Obsidian and Stars

by Julie Eshbaugh

  My eyes move from the pack to the boat to the paddles. I turn to Kol, who casts no shadow. The sun is directly overhead. It’s time for the burial of his father. There’s no more time to think, only time to act.

  “I have an idea,” I say. “A way to keep Lees safe from Chev’s plans.”

  NINE

  I smile, and I see Roon smile too. He leans toward me. “You’re going to let her go, aren’t you? You’re going to let us run away.”

  “No, I’m not,” I answer. I feel Kol’s gaze. “My plan is not to let you and Lees run away. . . .” I say.

  I turn to Kol just in time to see his eyes flash with surprise. “So you, then? You will go with Lees?”

  “Yes. And you and Roon will stay.”

  Kol stands. For a moment he seems caught between turning away and coming to my side. He looks down at his shuffling boots before crossing to me, taking my hands, and pulling me to my feet. His lips lower to my ear. “You would run away—today—the day we became betrothed? You would leave before my father is buried—”

  “We can’t wait,” Lees interrupts. Despite the fact that Kol is clearly speaking just to me, my sister feels she can answer. “It will take until nightfall to get there.”

  “To get where?” Kol turns to her, all patience gone. His tone is no longer tender. Instead, his voice is like a fire starter, relentlessly drilling down. “Where are you going that is so far away, it will take until nightfall to arrive?”

  “I don’t know,” Lees say. “Only Roon knows the place.”

  Kol whirls on his brother. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t have to.

  “I won’t say until I know this is not just a trick. I need Mya to promise to go with Lees. If she’ll promise to go, I’ll tell.”

  Kol swallows hard. He drops his gaze to the ground. “It’s too dangerous. Mya, I know you want to protect your sister. I can’t blame you, but I can’t stand the thought of the two of you running away alone. Please say you won’t go.”

  There is a stretch of silence, tight like a rope binding my heart to Kol’s.

  “I can’t promise that,” I say. My voice is so small, these words so hard to say. “But I can’t promise to go, either. Not until I know where I’m going.”

  Roon looks at me with the eyes of prey that’s been cornered. He glances at Lees. She smiles and nods and he takes a deep breath. “To an island north and west of here.” His words come out like a confession—once the first have broken through, the rest come tumbling in a torrent. “I found it while exploring the coast, searching for another clan. It’s big. It has game—even fresh water. It’s perfect.”

  Kol shakes his head. “We know all the islands northwest of here—”

  “Not this one. It’s too far offshore to see—beyond the horizon.”

  Kol eyes his brother as if he’s weighing every word he says. “Why have you kept this to yourself? And how do you know about an island beyond the horizon?”

  “It wasn’t a secret, I swear. I hadn’t even met Lees yet, so it was never part of a plan or scheme or anything. I found it by chance. I got washed out by a storm—I couldn’t paddle hard enough to get back to shore—so I came upon it completely by accident. But I knew if Mother or Father ever found out—about the storm, about an island beyond the horizon—that would be the end of my explorations. So I kept it to myself.”

  I shiver at the thought of Roon dragged out to sea in a small kayak, beyond the view of land. Nothing but danger lies beyond the horizon—that wisdom has been handed down for generations. Some say it’s the hunting ground of huge predators that crest the waves to swallow boats whole. Some say a great waterfall drops into a deep abyss. But everyone knows it’s forbidden.

  “It’s far too great a chance to take,” Kol says. “Surely you see that.”

  I cannot meet Kol’s gaze. If I look into his eyes—if I remember his lips pressed against my throat—I won’t be able to carry out this plan and paddle out to sea, leaving him behind. “You need to stay,” I finally say. “Both of you need to bury your father. But I can go ahead with Lees. We can show Chev how far we’re willing to go to resist his plan.”

  “But why not just stay and confront him? Tell him what you are willing to do—”

  “Chev doesn’t work like that. I have to leave,” Lees says. She’s up on her feet, standing right in front of Kol. He may not want to look her in the eye, but she is going to force him to. “Words aren’t enough to change his mind—”

  “This time they will be—”

  “But why? What would be different? By staying, I’m proving he has power over me. What motive does he have to seek out any other option?”

  Lees’s words explode on my ears. I think of the offer Morsk made me. You could give Lees her freedom.

  Does Chev know about Morsk’s offer? Have he and Morsk conspired together? Is this Chev’s way of getting what he wants while making sure it looks like I was given a choice, rather than forced against my will?

  Lees still stands in front of Kol, still confronts him with her questions. “What other option does he have?”

  Me, I think. I am his other option.

  I shake the words from my head and grab Kol by the arm. “Would you walk with me for a bit?” I ask.

  Both Kol and Lees glance around, clearly noticing the short stretch of ground we can safely walk at the base of this cliff. There’s really nowhere to walk to.

  There’s only somewhere to walk away from. Or someone to walk away from. It’s clear I want to talk to Kol out of Lees and Roon’s hearing.

  I’m sure Lees doesn’t care. She seems pleased to have a reason to drop back down on the ground beside Roon, who’s been silently staring out to sea. He’s probably planning their next move if Kol succeeds at convincing me to stay.

  I lead Kol as far out on the point as we can safely go, until we are surrounded on all sides by the sea. I shudder a bit at all the water. At how far it stretches. My stomach lurches and I turn away, back toward Kol.

  But even looking into his eyes, I feel something vast and wide opening up in front of me. I want to close that distance—to draw closer to him, but I fear that telling him the truth about Morsk’s proposal might only push him away.

  I tell him anyway.

  As the story unfolds, I watch his face. I study his reaction. In some ways his eyes are indeed like a vast sea. Calm. Placid. But changeable.

  As I tell Kol my story of looking for Lees and finding Morsk—of the way he’d come too close to me, the way he’d insulted him—his eyes change. Like the sea when a dark cloud rolls in and whips the wind into a storm.

  “Does your brother know about this proposal?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. But I would think he might. . . .” I hesitate, but I need to tell Kol everything, even if it’s a truth I’m ashamed to admit. I think of my fear that Chev would welcome this proposal of Morsk’s. “It may even have been his idea,” I say.

  The line of Kol’s jaw hardens, braced against the winds that stir in his eyes. “Then we are not allies,” he says. “How can we be, if Chev cannot be trusted? If he says one thing to my face and another behind my back?

  “If he would trade your future—our future—for his own?”

  “He won’t—he can’t. I won’t let him. Because I’m going to show him that he doesn’t control us. I have the power to leave him, and so does Lees. And we’ll do it. We’ll show him that we can leave, because we will leave.”

  I’m not sure what I thought of this scheme as I formed it, but as I say these words out loud, I realize that this is the strongest move I can make. I know Kol’s angry. I know he wants to confront my brother. But I’m angry too.

  So we will both confront him.

  Kol will confront him with words, and I will confront him with action.

  “I do want to speak with Chev myself—to reason with him—but he needs to come to us. If he does, I will know he really intends to listen.” I imagine for a moment my brother’s face, the look of anger in his ey
es, when he learns Lees and I are gone. “I’m sorry I’m forcing you to speak for me—to account for me,” I say.

  Kol runs his fingers down my arms, curls them around my hands. “Your hands are cold,” he says.

  “I’m nervous. Not for me, but for you. My brother will not take this well. I wish I weren’t putting you in this position—”

  “You’re not.” Kol lifts my fingers to his mouth and breathes on them to warm them. “I’m your betrothed. Our interests are one now. Our actions are one. I’m happy you would trust me to speak for you.” Kol bends his head, his lips hovering above mine, when I hear Lees’s voice. Then Roon’s.

  It’s time to go.

  It doesn’t take long to go over the details. Roon describes all the landmarks that will help us find the island. The mouth of a river. The point that is crowned by a double peak like two fingers pointing to the sky. Small islands that form a line out to the horizon in the west. “A dozen of them, strung in a line like ivory beads on a cord. Except the last. The last will loom dark in the distance, a single bead of obsidian. Unlike the others of bare rock, the last one swarms with black shags.

  “Follow the line of those islands and you will come right to it,” he says.

  Lees climbs into the front seat of the kayak, just as she had before. As Roon stands out in the water holding the boat steady, I get one last moment alone with Kol. He winds his arms around my waist and pulls me against him, but I don’t wait for him to kiss me. I don’t have time, and I feel greedy, knowing that I won’t kiss him again until he brings Chev to the island. I lean into him and press my mouth against his.

  Kol’s lips are cool and taste like the sea, but a warmth spreads through me the sea could never give. His hands run up the back of my neck and I feel his fingers lightly thread through my hair. I imagine a net winding around me, a net of Kol’s love, and I feel safe. I drink it in—the feeling of security his hands give me. I’m not sure when I will feel so safe again.

  Despite the fact his family is almost certainly searching for him and Roon, they refuse to leave until Lees and I are on our way, and we can’t delay any longer.

  Once we are on the water, I look back only once. Kol and Roon stand side by side, waving good-bye.

  We paddle north, following the coast, never drifting too far from shore. Maybe this is because we both know that in time we’ll need to let the land disappear completely behind us as we head out beyond the horizon.

  My arms tire as the sun moves out into the western sky, but my thoughts never slow. I think of Kol and of his brothers. All of them standing over the grave. I think of Mala. What will she think when she notices I am not at the burial? What will she say when Kol tells her the reason why? Will she blame me? But she was at the clan meeting—she even suggested there might soon be a betrothal between Lees and Roon. I remember the look of surprise on her face when Chev refused. She wants the best for Roon and Lees, so I can only hope she agrees with what I’ve done.

  As we move farther and farther north the coast becomes less varied. Vegetation thins. Eventually the shore is made up of one long line of rocky beach backed by a high cliff that stretches as far as I can see.

  Lees and I don’t speak again until we’ve been paddling so long I begin to fear we will never see a landmark. Then my fear only worsens when we finally do. It stands out from far away—a point crowned by two peaks that stretch into the sky. By this time the sun has sunk so low the sea has turned the color of flint. No light penetrates the gray sheen—the rays are too shallow. Instead they collect like puddles of violet and red, floating on the surface until an oar scatters them on the waves.

  Just south of the double peak I spot another of Roon’s landmarks—the rocky shore is split in two by a wide river with high banks. On the north bank of the river, not far upstream from the place where it empties into the sea, I notice a camp. Smoke rises from fires, twisting skyward in the slanting rays of evening sun.

  I call over my shoulder to Lees, alerting her to the clan. Roon made no mention of them, so I assume they haven’t been camped here for long. Though I have no reason to believe they’re not friendly, I have no reason to believe they are, so I direct Lees to paddle farther out from the land. Paddling toward the setting sun, my eyes tire and confuse. I think I see a shadow on the horizon, and I turn to check if the shore is still within view.

  When I turn, I see something I hadn’t expected. A man in a kayak is following us out, paddling hard. His arms beat the waves with determination and speed.

  He is not following—he is chasing.

  Lees notices him, and when she turns back to me, fear replaces the exhaustion in her eyes. “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know,” I call. Panic and fatigue snarl my thoughts. He must be from the clan on the river. Is he trying to drive us away? Or to stop us from paddling too far out? “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. We have to stay ahead of him.”

  Even after being at sea since midday, fear motivates us. Once we agree to outrun the stranger, our combined efforts are too much for him. He drops back. I see him raise his paddle and lay it across the deck of his boat. He’s given up.

  When I see him turn back toward shore, I let myself slow. I glance at Lees, but she is no longer looking back at me. She is staring straight ahead.

  I look past her shoulder—to gaze once again into the immense and limitless sea—and I see what has caught Lees’s attention. Not far away the shore of a rocky island looms up and out of the dark water. Another rises right behind it, and behind that one, another.

  We have reached the string of islands and they are just as Roon described—like beads strung on a cord, pointing us out to sea. Lees and I slow and then wordlessly steer the kayak beyond one island, and then the next, fighting against all instinct, pushing farther out to sea as the night comes down.

  The sky is impossibly pale, as if covered by a coating of snow. It’s so pale—so washed in the long summer twilight—the starlight can’t break through. If only I could see the stars—the campfires of those who inhabit the Land Above the Sky—I could follow their pathways and stay on a westward course.

  I wish I had a truly black sky—an obsidian sky—so I could clearly see the trails of light. I think of Kol and the burial ceremony for his father that took place today. Somewhere in tonight’s sky a new star will shine, when Kol’s father builds his first campfire among the dead.

  Lees and I turn and look over our shoulders more and more frequently the farther west we move. Our eyes squint into the distance as we both watch the edge of the last island disappear.

  “We should be there soon!” Lees calls, her voice fired with anticipation. This is her way—to make the best of the worst. To choose excitement when she could choose dread.

  I’m so glad she’s here to balance out the darker voice in my head.

  We paddle hard, watching the horizon, my eyes sweeping south to account for the northward drift of the waves, until at last I glimpse a shadow on the water.

  The eastern edge of an island.

  I flick a look at Lees. A fire lights in each of her eyes as a smile as warm as a roaring hearth breaks across her face.

  Our oars stab the water in unison, turning the kayak slightly south, as the shadow on the water grows bigger and darker. The silhouette takes shape—trees and ledges and outcroppings of rock gain clarity as we pull closer.

  We have lost almost all light, but all my fear is gone.

  By the time we pull the kayak onto the beach, the sun will finally disappear for its brief rest, and the stars will shine at last. I’ll be able to lie on my back on the beach and look up and see their light, like a sign from the Divine. I’m so full of hope for this, I almost don’t notice the change in the sea.

  At first, I think it’s only me—that my exhausted arms are not responding to me as I think they should. I stroke the water on the left side of the kayak, but the kayak still veers left. I push harder, dig faster, and I see that Lees does, too. But still the kayak pushes
south.

  Until all at once a wave picks us up and turns us, dropping us so hard, water splashes across my face. This boat suddenly feels much smaller than it did a few moments ago.

  Like this—fighting against a suddenly stormy sea—a stormy sea despite a clear, windless night—we fight our way to shore.

  At last, with legs wobbling like stalks of kelp, Lees and I tumble out of the kayak into the shallow water and haul it up onto shore. The grade is steep, and we just manage to get it out of the sea and up onto solid ground, when the ground goes out from under us.

  I find myself beside Lees, both of us on our hands and knees, as the island shakes beneath us.

  TEN

  My mind goes back, reeling to the moment in the canyon, as the mammoth herd thundered by. My cheek braces against the cold sand, and I bite the inside of my lip. My mouth fills with the taste of bile and blood.

  Then everything stills. Just as I begin to believe the foot of the Divine will appear on the sand in front of my eyes, the shaking stops.

  The stillness stretches. Could the feet of the Divine have passed over these islands like stepping-stones? Could this be our punishment for having traveled beyond the horizon?

  If so, she has moved on, at least for now.

  I find the strength to lift my head, and my eyes meet Lees’s.

  Her gaping gaze darts from my face to the ground to the sea and back again. Her hands, clutched to her chest, shake as if the ground were still moving. “Do you think that’s my fault?” she asks. “Because Roon and I angered the Divine?”

  Her sweet self-reproach overcomes my anxiety, and I sit up. “No,” I say. “I don’t think anything you’ve ever done could anger the Divine that much.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said if you and Roon ran away and he didn’t attend his father’s burial—”

  “Then what? What could have brought that on?”