Ulric gathered the others and announced their victory over the Sun People, lamented his sorrow over Reiak's death, and made the promise that their enemies would pay a dozen times over for what they had wrought. He was good at stirring the spirits of his clan, but Adel heard nothing more than the same empty words her father had spoken countless times before. She watched in silence from the darkness at the edge of the central fire, eyes focused on her mother as she waited for Freia to speak. Sure enough, once his piece was said and the others began making preparations to say farewell to their fallen warrior, Ulric's mate leaned in to whisper something in his ear, then led him away by the hand.
Adel crept behind the nearest hut, wishing the ache of her wounds was not there to prevent her from taking the shape of her wolf. She would have liked the keenness of sensitive ears that night.
Staying behind the dwellings that lined the path to the alpha's den, Adel stalked her parents until they disappeared within the shelter of rock and hide. The muffled sound of Freia's voice rose in volume, but it was still too quiet to make out clearly. Adel hurried to the spot she had used to eavesdrop when Alpha Neman's delegation had visited, pressing her ear to the gap in the rocks and trying to shut out the hubbub of noise coming from the central fire.
“We agreed,” she heard her father say, “you will lead the seers while I lead the warriors. It is what makes us strong. It has always made us strong.” His tone was tired, but gentle. A tear threatened to prick the corner of Adel's eye when she remembered how he used to speak to her in that way.
“I am no warrior, but I am a mother. Den mother to all our pack. By the grace of the spirits it is my charge to watch over them, and all I see is mothers weeping for their sons and children asking when their fathers shall return home.” There was a pause. “Ulric, my love, my alpha. You could lead the greatest, or the weakest pack in all the world, and I would still stand by your side.”
“We will not be weak,” Ulric replied. Had Adel heard a faltering note in his voice? “I swore to my father when he died that I would lead our pack to greatness. I have, and I will. Can you not feel it, Freia? It is almost within our grasp. If we show weakness now it may slip away forever.”
“You have been saying this since we began fighting Kotal's warriors. How many summers have passed since then?”
Ulric remained silent.
“Our clan is respected,” Freia continued. “We are strong. But with every passing year more warriors are lost. We have empty huts now that were once full. Our pack is more women than it is men. How long before there are no more warriors willing to follow you into battle?”
“There are many young men ready to avenge their fathers. We could fight for many years still.”
“We have already fought for many years. I want to believe in our strength, I do, but I cannot ignore what my eyes are telling me. There has been so much pain, so much sadness. Can you blame Adel for being the way she is?”
“She is a grown woman wishing for the days when she was still a child,” Ulric said. “Things cannot always be as we wish. You think I do not want peace? I want it more than anything, but I cannot sit idle and watch our enemies threaten something far worse upon us.”
“I am proud of what you did today,” Freia said gently. “From what the warriors told me of those Sun People, they seemed wicked and without honour. But Alpha Kotal is not without honour.”
Another heavy pause followed.
“You would have me make peace with him,” Ulric growled.
“If the Sun People continue to come, yes. You know we cannot fight both of them at once. There is no shame in an alpha choosing his battles wisely.”
“I cannot. You know I cannot!”
“Surely it is better than—”
“No!” Ulric roared. “I could best the old coward myself if he ever dared step down from his outcrop! Why should we bow to him for the sake of these Sun People?!”
“Please,” Freia implored him, “at least think on it. Think of how things were before.”
“Foolish dreams are the folly of weak men.”
Adel heard a hiss of frustration from her mother, then something that made her shudder in discomfort.
“You and our daughter are exactly alike.”
Ulric's silence seemed to mirror Adel's own as Freia strode out of the den. The girl watched her mother go, gripping the rocks until her fingers grew numb. She remained there until her father left to join the others at Reiak's pyre, angry and conflicted over what she had just heard. She longed to be back by the pool with Jarek, where none of these conflicts mattered.
“There you are,” her brother's voice sounded from out of the darkness behind her, making Adel start in surprise. “Listening outside Father's den?” He smirked as she whirled around to face him. “Do you even care that he is your alpha?”
“At least I have a will of my own to question him with,” she spat back, drawing herself upright.
Karel fixed her with a glare. “If I told him you were here—”
“What? He would beat me again?” Adel voiced a bitter laugh. “I have almost grown used to it.”
Her brother's cheeks burned red, fists clenching at his sides. “If you were not wounded I might do it myself.”
“How brave of you. Tell Father whatever you want, if you think it will do either of us any good.” Adel spoke with rehearsed confidence, but internally she prayed that her brother would keep this to himself. She did not need to give Ulric any more reasons to keep a close eye on her.
“Do you know why I came looking for you, Sister? Because I was worried. You were hurt, and I could not find you among the others.” Karel's anger invariably turned to self-pity when he realised he could not win a battle of wills against his sister. As much as Adel hated to play into his hands, she could not help but feel guilty in that moment. Perhaps there was too much of Uriel still in her.
“I am sorry if I caused you any concern,” she said with an effort. “You need not worry over me. I will take care of myself, as I always do.”
“You are part of this pack too, Sister, and we are still here to care for you, even if you wish it were otherwise.” He turned and began to walk away.
“I do not!” Adel called after him, but he had already disappeared around the edge of the nearest hut.
I do not, she repeated the words internally. I care for you all. I wish I could smile and laugh with you as I did with Uriel. As I do with Jarek. But how could she, when her father was their alpha? When she disagreed so strongly with everything he did, when he sent would-be friends to their deaths every year? She could not love a man who had done such things, nor a pack that followed him.
Still, her brother's words haunted her, and her wounds began to throb again as she crept back to the solitude of her hut. As much as she enjoyed the peace and quiet, she did not feel like being alone that evening. When the rest of the pack departed, carrying Reiak's body out to his pyre, she trailed along in their wake. Tears were shed and howls of mourning loosed to the night sky as a thousand orange motes sparked and eddied among the flames, dying out and drifting away on the breeze before turning to ash.
Adel wished she could join her clan in their grief, but she had sealed that part of herself away long ago. The pain she felt within her chest swelled and sank into the hollow before it could draw any tears from her eyes. She stood back in the shadows, glad to be cloaked in the night's veil. It felt like where she belonged. Hidden from the moon spirit Syr's light, shielded from the eyes of the world. In the darkness she was free, and in the darkness her thoughts were her own.
But the night was a lonely place to be by herself.
—10—
Guile of the Fox
“This is your choice, then?” Freia said, examining the painstaking work her daughter had put into fashioning the fox pelt into a garment that would sit upon her scalp and mark her status as a seer.
“She led me to what could have been my death, and she led me out of it,” Adel replied. “Her fate
is linked with mine.”
And she was a friend to someone I care for.
The den mother spent a few moments looking over the headdress, before nodding in approval. “You should have sought my assistance before choosing, and my permission, too. But it is past time you left your apprenticeship behind. You already know more than many seers master in a lifetime.”
Adel swelled with pride, unable to restrain a smile.
“I would keep that satisfaction to yourself.” Freia grimaced, noting her daughter's expression. “I doubt even the elders remember the last time a girl of your years was welcomed into the seerhood. It is not our way for one so young to hold such status.”
“But I will hold it, all the same?”
“Yes,” her mother sighed. “You will be a seer. I only hope my decision is a wise one.”
Adel tried to pull back her smile, but it was difficult. As a true seer, no longer just an apprentice, she would hold the highest status a female could attain among their kind, short of becoming den mother herself. Most of the pack's women—and many of the men—would have to look up to her and acquiesce to her will. It was not yet the kind of power that could end her father's fighting, but it was one step closer.
“Fitting that you chose a fox,” Freia said. “Cunning creatures. Not ones to form packs.”
Adel was about to respond when a cry of agony fractured the peaceful air outside the seers' den. Freia winced, glancing to the nearby hut from which the sound had emanated. Two burly warriors sat adjacent to the entrance, though their presence seemed far from necessary judging by the state the hut's occupant was in. The wounded hunter of the Sun People had been brought back a day after the fight, once Ulric had sent a seer out to join the warriors guarding him and make sure the captive was well enough to travel. Despite his injuries showing no signs of infection, they healed slowly, and the man's horrible cries of pain only grew worse day by day.
“The sickness of our kind is inside him,” Freia said with a scowl. “It would be a mercy to end his life. He is already dead.”
“But Father would not allow that.”
“No. He still wishes to learn this hunter's secrets. Perhaps he will turn instead of dying and become one of us, but I doubt it. Sun wolves are rare as stars falling from the night sky.”
“We should end his suffering,” Adel said, swallowing the painful sensation creeping up her throat as the hunter wailed again. “Father will kill him no matter what happens. All he has left in his days is misery.”
“Do you not think he deserves it, for hunting our kind?”
“If he deserves anything then death is enough. Leaving him to suffer like this is horrible.”
Freia shook her head. “Ask your father if you will, but expect nothing of it. He listens to no one but himself these days.”
Adel pressed her lips together tightly, wishing she could tell her mother what she had overheard in the alpha's den. Perhaps, with their efforts combined, they might eventually persuade Ulric to see sense.
“If you took a mate you might find him more agreeable,” Freia said idly.
Adel scowled down at her headdress. “What meaning is there in such a thing if I only do it to please someone else? I wish you would stop trying to make me.”
“If you keep fighting against everything you consider unjust in this world then you will find yourself fighting for a very long time, my daughter.”
“What if I want to?”
“I don't believe that. You are so much like your father, but there is a girl in there who longs for peace and happiness. Oh yes, I see it, Adel.” She smiled. “There is much of Uriel in you too. I see the longing in your eyes when you gaze out across the plains, and the tenderness in your touch when you care for our wounded. You may have a warrior's heart, but your spirit is that of a seer. A dreamer.”
“I am no dreamer.”
Freia shook her head. “And yet you long for things that most accept they can never have. And with your warrior's heart, you fight for them. You are a woman now, so I will let your choices be your own, but know that the path you walk will be a difficult one.” She gave her daughter a look of sadness. “Find a mate. Please your father. Be a wonderful seer to our pack, and in time you will have that peace I know you long for.”
A moan sounded from within the captive's hut again.
“Peace like this?” Adel jerked her head in the direction of the noise.
“Nothing is ever perfect, Adel,” Freia said, “and if you do not embrace life's small sacrifices, then you will find yourself facing only its greatest ones.”
The girl stared at the ground for several long moments as her mother placed the fox pelt upon her head. Freia was wise, but she was mated to a man who would not listen to her wisdom. Adel did not think she could ever bear such a fate. If she tried hard enough, she would never have to. She and Uriel had dreamed of something better, and that hope, that determination, had kept her strong all these years.
She reached up to touch her headdress, sensing the power of her spirit guardian flowing through her. “Thank you for your wisdom, Mother. But as you say, I am a woman now.”
Freia's sad smile lingered as she helped her daughter adjust her new fox pelt. “Yes, you are.”
Unease gripped the pack as the cries of the wounded man continued day after day, an unpleasant tension steadily growing in the camp until it was almost unbearable. Many times Adel considered making him a brew of the nightwood plant strong enough to drag his soul deep enough into the spirit world that it would never return. It would appear that he had simply succumbed to his wounds, and his suffering would be at an end.
Yet the thought of taking a man's life, even as a mercy, still unnerved her, and her father's warriors maintained a constant vigil over the captive night and day. Several times Ulric attempted to question him, but he was too lost within his fevered half-consciousness to say anything of use.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the cries of pain grew quieter, then stopped. The warriors carried a cold body from the hut a day later, taking it east to be cast into the river rather than giving the man the honour of a pyre. As much as it sickened Adel to see it done, she could not help but feel relieved that the hunter's ordeal was finally over. How could her father have permitted his suffering to go on for so long, even if he was an enemy?
The strain of the past days made her tense and irritable, and she found herself longing for the next full moon again. She needed desperately to forget about it all, and her only way of doing so was in the company of Jarek. It became difficult to come and go as freely as she once had, for her father had warriors patrolling the land to the east regularly, ever vigilant for signs of the Sun People. The ford she usually used was watched often, and she knew that if any of the warriors caught her scent where it did not belong then her father would soon hear of it.
She took instead to heading south, where the seers often ventured to collect their herbs, taking a carrying bag with her and wandering idly on two legs until she was out of sight of the den. Then, upon reaching a split boulder shrouded in thorny bushes, she would stash her bag in a crack in the rock and take the shape of her wolf, angling away to the east. There was another river crossing farther to the south of her usual ford, deeper and more difficult, but far less conspicuous.
Once again she pushed herself to make the run faster every day, training her body in the hopes that she would soon be able to reach her secret spot just as quickly as she had done via the more direct route. Season by season she was growing taller and stronger, and her encounter with the Sun People had only strengthened her resolve to some day match the physical prowess of a warrior.
Crossing through the lands beyond the river was a tense undertaking, all the more so thanks to the occasional scents of her father's warriors lacing the terrain. She tried to follow the stream running south from her pool as much as possible, masking her trail in the shallows, eyes always open and ears pricked for any signs of hunters like the ones she had blundered
into so foolishly before. Her father might well have been wise in forbidding her to venture east alone, but for Adel the risk was justified. Seeing Jarek again was important to her, and learning the new route helped to train her body and sharpen her senses.
After the strain of the past days, the coming of the full moon brought a flutter of excitement to life in Adel's breast again. The feeling of elation grew as she crossed the river under the cover of night and followed the stream north, coming across faint pawprints in the mud that were quickly washing away. Every now and again she caught snatches of a familiar scent on the wind. Skin and fur. Dry grass. A subtle hint of nutty wood. Jarek had approached via the stream as well. It seemed they shared similar thoughts on secrecy.
A tingle of pleasure ran through Adel as she followed the fast-fading trail, and it stayed with her all the way to the pool. Though she and Jarek were very different, there were a few curious little things they had in common. Somehow, that pleased Adel more than it should have.
He was waiting for her under the dappled moonlight as always, stripping a supple green bough free of twigs and bark. Smiling back at her as she emerged from the darkness, he held up a familiar length of wood between his fingers. Adel recognised it as one of the Sun People's darts.
“I found this on my way,” Jarek said. “If you find the right wood and some tough twine, you can cast it like a bird through the air. Better than skipping stones, no?”
“And where do you hope to find twine to go with that stick?”
Jarek pulled a face. “I was hoping you might bring some. Seers always carry all sorts of trinkets.”
Daughter of the Night: A Book of The Moon People Page 9
