by Jae Waller
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Then do it for us. You’re the okoreni, the future leader of the Rin-jouyen. You’re supposed to help with this stuff.”
My gaze brushed over Fendul’s tattoos. The kinaru on his left arm was wreathed by black huckleberries from his mother’s crest. One day, the interlocking lines around his upper right arm, a finger-width shy of a circle, would be joined just like his father’s.
Fendul hadn’t been first in line for okoreni. His parents had two daughters before him. Neither girl reached a year — some foreign illness from itherans. Fendul, the third and last child, lived. He was eight when his father became okorebai and he became okoreni. He hadn’t even been initiated into adulthood yet.
Growing up, I admired one thing about Fendul. Alongside me, he learned to trap game and tan furs, alongside Nili, to sew and weave, plus he helped the woodcarvers, herbalists, leatherworkers — all so he’d understand the work of the people he was bound by blood to lead. That hadn’t stopped ten-year-old me from rubbing itchbine leaves in his gloves after he reset my snares the “proper” way. Or thirteen-year-old me from filling his bed with ice after he told Isu I snuck off to meet a canoe carver’s apprentice among the huckleberry bushes.
He shifted his hand over his okoreni tattoo. “We can’t go south, Kako.”
“I need to get out of here, Fen. Something happened this morning. I saw the sacred rioden whole again. There’s only one place dead things come back to life.”
“Aeldu-yan.” He was silent while it sank in. “We should feel fortunate to see it.”
I snorted. “To glimpse a sliver of something, not enough to know if it’s real? That’s how people go insane.”
“Then we’ll find a way to prove it’s real.”
“I don’t want it to be. Aeldu-yan never changes, but what about the aeldu? Burying my parents and cousins was bad enough. I don’t want to see them after they’ve been dead for six years, wounds, rot, and all. I want to see my living family again.”
He chopped a hand through the air. “No. My father will never agree.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll figure out some other way so you don’t have to get involved.” I brushed chaff off my legs and stalked off.
•
“I don’t know what this is, but it’s mine now.” Nili collapsed next to me with a dramatic puff of breath. She bit off a piece of something pale yellow and leathery and spoke between chews. “Huh. Some dried itheran fruit. Not sure it was worth the fight.”
“He let you win and you know it,” I said.
Nili stuck her tongue out at me. “What’s with you tonight?”
We were gathered around a firepit with other Rin our age, too old to be with the children, too young to have our own. Everyone we were permitted to marry was here. Which would mean coming right back here, every year, to houses full of the dead. Marrying a Rin was like choosing to only eat liver for the rest of my life.
People passed around a bottle of clear rye alcohol someone had bartered. Itherans called it brånnvin, their word for “burn-wine.” Yironem and his best friend looked scrawny amid a cluster of older boys playing dice. Yironem used to sit with Nili and me, until this spring when he turned thirteen and decided he didn’t want a sister.
The brawny drummer that Nili had just fought a tug-of-war with stared at her from across the fire. Nili’s ex-lover Orelein, twenty-one and thin as a javelin, stared at the drummer. The arrow Orelein was whittling snapped in his hands. He’d also sat with us until this spring when Nili decided she didn’t want a lover — or at least, not him.
“Ore was like this all summer,” Nili grumbled. “Talk about a mood-killer. I can’t stay here and watch him sulk all winter, too.”
“You might have to.” I watched Fendul pass the brånnvin on without taking a drink. “Fen won’t do it. I asked earlier.”
“Ass.” Nili waved her half-eaten fruit around. “So, what now?”
“I don’t know.” I ran a finger over grass forcing its way up between two flagstones. “Let’s go to the shrine. The star rain should start soon.”
We looped around a few buildings to get out of sight. There was just enough moonlight to see by as we kicked our way through tall grass. Nili hummed to herself, occasionally spinning in circles like a spectral vestige of the lake dance.
The tiered shrine was the tallest building on Aeti Ginu, built at the edge of the western cliff. A towering gateway marked the entrance. Its posts were thick rioden logs with carvings of birds and twisting vines. The lintel displayed a row of kinaru, wings folded as if diving through the air. We were halfway up the dirt stairs when I heard footsteps.
“Unless you changed your mind, piss off,” I said.
Fendul hesitated under the gate. “Kako, it’s not up to me.”
I ignored him and headed to the strip of ground behind the shrine. I lit a stone lantern as tall as my chest and replaced the latticed cover. The fish oil in the lantern well reeked from sitting out all summer. Light danced across the earth, cutting off where the cliff dropped away into darkness. The lantern was meant to signal the aeldu. If I was stuck here, maybe it was worth proving Aeldu-yan didn’t exist. That my vision was just a fluke hallucination.
Narrow balconies wrapped around each of the shrine’s three storeys. I climbed up their railings and gutters and pulled myself onto the rough shingles of the roof, my flail clanking at my side. I rarely took my weapons off except to sleep. Their weight on my belt was as familiar as a pair of worn boots.
Fendul shifted from foot to foot as if the aeldu were going to rise out of the earth. “We shouldn’t be here. And you really shouldn’t be on the roof.”
“Ooh, the okoreni is mad. We’re in for it now.” Nili scrambled onto the shingles next to me.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “This is sacred ground.”
“So sacred we stuck a building on it.” I held out my arms as I walked along the slanted roof. Firelight glowed back by the plank houses. The mountains of Anwen Bel sprawled out in the distance.
“Ai! I saw the first one!” Nili cried.
“Shit.” I flipped her an iron coin. Most of our trade was for food, tools, or cloth, but Nili and I kept a few itheran coins for betting. “I was sure I’d get it this year.”
“You’re breaking this many laws just to bet on falling stars?” Fendul asked in disbelief.
Nili’s laugh exploded through the night. “Y’have to come up here for the best view!”
“Don’t encourage him,” I muttered.
Fendul’s head appeared at the edge of the roof, followed by his body. “Do you two come to the shrine during every star rain?”
“Yeah. I imagine a star barrelling into you.” I sat down and beamed at him. “Maybe this year. Punishment for violating sacred ground with us.”
“I need to pee,” Nili announced. She slid off the roof and disappeared.
Fendul fiddled with his crow amulet. “Can we talk about—”
“Nei.”
“Kateiko.” The exasperation in his voice was clear. “Why are you mad at me?”
“Because you’re an ass.”
“Kako?” Nili called, more tentative than I’d ever heard. “There’s something down here.”
“Ai?” I leaned over the edge. “Probably bats. The lantern might’ve disturbed them.”
“I don’t think so.” Nili stared into the grass.
“Well, come back up, and—” I paused when I saw large amber eyes glint in the firelight.
A knee-high cat slunk forward on paws the size of my hands. Sharp tufted ears, mottled fur, knob tail. It yowled, revealing thick fangs.
“What is it?” Nili backed away, trapped between the shrine and the cliff.
“Snowcat.” Fendul jumped down and drew his sword. I was right behind him.
The c
at held its ground. I held its gaze, barely daring to breathe. A scar crossed its left eye. Every story I’d heard about snowcats ran through my head. They could swim rushing rivers, walk on snow without sinking, tear apart full-grown elk.
Fendul leapt forward. He cut a swath through grass as the cat shied away. He lunged again and opened a gash in its side. Blood spattered the ground.
“Don’t kill it!” I cried — and I wasn’t sure why, but I grabbed Fendul’s arm and pulled him back. He stumbled into the lantern. It tipped, the stone cover rolling away.
“What’s wrong with you?” he yelled.
“It’s not attacking! Look!” I flung my hand out. The cat hissed.
“Idiot!” Fendul pushed me toward Nili without taking his eyes off the cat — but there was another problem. Burning grass rippled around the lantern, spitting out sparks.
“Kaid,” I swore and lifted my arms. A wave of water rose from the earth and crashed onto the flames. I called up another wave—
—and the world split again. There was Aeldu-yan, its wooded mountains shimmering. Smoke and steam poured into the air and stopped at the cliff edge, swirling back like a diverted creek. I staggered toward the shrine. The railing collided with my ribs.
“Kako!” Nili pulled my arm over her shoulder and began to drag me away.
“Wait,” I tried to say, but I could only gasp for breath. I looked up to get Nili’s attention and instead found the last person I wanted to see.
Behadul stood at the corner of the shrine. I whirled, hearing his javelin cut the air, and saw the iron head sink into the snowcat’s chest.
The animal shrieked. It reeled backward and tumbled over the cliff — and then there was silence. A single star streaked across the sky and winked out.
•
“Explain,” Behadul said to Fendul. He had dismissed the rest of the jouyen with a sweep of his arm. They scattered, shutting doors and windows behind them. The last person I saw was the eldest of the elders, her wrinkled face fixed on me with loathing.
We stood by the firepits, facing Behadul, Isu, and Nili’s mother, Hiyua. Nili gripped my hand. It felt like a river shark had its teeth in my stomach. I silently begged Fendul to lie. Say we lit the lantern to scare the cat off. Leave out the roof.
Fendul took a deep breath. “I followed Kateiko and Nisali to the shrine. The snowcat was hiding in the grass. We didn’t notice at first because we — we were on the roof.”
I felt like he’d backhanded me with the flat of his blade. Nili wilted beside me.
His knuckles were tight on the hilt of his sword. “The cat went after Nisali. I tried to kill it, but Kateiko stopped me.”
“It didn’t attack!” I said, louder than intended.
“It would’ve bitten Nili’s leg off!” Fendul snapped.
“Kateiko, once again you endanger yourself and others.” Isu’s face was drawn as tight as her grey-streaked braid. “What compelled you to go off alone at night, dragging Nisali along?”
“I chose to go,” Nili said indignantly at the same time Hiyua said in a cool voice, “I’ll ask you not to speak for my daughter.”
Behadul held up a hand. His voice rumbled through the night. “No one may enter shrine grounds until the autumn equinox. Kateiko, Nisali, you know this.”
“Fendul was there, too!” Nili said.
“Only because he went after you two, which the aeldu will understand. Our ancestors will be less forgiving of people traipsing around on their sacred home as if it were a fishing dock.”
“Are we ignoring that you killed the first snowcat in Anwen Bel?” I demanded. “What if that was an attuned person?”
The wrinkles on his face betrayed no emotion. “Death is a fitting penalty for anyone who enters another jouyen’s sacred ground.”
A chill spread across my skin. “That’s barbaric.”
“We owe respect and protection to the aeldu—”
“That’s all that matters to you!” I shouted. “You sent the Rin to war just to protect some stupid spirits! The Dona-jouyen was our family once! You don’t care that we butchered them!”
Isu seized me by the back of the neck. Her voice was so low that only I could hear. “Inside. Now.” She pushed me toward our plank house and pointed me in. “We’ll talk in the morning.” She shut the door very quietly.
When I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I went out the far door. Grass rustled around my legs as I crept toward Nili’s house, guided by light that spilled out around the shutters. I went in without knocking. Vellum lanterns painted with branches and flowers formed pools of yellow light in the long building. Nili and Hiyua got up. Yironem waved from where he sat with his friend. The other families ignored me.
Nili cast me a weak smile. “I didn’t think Isu would let you out tonight. Or ever.”
“She said inside. She didn’t say where.” I rubbed my eyes. “Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Of course.” Hiyua wrapped her arms around me. I buried my face in her shoulder and inhaled the scent of fish oil, the same way my mother used to smell.
2.
ANWEN BEL
By morning I’d made up my mind. I refused to live here and go crazy from visions of the dead. I also refused to die here. That left one option.
“I know the route, roughly,” I told Nili as we washed dishes outside. She scrubbed wooden bowls with lye soap while I rinsed them with a stream of water I called from the air. “Dunehein described it before he left. If we hike southeast, we’ll get around the tip of that ocean inlet that comes in from the west. Then south to the Iyo border crossing, and then southwest to their settlement at Toel Ginu. Ten days max if nothing goes wrong.”
“You sure it’s not easier to row?” she asked.
“The rivers go east to west. We’d spend most of our time portaging. Better to walk without carrying a canoe.”
“What if we go by sea? Toel Ginu’s on the coast.”
I flicked water at her. “Rin canoes can’t handle ocean swells. We’d drown.”
“We could get on an itheran ship.”
“How much money do you have?”
Nili looked in the leather purse on her belt. “Fourteen pann. My family mostly traded for preserves this summer. Yiro’s growing so fast he eats like a wolf.”
“So together you and I can afford passage on a toy boat.” I sighed. “Look, you don’t have to come—”
“I’m not backing out, Kako. ‘Today we fly,’ right? Or, well, hike.”
“It probably won’t work without Fendul. But I can’t wait around for him to change his mind.”
Nili stopped scrubbing. “Something’s different. What happened at the lake yesterday?”
“I don’t know. I keep . . . seeing things.” I brushed my hair out of my face, leaving behind a wet streak. “I saw the scorched rioden alive again. I wasn’t sure it even happened, but I had another vision at the shrine.”
“Maybe you should tell Isu.”
“She’ll say the same thing as Fendul. That I’m lucky. I don’t think seeing the land of the dead is ever a good sign. If the dead wanted to help, they’d make me immune to stab wounds. And bears.”
Nili shrugged. “Well, I asked Orelein to travel somewhere other than the same boring itheran village, and he said no. So fuck him. I’m going with you.”
Saying goodbye to Nili’s family was the hardest part. I hadn’t seen them all summer, and now we were leaving after only a few days together. I hugged Yironem and jabbed his ribs. “Listen to your mother. And stay away from floods.”
“You don’t,” he muttered.
Hiyua gave me a long embrace, stroking my hair. “Be safe,” she said before turning to hug Nili again.
No sound came from my plank house as we approached. I paused in the doorway to trace my fingers over the carved frame. The history of every family in the
house was recorded there, stretching back generations upon generations. Only two hadn’t ended, mine and Fendul’s. I knew there was more to the world than this. I just had to get there.
Inside, thin bands of sunlight streamed through the shutters. Isu’s bed was perfectly made. I stuffed a few things into my carryframe — a wool shirt and leggings, leftover trail food, a cottonspun blanket embroidered with the fir branches of my mother’s crest. I kissed the hilt of my father’s sword and placed it on the wall mount. I’d never learned to wield it, but I had both his knives on my belt. My flail had been a gift for my ninth birthday.
I hesitated over a bone needle. Iren kohal, I reminded myself. Rivers keep flowing. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t turn back. But even rivers took bits of the earth with them. I wrapped the needle in a square of sap-coloured silk and placed it in my purse.
“Is it too much to hope everyone went hunting?” I asked Nili as I did up the bindings on my carryframe. The words had just left my mouth when the door swung open.
Isu froze on the doorstep. “Where are you going?”
“South.” I dropped the straps and straightened up.
She crossed the room with long strides. “Not after last night.”
“What are you going to do, tie me to the shrine gate?”
“I’ll keep you here until you demonstrate self-restraint. I can’t allow you to represent the Rin to another jouyen when you insist on endangering and disgracing your own.”
Nili put her hands on her hips. “Technically I’ll represent the Rin since I’m older.”
Isu cast her a cold look. “That’s hardly an improvement.”
“I asked you to come, Isu,” I said. “You haven’t seen your younger son since before the war.”
“Things change.” Her mouth made that thin line I knew too well.
“Maybe it’s a good thing Dunehein left.” I gave a hollow laugh and gestured at the plank house. “He seems to have fared better than his brother. What should I tell him? That even after we buried Emehein, twice, you still thought fighting the Dona was the right decision?”
