by Grace Draven
He thought he recognized the cloth, or at least the beadwork. “Offerings, mementos. That looks like my mother’s stitchery. Tamura must have brought her here recently.”
A niggle of guilt wormed through him. He’d been here only once since his return to the Sky Below, to see his father’s bones laid out in the barrow and to leave an offering of his own to all his ancestors who had died and who now slept in this grave. He should have visited more than once. Should have brought Saruke here instead of relying on Tamura to do it. His sister had carried that responsibility, and others as well, on her own for long enough.
Gilene touched his arm. “I’ve always believed that talking to the dead is sometimes easier than talking to the living.” She shrugged at his questioning look. “They listen better.” She gestured toward their blankets and the remnants of their meal. “We need to return to camp. I’ll pack everything and wait for you.”
She left him in front of his mother’s offering, and he listened as she whistled to the horses. Azarion knelt beside the flower bundle. Iruadis’s bones lay inside the barrow, but Azarion liked to believe his spirit was out here, enjoying the wind and the smell of new grass alongside his son. Azarion closed his eyes and called up the image of his father when he last saw him, aged by the elements and diminished by illness but still powerful, still the respected ataman of a respected clan.
He kept that image in his mind as he prayed, first to Iruadis for guidance in pursuing his plan to retake the chieftainship and then to the pantheon of Savatar gods, especially Agna, for both mercy and favor. The wind caressed his ears, whispering its own supplications.
When he returned to the spot where he and Gilene had shared their food and conversation, he discovered their supplies packed away in the nearby satchel and Gilene stretched across both blankets, asleep in a pool of sunlight. He crouched down, making plenty of noise so as not to startle her when she opened her eyes and found him leaning over her.
She reached up with one hand to thread locks of his hair through her fingers. Azarion held his breath, stunned by her action and fearful he might ruin the moment with so much as a twitch.
“Did you pray?” she asked in a sleepy voice that set every nerve in his body to sparking. He nodded. Her touch was light as a moth’s wings in his hair. “And did your gods listen?”
“I hope so.” He bent lower, drawn helplessly down to her pale mouth. Still, she didn’t move away.
Her fingertips traced a path across his face from cheekbone to cheekbone and over the tip of his nose. He closed his eyes when she repeated the action, this time going the opposite direction to journey across his eyelids before settling at the sensitive pulse point near his temple. When Azarion opened his eyes once more, he found her watching him intently, her eyes fathomless. They were so close now, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
“I once thought I would always hate you, gladiator. That isn’t true now.” Her words set his heart to soaring, only to plummet it back to earth with those that followed. “I no longer hate you, and I will still never forget you.”
He almost kissed her then, tethered to her by both desire and regret. Her eyes closed, black lashes soft on her cheeks, the fragile skin of her eyelids even paler than her mouth.
A chorus of whistles froze him in place. Gilene’s eyes snapped open, and in a flash, she’d rolled out from under him and clambered to her feet. Azarion rose more slowly and joined her in her search for the source of the sound. A group of riders galloped toward them from the south, and Azarion recognized Tamura’s smoke-gray mare in the lead.
Gilene reached for the satchel by her feet. “We’ve been gone a long time. They probably think we’ve come to a bad end.”
He clasped her arm. “Gilene.”
She turned to him then, her features once more set in the pinched visage she’d worn during their flight from the Empire. “Don’t. Please. After all we’ve been through so far, together and separate, don’t you think we both deserve some measure of peace?”
She twisted free and strode to her horse, leaving him to gather up the blankets. They saddled their mounts in silence and soon joined Tamura and her party in a leisurely ride back to camp.
Gilene was withdrawn the remainder of the evening, claiming the effects of too much sun when Saruke questioned why she seemed so listless. Once their household had eaten and settled down for the night, Azarion gathered up a blanket and saddle pad to take outside.
“Where are you going?”
Gilene stood behind him, wearing a thin shift, her slender feet bare.
“I thought you might wish to have the bed to yourself for tonight.”
She hugged herself as if cold, though the qara still held plenty of heat created by the now cooling braziers. “I don’t.” She said nothing else, only dove under the covers of their shared pallet and pulled them up to her chin.
Azarion watched her for a moment before setting down his gear and undressing. He slid under the covers and lay on his back, counting the number of support poles in the qara’s roof. He and Gilene were more awkward now with each other than they had ever been, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret the day and his time with her. Given the chance, he’d do it again, only this time, he would ignore any visitors and kiss the fire witch’s soft mouth.
He had started his third counting of the support poles, and was drifting off, when a pair of slender arms settled around his shoulders and tugged, coaxing him to roll to his side and into Gilene’s embrace. She lay farther up on the pallet than he did so that his cheek rested against her breast and her chin grazed the top of his head. Her fingers combed gently through his hair.
It would be effortless to roll her to her back, push up her shift, and spread her thighs. He wanted her so badly, the desire made him dizzy. Instead, he concentrated on his breathing, on the feel of her hands in his hair instead of her warm body pressed to his.
She would accept his touch, his taking of her. He knew it by the languid sprawl of her limbs on his, the shallow rise and fall of her breast under his cheek, the changing scent of her skin. But he didn’t want acceptance. He wanted enthusiasm, a passion for him that matched his for her. This embrace, as seductive as it was, came not from a place of lust but from one of solace.
So he settled harder against her and nuzzled the curve of her breast, content for now to listen to her heartbeat, rejoice in the knowledge she no longer hated him, and lament that such a change of heart wouldn’t keep her in the Sky Below.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Summer had finally settled hard on the steppes, chasing away the rains that had lingered for weeks and turned the land into a vast quagmire. The relentless wet had left everyone and everything a soggy, miserable pile of foul-smelling wool. The people, the sheep, the qaras. They all reeked and were in desperate need of drying out. Only the horse herds and the wandering chickens escaped the stench. Today was the first dry day, and the wind galloping across the plains was finally dry instead of damp.
The new encampment the clan had set up lay a few hours’ ride behind Gilene, and still she caught its stink on the wind. The green scent of sweet vernal was a welcome change.
A group of women and children, accompanied by a handful of archers, had left at dawn for a part of the steppe where one of the scouts had located a wide patch of wild strawberries not yet trampled or eaten by the horse herds. Gilene accompanied them, riding next to Saruke, who explained they’d cook for everyone while the women and children picked and gathered the berries.
They traveled for several miles, stopping when the scout who rode ahead whistled and waved to indicate the place where the strawberries grew. Tamura, lightly armored in a leather breastplate, vambraces, and greaves, rode up next to her mother. Even though Gilene had resided with their family for two months, Azarion’s sister remained guarded around Gilene, the suspicious light in her eyes undimmed.
“
The six of us”—Tamura indicated the other five archers with a broad sweep of her hand—“will ride in the four directions to make sure we don’t have thieves from Clan Saiga lurking in the grasses.” She rode off, long braids bouncing against her back as the horse galloped toward the waiting archers.
When the foraging group reached their destination, they dismounted and fanned out, satchels draped across their shoulders, and bent to harvest the steppe’s bounty. Gilene stayed behind to help Saruke set up a makeshift kitchen on the open plain. Soon flames coaxed out by fatwood and flint danced merrily under a large kettle filled with mutton fat.
She and Saruke sat side by side on a square of horsehide to keep their backsides dry and took turns placing flat rounds of barley cakes into the sizzling fat to fry. A bowl of butter sat nearby, alongside larger bowls of curds and hot, salty milk tea thickened with crushed barley.
Gilene handed one of the cooled cakes to Saruke. “Do you want to make more, or will these be enough?” Stacks of the cakes were piled up on a sheet of tin between them, glistening with fat and dripping with the butter spread on them. A few of the children lurked nearby, willing to brave Saruke and her long, accurate reach with a stick for the chance at snatching one of the treats.
“Oya!” Saruke snapped and waved the stick in a threatening sweep that sent the nimble youths bounding out of the way like startled hares. “Make yourselves useful and pick me some wild onion. I’ll add it to the pot.” They bolted away, part eager to help, part fearful of raising her ire.
She winked at Gilene and lowered her stick before taking the offered cake. “This is good,” she proclaimed after a few bites. “They won’t complain, especially after hours with their backs bent over those berries.”
Gilene wasn’t so sure. Even though Saruke had made and rolled out the dough into individual cakes the night before, Gilene had been the one to fry most of them. The Savatar women would note it and no doubt criticize her efforts. As a possible agacin, she was treated in the most civil manner, given food to eat, a comfortable bed to sleep on, and shelter from the elements. But civility didn’t translate to friendliness, and so far only Saruke had warmed enough to her to carry on a conversation that consisted of more than grunts, a few monosyllabic replies, and suspicious scrutiny. She might be an agacin according to those witnesses who’d seen her walk through the Veil, but she was not Savatar.
Saruke finished her cake and eyed the tin sheet holding the rest of the bounty. “Another handful will do it,” she said. “Then we’ll call the others back. A pack of them that size should be able to gather every berry out there in no time. We’ll eat and head home.” Her faded eyes swept the landscape. “We’ve wandered far today and are very close to Clan Saiga territory.”
Gilene followed her gaze, seeing only the cluster of berry gatherers and the endless plume grass that grew as far as the eye could see. “How can you tell?”
Her companion audibly sniffed. “The smoke from their camp. They’re down from the mountains earlier this year. There will be skirmishes over the best pasturelands.”
In the time she’d been with the Savatar, Gilene had learned many things about the people of the Stara Dragana—mainly their love for fighting. “I thought the Savatar were united.”
Saruke scooped curds into small cups and set them out near the tin of cakes. “In their hatred for the Empire, yes, but they still squabble among themselves. One clan against another for grazing and water rights. They marry each other’s daughters and sons off to quiet the fighting, but it doesn’t last long. The moment someone from Clan Marmot kills and eats a sheep belonging to someone from Clan Wolf, they start up again. Blood feuds, ritual combat. I sometimes wish the agacins would quench the Veil. Our warriors are restless pent up behind it. If they can’t fight the Empire, they fight each other.”
If Azarion’s mother knew what Gilene did about Azarion’s plan regarding the Empire, she might not wish for such a thing. Then again, Saruke might volunteer to ride alongside him in battle. The Empire had enslaved her son. She certainly had the motivation to heed a call to war against it.
“Karsas does nothing but drink and tup,” Saruke muttered. “Useless leader, useless warrior. It’s probably better the Veil stays up.”
Her comment spurred Gilene to pursue a topic that had made her wonder since her meeting with the agacins. “Karsas betrayed Azarion, took the chieftainship from him through treachery instead of combat, yet Azarion says nothing of this to either council. Why? Wouldn’t doing so make his claim stronger? Leadership of Clan Kestrel is his birthright. His reason for bringing me is to reclaim the chieftainship. Why not tell them what happened?”
They were out of earshot from the harvesters, but she took no chances, keeping her voice low. Karsas’s wife, Arita, and their children were among those who picked, and while she observed that the marriage seemed more for political convenience than mutual affection, Gilene understood that loyalty was often commanded by more than emotion. She herself was loyal to Azarion. He was her way back home to Beroe. If she heard anything that might jeopardize his welfare, she’d tell him. That Arita would do the same for Karsas seemed probable. A memory of her time with Azarion in front of his family’s barrow, when he became something other than her adversary, teased her mind.
Saruke finished filling cups and turned her hand to pouring the milk tea. “Because he can’t prove Karsas planned his capture and enslavement, and those who could bear witness to it because they were part of it are dead. Azarion is patient. He’ll know the best time to make his accusations and take his revenge.”
“I’d think it more justice than vengeance.”
Was that a gleam of approval in Saruke’s eyes? “Can it not be both?” she said and passed a cup of the milk tea to Gilene. “You defend him as fiercely as if you were his woman, though you are not.”
Sharing the same qara day in and day out had made it difficult for Gilene and Azarion to maintain the lie that she was his concubine. Saruke was an observant woman, and it hadn’t taken her long to understand their bond was built on something else. With a warning to keep what he said between them, he told her and Tamura the truth. Gilene sat next to him, listening and nodding as he explained their first meeting, his extortion of her help, her role as a Flower of Spring, and their escape from the Empire. He left out the part about Gilene’s trickery with illusion and his own ability to discern it.
Tamura, who had treated Gilene with barely disguised disdain until then, stared at her with new eyes. “You’re brave, and you saved my brother. My family is in your debt, Agacin.” It was the first time she had addressed Gilene by that term. She still remained distant and suspicious, but the edge of hostility was gone.
Thereafter, Gilene slept alone in her own sleeping space not far from Azarion. At first, the change pleased her. Not once, in all the times they shared a bed, had he taken liberties with her, though she often woke to find him slumbering closer, an arm draped across her waist.
Likewise, morning sometimes saw her nestled against him, her head on his chest, his steady heartbeat a soothing lullaby in her ear. The first night in her new bed was a lonely one, though she’d never admit it to anyone, much less herself, that she missed his presence beside her under the covers, especially after his revelation about the empress’s particular cruelties.
She understood his actions better now, that relentless push to reach his homeland and regain his place among his people, though it was at the cost of her own freedom. She didn’t agree with it, and it didn’t change her own determination to return to Beroe, but she no longer saw him as the enemy. Gilene had reached out that night and cradled him close, her soul aching over what he had endured at the Empire’s hands. He lay heavy and peaceful in her arms, simply a man burdened by dark memory and lost time. The two of them were bound by a common past of subjugation and a resolve to overcome the damage it wrought.
Her thoughts turned to him more often during the
day than she liked, but she couldn’t chase them all away. More than once she’d caught herself mooning over his deft, patient handling of the horses in his mother’s herds and how he tilted his head a little to the right before he laughed, even the way his long fingers curled around his teacup, or how the morning sun gilded his cheekbones when he sat outside to clip his beard short.
The suspiciously hopeful note in Saruke’s voice made her back stiffen. “The sooner he’s made ataman, the sooner I can go home.” She glared into her teacup as if it refused to reveal some necessary secret.
Saruke sighed. “He can’t claim the chieftainship until you prove to the Fire Council that you are truly agacin.” The hopeful note had turned to one of frustration.
“Was it not enough that I didn’t burn to ash when they set me alight?”
The weeks that followed the Fire Council’s decision not to declare her an agacin saw Gilene too busy to dwell on her prolonged stay on the steppes. She practiced her fire summoning, to no avail, and helped Saruke with her chores, which most often started before dawn and didn’t end until right at sunset. Some of the household tasks were much like those she handled in Beroe; others were far different. She was on horseback as much as she was on foot and helped take care of the horse herds. She learned the basics of shepherding, complaining to Saruke at times that while the goats were entertaining, the sheep were dumber than rocks.
Saruke admonished her lightly with one of her bits of wisdom. “Better to have a dumb sheep that gives up warm wool than a smart rock that offers nothing to cold bones.”
When they weren’t shepherding, felting, weaving, cooking, or laundering, they were foraging—sometimes far beyond the encampment, like now, where wild strawberries, garlic, and onions sprang up among the plume grass.
Gilene fished the last barley cake out of the hot fat and dropped it on the tin with the others to cool. She and Saruke moved the kettle of oil away from the fire, replacing it with one filled with water. She stoked the fire with an iron rod, stirring the coals so they snapped and popped. The flames guttered a little, and a shiver of power danced down Gilene’s fingers. Tongues of fire suddenly surged upward to embrace the pot before settling down.
