Ode realized that Erek was right: he must leave before something happened. When he next saw his friend, Ode almost ran up to him. The Kin sat in the eating hall with a space open to his right. Ode hurried over, carrying his bowl, and waited for one of the officials stalking around the room to move away.
“Have you heard any—” he began whispering.
“You be told to go to the Room of the Gods,” Erek interrupted with a hiss, and then he stood up and walked away, though he had not finished his meal.
Ode was left sitting alone, his mouth open. The Kiness nearest him shot him a nervous glance, and he quickly ducked his head, eating his broth in silence. The ceremony in the Room of the Gods was not due to start until sundown, and he would need to enter without attracting attention. Once he had finished his food, he piled his bowl with the others and tried to hurry from the room as carefully as possible. When he passed an official at the door, he felt eyes on him, but he did not raise his head.
Flitting through hallways, Ode kept his head bowed. He took a shortcut through an empty classroom, and then crossed a courtyard scattered with cherry blossoms. An official marched up and down the flagstones, a rifle resting over his shoulder, and Ode shrank into the shadows, trying his best to disappear. He heard a gasp and looked up to see that the official had caught his rifle in one of the zigzagging lines of prayer flags. With a yell of annoyance, the official yanked it off and the fabric shredded, sending the whole line flopping to the ground. He bared his teeth in a grimace of annoyance and pulled the trigger of his rifle. There was an almighty bang and one of the Kinesses screamed. A puff of smoke drifted into the sunshine and those in the courtyard cowered. The shot had been directed into the air, but it was the first time many of the Kins and Kinesses had ever heard or seen a weapon fired.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Ode turned and hurried down a hallway. He passed a group of officials who were running toward the sound of the commotion, and undetected, Ode climbed the steps to the Room of the Gods. He glanced once over his shoulder to make sure no one had seen him, and then he ducked inside.
The room looked strange without all the bodies of the temple gathered into it. The great golden statue of one of the goddesses on the other side of the room glowed in the dim light and the ceiling swirled with smoke from lit incense. It was quiet and peaceful. Ode did not know what he had been sent here for, but as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a figure sitting on one of the benches.
“I must be speaking to you quickly,” said the High-Kiness. “We be nay having long. They will be wondering where I am.”
Ode frowned. He had expected to meet Erek here or the High-Kin.
As if reading his mind, the High-Kiness said, “I be unsure about you from the start, but … I be running out of options.” She climbed shakily to her feet.
“What do you mean?”
“You be needing to leave, and I be needing you to take someone with you.”
Ode felt his chest flutter. “Who?” he asked.
“I be showing you in one moment, but first I be telling you something important. You must be leaving tonight, both of you. We never be thinking that the Castle Temple ever get this way, but we never be foreseeing this war….” The High-Kiness paused to rub her forehead. “I be so worried for my charge. She be not safe here, and you be needing to take her into the mountains to hide.”
“Who?” Ode repeated, daring to let himself hope.
“We be writing to the king,” the High-Kiness continued, ignoring his question. “And we be asking that these officials be removed. It be not safe right now, and you both need to be gone. Do nay go to another temple for there are officials everywhere. You go and stay away until we be bringing you back, yes?”
“All right. Yes.”
“Tonight it be announced that there be a meeting after the ceremony. You be hearing everyone leave and that be when you must escape. She know all this already and she be telling you more. I must be leaving now.”
Ode nodded, agreeing to anything if it meant what he hoped it did.
“She be here,” said the High-Kiness, and she crossed the room to one of the large, colorful tapestries hung on the wall. Pulling it aside and lifting up another wall hanging underneath, she uncovered a door. “Be quick now,” she said, motioning for Ode to go inside.
He paused.
“Hurry!”
The temptation was too strong for him to resist. The door opened when he pushed it and he saw a flight of stairs ascending into the gloom. He was about to slip inside when the High-Kiness grabbed his arm.
“Above all, be keeping her away from Magic!” she hissed. “Other Magic,” she added, turning her face away.
Ode nodded, and then she shut the door, letting the wall hangings swing back into place with a muffled thump. For a moment, Ode was plunged into darkness, but after a while, his eyes grew used to the shadows and he managed to feel his way up the stairs.
He emerged among the rafters. Dust floated through the air and slices of fading light filtered through the slates of the roof. The Room of the Gods had a high ceiling and Ode had never wondered if there was an attic above. Old rugs riddled with holes were flung across beams and tapestries that had almost faded to nothing were slumped into corners, sticky with grime. Among it all, curled into blankets on a makeshift bed, was a tiny Kiness, her head in her hands. Her clothes were ragged and dirty, her body angular and frail. She did not wear a headdress and her golden hair fell in breathtaking folds, curling around her waist.
“Briar?”
She stirred and two blue eyes peered out at him. Gasping, her expression turned from relief to fear to delight, and then back again.
“Have you been up here this whole time?” he asked, beginning to duck under the beams and climb over the piles of old, discarded tapestries toward her.
He was thrilled and worried all at once. He could not forget the last time they had met and the way she had been disgusted by him, but the very sight of her made him long to cradle her in his arms.
“I didn’t think that you would come,” she said, her voice dry and cracked. “Not after how I spoke to you.”
“Briar, I meant it when I said …” he trailed off as they both blushed. “When I said that I was your friend,” he finished lamely. “I would not abandon you because of some silly argument.”
He settled onto a blanket beside her and could not stop himself from taking hold of her hands. Her skin was cold and damp.
“You are ill?”
She shrugged. “I think I have been driven almost mad up here. I managed to escape at first and to visit Jet, but since the officials have come, it is too dangerous. I miss Jet and … I have missed you.”
Her hair fell across her face and Ode’s fingers ached to brush it aside. Her curls shimmered in the slanting light and threw arcing sparks that bounced from beam to beam.
“I’ve missed you as well,” he said.
Briar leaned against him and gently lowered her head onto his shoulder. Her crown tucked beneath his chin and the warmth of her body melted into his. Ode could not bear to ruin the moment, but neither could he stop himself from asking, “But what about my … gift?”
Briar sat upright and looked away. “I have told no one,” she said. “The High-Kiness believes there is something Magic about you, but she does not know for sure.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I do not feel anything. I’m sorry for what I said before. You are still you, and you would not hurt me.”
“Hurt you?”
Briar fiddled with her torn skirt. “I do not completely understand it myself,” she said. “But the High-Kiness has always said that those with Magic will hurt me. Ever since I can remember, she has worried for my safety.”
“I will never hurt you,” said Ode.
She smiled. “I know.”
They lapsed into silence—the only sound was the creaks of the building.
“After the ceremony we are to leave?” asked Ode.
For an instant, Briar looked like her old self again. The anxious tightness of her features slipped away and her face brightened with joy.
“Yes,” she said. “We will live in a cave in the mountains with Jet and Arrow. It will be wonderful!” She paused and glanced around the rafters. “Where is Arrow?”
“In a hut in the valley. He has also been forced into hiding.”
Briar touched his shoulder, for she knew how much it must hurt him to be parted from his companion.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for forgiving me.”
And she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Warning
Ode and Briar watched the ceremony that evening through the cracks in the ceiling of the Room of the Gods. They saw the Kins, Kinesses, and workers from the valley pile into the building followed by the officials, and they murmured along with the service, their heads bent.
Ode could barely concentrate since his whole body quaked from the touch of Briar’s soft lips against his cheek. He knew he should be worrying about escaping the temple unseen by the officials or planning where they would run to when they made it out of the valley, but he could not help himself. He wondered if Briar secretly loved him, too. He knew such a thing was forbidden, but life at the temple was not what it had been before. Throughout the service, he stole glances at her, studying the perfect curve of her jaw and the overwhelming radiance of her hair. It suddenly occurred to him that once they were in the mountains, he would see her every day. He would have her complete, undivided attention. The thought made him smile dreamily.
As the High-Kiness had promised, after the service a meeting in the eating hall was announced. The members of the temple poured out of the Room of the Gods followed by the officials and headed toward the main building. Ode and Briar watched them go, nervous excitement beginning to make them tremble.
“What now?” asked Briar.
“I suppose we leave….”
The whole thing seemed so surreal to Ode that he could barely believe what was happening. To be sent to spend his days alone with Briar in the mountains was something from his wildest fantasies.
“Surely we should not just walk out,” said Briar.
“No, of course not,” muttered Ode. He was so thrilled, he was finding it difficult to think.
“I need to get Jet,” said Briar, beginning to gather up her blankets. “She used to wait for me behind the temple. I cannot leave without her.”
Ode also needed to retrieve his companion and they planned to go their separate ways before meeting at the mountain pass. There was something romantic about returning to the spot where they had first met and both crept down the stairs and into the Room of the Gods with happy, flushed cheeks.
When Ode pulled aside the tapestry, he almost tripped over a sack that had been dumped on the floor. Peering inside, he saw that it was filled with clothing and provisions. He suspected that the High-Kiness had left it for them and he silently thanked her. Hoisting it onto his back, he was about to leave when he saw Briar pause.
“I have lived in The Castle Temple almost all my life,” she whispered, glancing around the room. “It will be strange to leave.”
Ode remembered how he had felt parting from the Wild Lands.
“You will come back,” he said. “We will come back once it’s safe.”
Briar gently took hold of one of the colorful streamers that hung from the ceiling and let it slide through her fingers.
“I do not think I could leave … if it were not for you,” she said, treating him to one of her blinding blue gazes.
Ode wanted to reply, but he found he could barely speak.
“I will see you on the mountain pass,” she added, turning to go.
“Be careful!” Ode managed to call out softly.
“I will,” she said over her shoulder with a smile.
Ode watched her hurry to the entrance, pulling her cloak over her hair. He almost could not bear for her to leave, though he knew they would be reunited soon. Once she had gone, he waited, counting under his breath until he judged it had been long enough. Then he followed. The courtyard outside was empty and the sky above lay flat and black. The moon was a skinny curve that shed little light on the mountainside, and Ode was grateful.
He hastened down hallways and snuck around corners with the sack banging against his back and his head filled with happy daydreams of his future life. He did not come across anyone as he went. It seemed that the High-Kiness had managed to summon everybody, including all the officials, to the eating hall. As he stepped out of the temple and onto the first stone step that led down the mountainside, Ode felt his shoulders begin to relax. He hoped that Briar was climbing over the wall at the back of the temple at that moment.
For once, Ode did not turn the prayer wheels as he descended into the valley. The soft patter of his feet was the only sound, mixed with the intermittent bleating of sheep and goats nearby. When he reached the valley, he hurried across the fields to the huts, which climbed up the slope on the other side. He was so busy thinking of life with Briar that he did not notice the door of Arrow’s hut was slightly ajar. It stood in a row of rugged, abandoned storage shacks and in the darkness, Ode did not see the footprints that led up to it.
He whistled, waiting to hear his wolf’s excited scrabbling or eager whine, but there was no sound. With a frown, Ode opened the door of the hut and gasped. A pair of dark eyes stared at him in a horrifyingly familiar face.
“Greetings, little man.”
Ode stumbled back, almost tripping over himself.
“It has been a long time,” said Cala. “Though I have been far away, I have been watching you.”
She did not look a day older than when they had last met. She wore her hair parted into two long plaits like the Taone tribeswomen, and her leather tunic was just as Ode remembered it. He tried to swallow the panic rising in his throat. He did not know what she wanted.
“Where’s my wolf?” he asked.
“I have set your companion free for the time being. You will not be able to take him with you where you are headed.”
Panic flared in Ode’s chest. “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“Hush, hush, little man. He is safe.”
Cala looked him up and down, and then nodded. She saw his tall, broad frame and his shoulder-length dark hair.
“I always knew that you would grow to be strong,” she said. “If Gray Morning was here now, he would see a warrior.”
The mention of his father took Ode by surprise. It was as if she had slapped him and he struggled for breath, his chest tight with emotion. He did not let himself think about his father if he could help it. He tried not to think about the Wild Lands at all. It was too painful. And it was easy to let it sink into the past in these mountains, surrounded by a new life and new people. But Cala was before him now, with her familiar earthy scent that made him think of feathers dancing on a clawing breeze and the heavy beat of drums.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“I have come to tell you that you must leave.”
“I am leaving.”
“No, you must return to the Wild Lands.”
The panic in Ode’s chest began to burn through his body. Only moments ago he had been so sure of everything. Only moments ago he had felt so happy.
“I can’t…. I won’t,” he stuttered.
“You must!” Cala hissed, stepping toward him. “The Western Realm is readying itself for a war, and you need to join your side.”
“No, I need to be here. There is someone I must look after—”
“You will only bring danger to Briar.”
Ode clenched his fingers into fists, his knuckles turning white.
“How do you—how do you know about Briar?”
“I told you, I have been watching you. I know you care for her and that is why you must stay away.”
“What makes you
think I believe you?” he spat.
Cala’s face became taut and hard. “Do you remember that I once told you about Abioy?”
“The sorcerer?” asked Ode, vaguely recalling the name.
“Yes. He is powerful, and you have attracted his attention. You must not lead him to Briar or you will put her in danger.”
Ode did not know whether to believe her. He could not tell if this was a trick. He just wanted to find Arrow and go to the mountain pass.
“I will keep Briar safe,” he said.
“You will not be able to, little man. Briar was … cursed as a child. Have you not thought that she is different? That is why she is here! In these mountains she was supposed to be safe. Abioy is looking for her.”
Ode thrust his fingers through his hair.
“Stop it!” he cried. “You are wrong. You are trying to trick me.”
“I am not, I promise. I have made you strong. I have—”
“Wait! You made me … ?”
Cala looked away and Ode’s mouth dropped open.
“You did this to me?” he hissed. “You made me this way?”
“I was doing what was best for everyone.”
“You made me a freak! My dar hated me, and I was cast out of my tribe!”
“I had to,” Cala tried to argue, but Ode was hardly listening. “Abioy cannot succeed, and I had to do something—”
“You made me, and then you left me!” Ode cried, his voice echoing against the rocks. “You left me!”
“I have been trying to stop him. I have been trying to work out his plans.”
Ode shook his head.
“I don’t care about this,” he said. “I don’t care about your sorcerer, and I don’t care about you!”
He turned and began running across the mountainside, sliding on the uneven rocks.
“Ode!” Cala called after him. “You must leave now! I have seen it!”
Feathers Page 22
