshrouded by summer haze.

  “I should have gone long ago,” she said to Galen.

  “There’s no sense in regrets.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted to tell me, that I should have gone when you asked? You were right.”

  “What matters is that you find peace, peace in yourself that you can give your mother in her final hours.”

  “Where do I find it?” She gestured to their surroundings. “Under which stone, in which tree?” She kicked a small branch that had blown into the yard during the previous night’s storm. “Peace isn’t inside me, and feels like it never will be now.”

  Galen pulled his large leather pouch to the front of his waist. He loosened the ties and withdrew a black feather the length of his hand. He held it out to her on a leather cord.

  “It’s time for you to have this.”

  She wanted to reach for it, but didn’t. “I haven’t even been for my Bestowing yet.”

  “You will,” he said, “after you mourn. In the meantime, this will help you focus on your powers. Your mother needs them.”

  She took the feather from him and stroked its smooth barbs. “What do I do?”

  “You’ll know.”

  Rhia withheld a frustrated sigh at his vagueness.

  “How long will she live?” he asked her.

  “She’ll see another sunrise, but no more, I think. I want to—I want to stay with her all night. Help her, though I don’t know how.”

  “Crow will show you, as much as He can. I will return early tomorrow morning. She needs her family now.” He turned toward the house.

  “Wait,” she said. “What will you do for her? Can you help her pass over? Make her not so afraid?”

  “I can help ease her mind with regard to her life. The rest is up to her. And you, of course.” He laid his hand on her shoulder again. “I’m sorry, Rhia. It shouldn’t have to be like this.”

  As he walked away, she wondered if he meant to
comfort or rebuke her. Probably both: Galen’s words never meant only one thing.

  In a few moments, Arcas came out of the house alone. With no hesitation, he wrapped his arms around Rhia’s small frame and held her while she cried. What she couldn’t tell him was that she wept not only for her mother’s death but for the part of herself that had once felt fully alive.

  Though Arcas’s body seemed far from her, she clung to it, as if it alone would anchor her to this world.

  05

  The candlelight cast a honey-colored glow over the walls of Rhia’s home as darkness crept across the sky. She closed the window’s curtain and wondered if it would be the last glimpse of the outdoors her mother would ever have. No, she thought. She’ll watch the sunrise even if we have to carry her outside.

  She turned back to the table, where her brothers and father sat in silence. It would have been generous to call the meal in front of them half-eaten; the food on the plates was rearranged rather than consumed.

  Silina sat with Mayra and monitored her breathing. She had offered to attend to Mayra’s bodily needs, so the family could attend to their own grief.

  Rhia wondered if Silina’s assistance only made it harder for them; they were left with nothing to do but look at one another. They had intended to take turns sitting with Mayra while the others slept, but Rhia suspected only her mother would sleep tonight.

  “She’s awake.” Silina’s soft voice cut through the silence as if it were a shouted proclamation rather than a whispered notice.

  The three men stood. Lycas and Nilo sat again, a grudging deference to their stepfather’s place. Tereus moved to Mayra’s side.

  Silina approached Rhia at the window. “Tell me how I can help. I could feed the hounds or the horses, fetch some water.”

  “It’s been done,” Rhia said. “We’ve checked the animals several times. There’s nothing to do but wait.”

  Silina glanced over her shoulder at Lycas and Nilo brooding at the table. “I think a family could do other things besides wait.” She picked up a lantern and slipped outside.

  Rhia considered the advice. Over a year had passed since she had spent an evening with her brothers. She sat at the table next to Nilo.

  “Tell me a story,” she asked them.

  They looked at each other, eyebrows pinched. Lycas said, “We don’t know any stories that would be, er—”

  “Appropriate,” Nilo finished.

  “I don’t care about appropriate. Tell me one of your stories about hunting with Rhaskos.”

  Nilo’s lips threatened to curve into a grin. “Now?”

  “They make you giggle,” Lycas said to Rhia.

  “I know.”

  He glanced in their mother’s direction. “Do you really think—?”

  “I think she’d love to hear her children laughing together again.”

  “If we must.” Nilo leaned forward, then took a dramatic pause. “As you may remember, Rhaskos the Goat has slightly less intelligence than the average hound.”

  “Slightly?” Lycas said. “You insult our hounds.”

  “Shame on you.” Rhia faked a stern look. “For such an affront you must clean their pens twice tomorrow.”

  Nilo held up his hands. “Slightly less intelligence than the average hound’s left dewclaw. Better?”

  “You are forgiven.” Rhia glanced at her mother. The candlelight played distorting effects about her face, but she thought she saw Mayra smile.

  “In any case,” Nilo continued, “one morning we went hunting after Rhaskos had a bit too much ale the night before.”

  “It wasn’t that he was hung over,” Lycas added. “He was still drunk. See, he had the impression that no matter how much you drink, as long as you sleep, even for an hour, you should wake up sober.”

  Nilo chuckled. “He thought if it’s a new day, you’re a new person. His body had different ideas, though.”

  As they continued the story, with Rhia prompting them as they forgot details, the three of them picked at the cold bread in front of them, then the meat, until most of the food was consumed.

  Finally Tereus rose and approached the table. He looked at the twins. “She wants to speak with you, Lycas first.”

  It made sense; Lycas was older by a few hours and had always been treated as the elder twin. It meant Rhia would be last. She stared hard at the floor and prayed to Crow to let her mother remain awake long enough to speak with her.

  Tereus’s body dropped heavily into the chair next to Rhia.

  “Papa, why don’t you sleep?” she said. “We can wake you if—when she’s—”

  He touched his daughter’s cheek. “No. I’ll stay up. I can’t imagine losing any of these moments to sleep.”

  “But it could be days.”

  “Soon enough I’ll wake up without her. I don’t want to start quite yet.”

  A choked sob came from Mayra’s corner. They looked over to see Lycas bent over their mother’s frame. Tereus dropped Rhia’s hand and scrambled over to them.

  “It’s all right.” Lycas stood and wiped his face with a stroke of his arm. “Your turn, Nilo.”

  Nilo took his brother’s place at Mayra’s side. Lycas returned to the table and sat, his elbows on the table, face in his hands. Rhia felt the barely controlled fury pour off him, and understood for the first time how dangerous he could be. Even with his first-phase powers, he could kill a man in little more than an instant with no weapon at all. The veins on the back of his hands bulged as he clenched his fists in his long black hair. She shifted away from him a few inches.

  When he surfaced from his well of rage, Lycas gave Rhia a glare that withered her soul. In that moment, she knew, her brother hated her. The meal in her stomach soured.

  “I’ll see if Silina needs help with—whatever she’s doing.” Her chair nearly crashed to the floor when she stood.

  She had to smack the latch several times before it gave way and the door opened. Once it closed behind her, she leaned against the house and gulped the stagnant, humid air that had slunk in a few hours ago. Crickets and katydids sang in an uneasy chorus, so the night had not progressed far. No glow lingered near the western horizon, however. The haze of late summer hid all but the brightest of stars, and the setting half-moon gave off a muted glow behind the trees to her west.

  A lantern bobbed into view near the barn. Silina called her name, and Rhia gave a weak wave in response.

  The Turtle woman held a basket against her ample hips as she approached. “I found some dried chamomile in your mother’s herb shed. It will help her relax.” The lantern light glowed against the gray hairs that had overwhelmed the brown on her head. “I wish I could do more.”

  “So do I. Me, that is. I wish I could do more.”

  Silina put her basket down and hugged her. Between the healer’s warmth and the scent of the chamomile, Rhia felt momentarily soothed.

  The door opened, and Nilo’s impenetrable face looked past her. “It’s your turn.”

  She withdrew from Silina’s embrace. “Thank you,” she told him as they passed in the doorway. He did not respond.

  Sitting next to Mayra, Rhia felt Crow’s weight upon her again, but she shoved the awareness to the back of her mind.

  “Were you with Arcas today?” her mother asked in a rasping voice.

  “Yes.”

  “And?” The corners of her mother’s lips twitched upward.

  Rhia’s face warmed. It felt like weeks, not hours, since she had made love to Arcas in the sunny meadow. With a sickening feeling, she realized they had probably been intimate at the instant her mother had fallen from the attack.

  Mayra squeezed Rhia’s hand. “Don’t have that look. It’s not your fault this happened.”

  “I should have been here.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I can’t be saved. It’s my time. So was it how you thought it would be, with Arcas?”

  Rhia looked at the wall above Mayra’s head. “It was better. And worse.”
To change the subject slightly, she added, “I’ll miss him when I go away.”

  Mayra frowned. “I’m sorry, Rhia. I should have made you go into the forest when Galen first asked. I was afraid.”

  “It was my choice. I was afraid, too.”

  “I should have pushed you out of the nest, baby bird. If I had—”

  “I could help you now. As I am, I can’t. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “I forgive you,” Mayra said.

  The tears that had swollen Rhia’s eyes spilled out onto her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should be strong for you.”

  “You have no idea how strong you are. Someday you’ll know. Someday soon, I think.” With a great effort, Mayra reached forward and touched the end of one of Rhia’s auburn curls. “I hate to think of all this hair gone.”

  “Mother, don’t—”

  “I must speak of my death, and all it means.” She let her hand fall and gazed at Rhia’s hair. “It’ll be curlier, like when you were a little girl. Your brothers will look strange to you.”

  Rhia wanted to ask what Mayra had told the twins, why their anger had suddenly resurged, but she didn’t want to distress her mother. No doubt they would soon tell her themselves.

  “When you go to Kalindos…” Her mother’s voice trailed off as her breath ran out sooner than expected. She drew another shallow inhale. “When you go to—oh!”

  A gasp burst from Mayra’s throat, and she began to pant. Her eyes rolled white with pain and fear.

  “Mama?” Rhia heard her voice turn into a child’s. “Mama, no—not now! Mama!”

  Mayra’s hands flailed over the blanket covering her, as if reaching for the breath that wouldn’t come. An inarticulate plea bubbled from her throat.

  Tereus lunged to his wife’s side. Rhia drew back, stepping away from the body before her, a body that was fighting the journey from life with every shred of energy.