Filip wondered if she’d put the arrow in his own shoulder. “From such a long range, how do you know you killed anyone?”
“A platoon broke through and came after us.” Her shoulders hunched. “We had to shoot up close.”
She looked so shattered, so unlike the woman he’d met moments ago. “You killed to save your own life and those of your comrades. There’s no shame in that.”
“It’s not shame.” She blinked, and her voice’s strength restored. “Lycas is proud of me, and everyone here tells me what a hero I was, defending a land that’s not even mine.”
“It is heroic. It’s an honor to be a warrior.” Hearing his own words, he wanted to fling away the false leg. How could he speak of a warrior’s honor when he would never fight again, when he hadn’t had the grace to die on the battlefield?
“I don’t feel honorable,” she said. “I feel…nothing.” The corners of her mouth tilted down for a moment, then bounced back up. “At least not while I’m awake.”
“You have nightmares?”
“No. Yes. Sometimes. What about you?”
“My dreams are all good.” He hefted the prosthetic leg and thought, It’s life that’s a nightmare. He was glad he hadn’t said it out loud; it sounded melodramatic enough in his head. “I dream about home. I dream of running.”
“You can’t run with that thing on?”
“Not quickly. A bit of a trot, on level ground.”
“Can you dance?”
“Dance?” He snorted. “I don’t dance. Except at weddings, maybe.”
She smacked her knees in a grand gesture. “Then we’ll have a wedding, so you can dance.” When he raised his eyebrows, she added quickly, “Oh! I don’t mean us. Although, you seem like a nice person, but I don’t really know you very well. Let’s not rush things.”
He gave a full, hearty laugh for the first time in nearly a year. It turned into a harsh cough from the unaccustomed effort.
Alanka handed him her water flask and continued, deadpan, which only made him laugh more.
“My brother and his mate might get married,” she said, “but honestly, I think you and I have a better chance at lifelong happiness than they do.” She glanced at his prosthesis, then at his face in a manner he could only describe as saucy. “Do you need to put that back on now?”
“Yes, and it’ll take longer than it did to remove it.”
Sighing, she stood and brushed the bark and dirt off her backside. “All right, I’ll find a way to occupy myself.” She picked up her bow and arrows, then turned back to him. “What if I watched you while hanging upside down from a branch? Would that count?”
“Yes. Go.” He couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice.
She gave a flounce of false indignation, then swaggered some distance away to sit on another log, her back to him.
He removed his trousers, replaced the prosthesis and got dressed again as quickly as possible, unsure that she would keep her promise to look away.
“Stay there,” he said. “I’m going to call Keleos.” He put his fingers in his mouth and sent a shrill two-note whistle toward the meadow. Alanka flinched and covered her ears.
The horse clopped into view, but halted at the edge of the woods, silver mane gleaming in the sunlight. Filip held out his hand at waist level, hoping Keleos would come to investigate its contents, of which there were none. Unfortunately, he hadn’t packed any food that could tempt the horse, but Filip could probably fool him once. He’d hear about it all the way home, though.
The horse picked his way through the undergrowth and came to Filip without even sniffing his hand. Filip felt himself go soft inside. Keleos hadn’t come for food; he’d come because Filip was his master now. He stroked the stallion’s golden neck and murmured his name.
Keleos huffed. “I wasn’t scared.”
“I know. You’re very brave to come back.” He had long ceased feeling foolish for talking to animals. Even though he knew they couldn’t comprehend his words, he thought they understood his intentions.
Filip led Keleos closer to Alanka, who was still sitting on the log. Her hands were folded, in the exaggerated style of a prim little girl doing as she was told. “Would you like a ride,” he asked her, “or are you in the middle of a hunt?”
“I wasn’t hunting to kill—I was practicing my stealth. Not that Mali and Lycas would mind if I brought home dinner.” She gave Keleos a wary regard. “I’m not much of a rider.”
“He’s easy and smooth, not like these Asermon ponies.” He got Keleos to sidle next to the fallen tree, which he then used as a mounting block. The left leg felt a bit unsteady, but it would hold up as long as he didn’t tumble off again. He turned to extend a hand to Alanka. “Come on.”
She hesitated, then put her hand in his. He kept his face blank, not wanting to show the effect her touch had on him. It zinged through him like a tiny bolt of lightning, and when she mounted the horse behind him, he had to remind himself how to breathe.
Keleos pinned his ears back when Alanka settled in. Filip urged the stallion forward before he could start complaining.
“Isn’t he a bit skittish for a battle horse?” Alanka asked.
Filip scoffed. “Colonel Baleb never rode into battle. He usually just sat on a hill and watched other men fight under his orders. As long as he looked good doing it, that’s all that mattered. You were lucky he was in charge of your invasion. With a smarter commander, we would have crushed you.”
She didn’t respond, and he wanted to punch himself for mentioning the battle again. It accentuated the chasm between them. A woman of her people could never be seen with a “Descendant,” no matter how many legs or how much magic he possessed.
A rustle came from the bushes beside the trail, and a rabbit dashed away to their right.
“Duck!” Alanka pushed him forward onto the horse’s neck.
“What are you—”
Something whistled in the air above his right shoulder. A moment later the rabbit screamed.
Pain and fear washed through Filip’s mind. He clutched his head and moaned.
Alanka gasped and put her hand on his back. “Oh, no, I forgot. Filip, I’m so sorry.”
The rabbit uttered incoherent pleas that threatened to rip Filip in two. “Just—go kill it,” he said. “Now.”
Alanka slid gracelessly off the horse’s haunches but managed to land on her feet. Her footsteps crashed through the underbrush. The rabbit’s fear flared for an instant, then all was silent. Filip sat up and wiped his clammy brow.
Alanka was moving toward him, the rabbit dangling behind her back in both hands.
“I’m sorry. Usually I make a clean kill, but I’m out of practice. It’s the first time I’ve shot an arrow since the battle.” She stood next to his right foot and gazed up at him with wide brown eyes. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
He could do nothing but nod.
“When we hunt,” she said, “we learn not to think about what it’s like for the animal—otherwise we’d never eat. And we always honor their Spirit.” She cleared her throat. “I have to sing now. That might be more painful than hearing the rabbit cry.”
She laid the animal on the ground and knelt beside it. A plaintive song rose, and its sound was anything but painful. Filip closed his eyes and listened to her mix mourning and triumph into a paean to Sister Rabbit, and hoped that someday she would hold him in such high regard.
After she finished, he pointed to a nearby tree stump. “You can remount over there.”
She looked at him with disbelief. “You want to be around me after what I did?”
“I want to be around you.” He tried to swallow the words. “Today, and another time. We could meet here. If you want, that is.”
She smiled, and he was lost.
16
“What if she’d been a boy?”
Rhia ignored her brother’s mate and focused on the face of her newborn niece, Sura, who lay sleeping in Rhia’s arms. She didn’t stir de
spite her parents’ bickering and the night wind that rattled the roof of Lycas and Mali’s home.
Mali looked over Rhia’s shoulder. “If she’d been a boy,” the Wasp continued, her breath hot on Rhia’s temple, “she would have been named in memory of Nilo. He was Lycas’s twin, but only your half brother, so why did your son get that name?”
“Mali, not again,” Lycas growled from the small corner table where he sat across from a nervous-looking Marek. “We knew it would be a girl.”
“What if the next child’s a boy?” Mali snapped. “The name should have been saved.” She threw Rhia a dark-eyed glare that a year ago would have left her quivering. Mali didn’t scare her anymore, beyond the fear that she was making Lycas miserable.
As if to confirm this suspicion, he said, “Who says there’s going to be a next child?”
The face of his Wasp mate reddened with rage. Moving much faster than her still-plump body allowed, she stomped out of the house, banging a hip on the corner of a chair and nearly slamming Alanka out of the way.
Lycas heaved a deep sigh but didn’t move.
“You should go after her,” Marek said.
“Why?” The Wolverine’s voice dripped with hostility. “Then we’d be in the same place. This is much better.” He examined his empty mug. “More ale?”
Alanka stepped close to Rhia and smoothed a lock of dark hair over the baby’s forehead. “Isn’t she beautiful? I wish you could’ve brought Nilik to meet his cousin.”
“It’s too cold for a month-old baby to be out. Coranna and Damen will take good care of him. Damen needs to learn how to change a diaper if he’s going to be a father. Besides—” she showed Alanka a guilty grimace “—we needed to get away for a few hours.”
“Spend some time with adults?” She watched their brother wrestle and curse a small barrel of ale. “Not that you’ll find any adults here.” She took the squirming Sura out of Rhia’s arms. “She needs changing, I can smell.”
“We’re out of ale.” Lycas stood, then groaned at the ceiling. “I’ll have to go to the cellar.”
“No, it’s fine,” Marek said quickly. “I don’t need any more.”
“I do.” Lycas rubbed his chin, a look of dread on his face. Rhia realized that he might have to pass Mali to get more ale, since the cellar entrance was outside.
He sighed and shuffled to the front door, where he stopped, as if gathering strength, before opening it.
When he was gone, everyone—even the baby, it seemed—let out a deep breath.
“Please come live with us instead,” Rhia said to Alanka.
“I’d love to.” Alanka wiped the child’s bottom with a damp cloth. “But I’m afraid what might happen to Sura if I left. All Mali does is feed her. I do everything else.”
“What about Lycas?” Rhia asked.
“He tries to help a little. Mostly he sits in the corner and wishes he’d gone with the rescue party. Sometimes he wishes it out loud.”
Rhia felt a pang of sympathy for her old nemesis Mali. It was hard to live with any Wolverine, much less one grappling with the loss of his twin. Mali, a warrior herself, had missed the battle because of her pregnancy. Everything she’d trained for came second to the peculiar duty of motherhood. The Wasp had cause to be bitter.
Rhia’s own emotions had swung in unpredictable directions since Nilik’s birth, but Marek had shown inhuman patience and stamina. She looked at him now, enjoying a well-earned rest and mug of ale, and felt so lucky it hurt.
Later that night they walked home, arm in arm, recovering from the evening of acrimony.
“Think they’ll get married?” Marek said.
Rhia groaned. “I doubt it. Then again, if you’d asked me a year ago if they would get this far, I’d have said no.”
Marek took her mittened hand in his as they walked down the dark, quiet Asermon street. “Speaking of fathers—or fathers-to-be, rather—you and Damen seem to be getting along well.”
“It’s wonderful to have someone to share the burden.”
“The burden of being a Crow or the burden of dealing with Coranna?”
She chuckled. “Both. But I’m a little jealous that he’s gone further with his training than I have. He’s conversing with the dead, but I can’t use the thanapras until Nilik stops nursing. Even then, Coranna says she might make me wait. She doesn’t think I’m ready.”
“But Damen is?”
“He’s almost ten years older than I am. And he hasn’t been pregnant, with all the power instability that entails.” They turned onto the street where they lived. The house next to the hospital would be their home for another month until they returned to Kalindos. She lowered her voice, in case Damen was outside smoking his pipe. “But I think it’s because he’s just like Coranna. He can separate himself from the people he deals with, both the living and the dead. He’s practical.”
“Cold.”
“Marek—”
“I mean that in the nicest way, of course.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “I love Coranna like a mother, and I consider Damen a friend, but promise me you’ll never shut down like them. Your connection to other people is a strength, not a weakness.” He drew her close and kissed her temple. “Always remember that.”
She smiled. “You sound like Crow.”
“Then I can’t be too dumb, can I?” A bitter breeze blew down the street, and Marek’s hand went to his neck. He heaved an exasperated sigh. “I left my scarf at your brother’s house.”
“You want to go back now and get it?”
“No, that place is poison. Besides, you made me a dozen—” His face froze, then his gray-eyed gaze fixed across the street, on the door to their home.
“What is it?” Rhia looked at the house, the window of which glowed with the same lantern light as when they’d left.
“Do you hear that?” He tilted his head. “It sounds like Coranna, but—”
“I don’t hear—”
“Stay there!” He darted across the street toward the house.
Rhia couldn’t obey. She dashed after him, her chest aching from a breath held too tightly.
When she neared the open door, the stench of blood slammed her nostrils. “Nilik!”
Marek was kneeling beside Coranna, who lay prone on the floor in a wide red pool. Blood streaked a trail behind her. She moaned softly. Damen was facedown halfway across the room, motionless. Nilik was—
Where was Nilik?
“He’s not here,” Marek said. “Give me something to stop the bleeding. And get Zelia.”
Rhia grabbed a blanket, then ran next door and pounded on the hospital entrance. Zelia appeared within moments.
“Coranna’s been hurt,” Rhia said between sobs that brought no tears. “Bleeding, stabbed, I think. Damen’s unconscious, and I don’t know—I don’t know where my son is.” Without waiting for the Otter’s answer, Rhia turned away. She had to find him.
“Nilik!” she shouted into the streets. “Where are you?” He couldn’t have crawled away, but maybe whoever had taken him had left him outside. If he heard her voice, he might cry out. She screamed his name again. Neighbors across the street opened their front doors and looked out.
“My baby’s gone!” she cried to them. “He’s gone!”
“Rhia!”
She turned to see Alanka running down the street toward her, waving the scarf Marek had left behind.
“Rhia, what’s wrong?”
She grabbed Alanka’s hands and dragged her into the house.
Marek looked up from Coranna’s motionless form, covered with a blood-soaked blanket. “Where is he? Is Zelia coming?”
“She’s coming.” Rhia tried to rein in her galloping breath. “Nilik’s not outside.”
Alanka ran to kneel beside Damen. “He’s alive.” She grabbed a flask of water from the bedside table and shook its contents over the back of his neck. He came to with a start and peered around with unfocused eyes.
Damen turned over slowly, with Alan
ka’s and Rhia’s help. “What happened?” Rhia asked him. “Where’s Nilik?”
“Bandits,” he murmured. “They knocked, and when I opened the door, they pushed their way in. I turned for Nilik, and something hit me.” He put a hand to the back of his head and winced. “That’s all I remember.”
Rhia clutched his hand. “Did they say what they wanted, where they’re taking him?”
“They took Nilik?” Damen’s eyes widened. “Where’s Coranna? Is she all right?”
The sound of wings answered his question.
Rhia dropped Damen’s hand and turned to Coranna. Zelia entered with her healer’s bag in one hand and a large roll of bandages in the other. Marek quickly moved out of the way. He went to the crib and spread his trembling hands over the empty mattress.
Coranna was dying. Rhia looked back at Damen, who had rolled on his side, transfixed.
Zelia worked with haste, but her movements held a sense of resolution. Blood that had been pumping from the wound in Coranna’s side now merely seeped.
Rhia knelt beside her mentor, ignoring the warm red liquid that soaked her own skirt, and took her hand. Coranna’s pale blue eyes opened for a moment and locked onto Rhia’s.
“Don’t…” the old woman gasped.
“Shh.” Rhia lifted Coranna’s hand and kissed her fingers. “Save your strength.”
“For what?” Her voice was as ragged as a toad’s croak. “He’s coming.”
Zelia held her hands over Coranna’s gashes and molded a silver light into them. Rhia recognized it as a spell to kill pain rather than to seal wounds. The time for healing had passed.
Damen had crawled to Coranna’s other side. He smoothed her long silver hair. “Crow will take good care of you.”
Coranna blinked at him, her eyes crinkling into a look of fondness. Then her gaze returned to Rhia and sharpened. She drew a rough breath and forced out the words, “Don’t ever tell.”
Rhia descended into a deep, sudden trance. It pulled her against her will, blocking Marek’s shouts and Zelia’s determined ministrations.
A warm blackness surrounded her. Unseen walls pulsed with life. She sensed Coranna’s presence, and Damen’s, too, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything but black.
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