Tristaine Rises

by Cate Culpepper

  “They’ll quail in terror, Shann.” Kyla smiled at her lovingly and kissed her cheek. “But they’ll step right smart, too. Your word compels us.”

  “Yes, in this and all things.” Shann eased back against the furs and pressed Brenna’s hand. “Will you stay a moment, Blades? For private council.”

  “I’d be honored.” Brenna felt Jess’s finger brush her face, and she smiled up at her. “See you soon, hotshot.”

  “Lady.” Jess nodded at Shann and herded Dana and Kyla out of the healing lodge.

  Brenna sighed, content to regard the queen in silence as long as she allowed it. The grieving message that had drifted from the stone sculpture in Shann’s voice still haunted her. Brenna told herself, with every league that passed beneath Bracken’s hooves on their way back to the mesa, that it hadn’t been a farewell. Now she drank in Shann’s face—the laugh lines etched around her kind eyes, the slight smile on her lips—with simple pleasure.

  “It’s my turn to hover, little sister.” Shann’s gaze turned appraising. “My slumber was deep and dreamless, but I wasn’t the only one knocked senseless by that scary-as-shit altar out there.” Shann managed a fair imitation of Dana’s voice, but then her smile faded. “What happened to you, Brenna?”

  “I guess I have to call it a vision.” Brenna closed her eyes, remembering. “Some strange, chaotic world, hardly more than a gray blur. There was an ugly buzzing sound, but I couldn’t see what caused it.”

  She gave as clear an account as possible of her time in that odd world and the light-drenched giant she encountered there. She was careful to keep her report linear and factual, but when she was finished, Shann studied her thoughtfully.

  “And what was your heart telling you, Blades? That information may be just as vital as the testimony of your eyes.”

  “Well.” Brenna swallowed. “I was scared out of my head. First of how strange everything was, that awful static, and I couldn’t see anything. Then of the giant. But when she—or he—reached toward me, I stopped being scared. And not because she was holding that plant instead of a weapon. I just knew she wouldn’t hurt me. There was some kind of…benevolence, there.”

  “Good.” Shann traced Brenna’s wrist with her thumb, apparently lost in thought.

  “Hey—the plant, we found it.” Brenna started out of her memories and reached for the canvas bag she’d dropped at the foot of Shann’s pallet. She lifted it into her lap and carefully withdrew the lush plant, its roots wrapped in soft parchment soaked in water from her canteen. “I was hoping that giant spirit showed it to me because it might help you, that it was medicinal. We’ve only seen it growing in that cemetery.”

  “You see this shrub everyday, Brenna, here in Tristaine.” Shann fingered the gold berries with something like reverence. “Every time you pass my lodge, where all the glyphs of our clan are etched above my door. But you see only a stylized rendering. This plant is part of the design of the glyph worn by our clan’s seers.”

  Brenna blinked. “Our seers?”

  “You being our only one, at the moment.” Shann turned the cutting carefully in her hands to examine its leaves. “Tristaine passed long generations without birthing anyone gifted with your second sight. I’ve never laid eyes on this plant in nature, Brenna. Finding it is a true blessing.”

  “Then it’s not used for healing?”

  “It’s a narcotic. And an hallucinogen. Our seers used it much as other cultures used peyote or certain mushrooms. It induces trance and opens doors to other planes.”

  “Oh.” Brenna’s voice squeaked a bit. “Then it’s for me?”

  Shann pursed her lips. “Tell me again how you felt in your vision when you first touched this plant?”

  Brenna sighed. “Thirsty.”

  “It’s for you.”

  Brenna stared at the spiked leaves in Shann’s fingers. “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll do it. Another trance, a little nap. I can handle that.”

  “We need to move quickly, Blades. Tonight, after the assembly.”

  “Okay.”

  “Set this in water for now.” Shann rested her head back against the furs as Brenna arranged the plant in a pitcher and placed it on a table that caught sunlight from the beaded window. “A giant spirit,” she murmured.

  “I’m sorry?” Brenna sat on the pallet again.

  “You described her well, Bren. That she was.”

  “Who?” Brenna was puzzled. “Are you talking about the giant I saw in the vision?”

  “You saw her there.” Shann lifted Brenna’s hand again and smoothed her fingers on the soft blanket. “You heard her when your blood sister cast herself into the river. And she came to you seasons ago, just before the flood covered Tristaine.”

  Troubled, Brenna focused on Shann’s hands and the simple silver ring she wore on her middle finger. She’d seen its twin before on a large, spectral hand outlined in light.

  “Dyan,” she whispered.

  “Dyan.” The name was a prayer on Shann’s lips.

  They sat quietly for a while. Around them, Tristaine was coming to life again. Horses trumpeted from the stables, hammers mended railings, voices called to each other.

  “Lady?”

  “Yes, Bren.”

  “We found a sculpture outside the cemetery. It depicted the Queen’s Blessing. And the Amazon queen...she spoke to me. In your voice.”

  “Mine?” Shann’s brows rose. “What did she say?”

  “J’heika, rise.” Brenna paused. “And you asked me to forgive you.”

  Shann’s gaze drifted toward the window. “I can’t fathom this message, adanin. But I’ll rest on it. It’s one more piece of a puzzle we must solve quickly if we’re to preserve our clan.”

  Brenna nodded, then got up and smoothed the blankets over Shann’s shoulders. “I’ll call someone to bring you a light supper, Shann, and sit with you while you rest. I don’t want to hear of you twitching before sundown.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Shann smiled. “No twitching.”

  Brenna checked the plant in its patch of sunlight, then went to the door. Glancing back, she saw a tear forming a silver trail down Shann’s cheek.

  “Lady?” she called softly. “Are you in pain?”

  Shann shook her head, eyes closed. “No, loved one. It’s probably a...a perimenopausal hormone surge. It’s just...ah, Bren.”

  Brenna waited.

  “I so wish she could have come to me,” Shann whispered. Her head settled deeper into the furs as she drifted into sleep.

  Brenna lowered her eyes and stepped quietly out of the lodge. She blinked at the clouded sunlight of midday, her mind churning with lost love and evil altars and the trial that awaited her when the moon rose.

  A prospect made all the more daunting by the sick certainty in Brenna’s gut. She knew, as surely as she knew she loved Jess, that Shann had understood the stone queen’s message. And she’d lied about it.

  *

  She didn’t like being separated from Jess.

  Brenna had never been the clingy type. And accusations of hovering aside, she was usually able to suppress her more florid imaginings of disaster, even where her lifemate was concerned. But as Brenna moved through the village, she still searched constantly for Jess, who was riding a check of the mesa and wouldn’t be back any time soon. That knowledge didn’t ease Brenna’s craving to see her. An image of Sirius’s brutalized body flashed through her mind, and she shuddered.

  She was stopped frequently by Amazons wanting to hear the latest on Shann or ask questions about that night’s clan council. When did this happen, Brenna wondered. When did I become a trusted source to these fierce, amazing women?

  She remembered her first days in Tristaine. Reeling with culture shock and the trauma of the Clinic, Brenna had doubted she would ever find acceptance in Jess’s clan. Shann’s faith in her had helped, as had the friendship of Kyla and Camryn, and the strong, steady beat of Jess’s heart beneath her cheek as they slept peaceful nights beneath
Tristaine’s Seven Sisters.

  Brenna stopped short as a gaggle of children passed in front of her, herded with loving sternness by women from the guild of mothers. She grinned at one toddler who seemed fixated on inserting her finger into as many ears as possible, and returned the waves of the older kids. The clan’s young all idolized Jess, and Brenna enjoyed basking in the warmth of her reflected glory.

  She folded her arms, watching the small crew scramble its way to the dining hall, and a kind of wistfulness filled her. She thought of Vicar’s infant son and the sweetness of his downy head cradled in the palm of her hand. Brenna and her sisters would watch this boy grow into puberty, then tell him good-bye. These partings were often wrenching for all involved, but they were a necessary part of Amazon culture.

  Brenna had never considered bearing a child. Childbirth was regulated by the City as strictly as all other human endeavors. Genetic screenings had to be passed and permits secured. Brenna had assumed that her single-minded focus on her career would eclipse any hope for family life. And in her heart, she would have feared for any child in her care. During her last year in the City, she had spent too much time in an alcohol-induced haze to be trusted with an infant.

  Brenna’s gaze drifted from the children to a young mother whose arms would always ache with the memory of a lost baby. Samantha sat cross-legged on the low stone wall that separated the village square from the cabins beyond it, seeming oblivious to the activity around her, or the chill breeze that swept the square. She was curled around something she held in her hand, and Brenna saw a small flash of flame from a match.

  “Since when do you smoke?”

  So ingrained was her reaction to her older sister’s voice, Sammy actually whipped the hand-rolled cigarette out of her mouth and hid it behind her back. Jess would have found the resemblance between them striking as she glared back at Brenna.

  “Since when do you creep up on a person like a damn ghost?” Sammy snapped. She drew the cigarette out again and looked at it dismally. It was a flaking mess.

  Brenna uncrossed her arms and sat on the wall beside her sister, leaving a careful distance between them. “Sheesh, you used to be so healthy, Sam. You always nagged me about nutrition and exercise.”

  “Yeah, well, someone had to nag you.” Samantha scowled, trying to roll the shredded tobacco and paper back into some semblance of a tube. “You take terrible care of yourself.”

  Not necessarily true anymore , Brenna thought. “Where did you get that, anyway?”

  “An older bald lady who smokes a pipe.” Sammy squinted at her work. “I asked her for it. She called me a weed.”

  Brenna muttered imprecations against Sarah in her head, but managed to smother further criticism as her sister succeeded in lighting up. She took the time to study her. Samantha’s eyes had lost some of that frightening blankness, but her face was pale and drawn even in the chill breeze of afternoon. “How do you feel, Sammy?”

  “I’m all right.” Samantha scraped tobacco off the tip of her tongue with one fingernail. “I’m sorry I made you guys jump into that river after me. You don’t swim very well.”

  “You don’t swim at all.” Brenna risked touching her hand. “You were trying to kill yourself, Sam.”

  “Not really.” Sammy blew out a plume of smoke and coughed, her eyes distant. “Or not on purpose. I just wanted to rest. I’ve been so tired.”

  “Tired?” Brenna moved closer to her, anxiety sharpening her voice. “You wanted to die because you were tired?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Brenna.” Samantha’s tone was sud-denly entirely adult. “I don’t have to explain myself to you anymore. Karen and Lee Ann were gone, my baby and Matt were gone, and finding you just didn’t seem so—”

  “Wait a minute. Slow down.” Brenna gripped her shoulder. “Who’s Karen? Who’s Lee Ann?”

  Sammy blinked, then stared at the glowing cigarette in her fingers. “Karen was my legal defender in the City. Lee Ann was her partner. They were both Amazon-crazy. They ate up all the rumors about Tristaine.” Grief filled Samantha’s eyes. “They got me out of the Prison. And gave up everything they had to do it, too. The City would have killed them if they were caught. They came with me to find you and the Amazons.”

  “What happened to them, Sammy?”

  Samantha didn’t answer at once. The silence spun out between them, and in spite of the tension in her gut, Brenna let it linger. She was beginning to see the first hints of the expressive sister she knew in the myriad of emotions passing over Sammy’s face.

  “They were like a couple of kids.” The corner of Samantha’s mouth lifted. “Both of them were older than me, but I felt like their mother sometimes. They were so excited about Tristaine. And they were so sappy in love. That was hard. I missed Matt so much.”

  Samantha’s eyes filled, and Brenna took her hand.

  “It was pretty hard travel. Karen and Lee Ann knew more about the mountains than I did, but we all grew up in the City. We weren’t real prepared. We kept running out of food. Karen got these awful blisters.” Samantha shivered and tucked her free hand beneath her arm to warm it. “But we found the maps the Amazons left in each of their camps. They kept us going. Half the time we could see a trail to follow from all of you passing through. It was such a...different world for me, all that sky. Sometimes I’d go whole hours without remembering.”

  Brenna murmured something. No real words, just a soft sound of encouragement.

  “Lee Ann fell from a high ridge about two-thirds of the way up the south face. Karen died trying to save her.”

  “Ah, Sam.” Brenna let out a long breath. She had seen that ridge awash in Amazon blood in one of her dreams, when the women of Tristaine had climbed the mountain pass last summer. Shann had heeded her warning to avoid it. Taking that route had shortened Samantha’s journey to the mesa, but at a hideous cost. “I’m so sorry about your friends. They were Amazons from the day they were born, and we’ll add their names to Tristaine’s roster of our honored fallen.”

  Samantha stared at her. “You’re different here, Bree, aren’t you?”

  Brenna thought about it. “Yeah. I am different. I’ve changed a lot since we last saw each other.”

  “You look stronger.”

  “I am.”

  “Physically and otherwise.”

  “And otherwise.” Brenna nodded.

  “No booze?”

  “No.” She dropped her eyes, regretting the dozen times her younger sister had seen her drunk. She’d never been raucous or belligerent, even at her worst, but her indifferent neglect had been just as damaging. “No booze, not for a long time.”

  “Hey. Brenna.” Samantha’s hand touched hers, then held it firmly, and her eyes lit with a familiar warmth. “That’s good. I’m really glad. I was scared for you. You were drinking so much. I’m really glad you were able to stop.”

  “Thanks. Me too.” Brenna stared down at their entwined fingers, and Sammy slipped hers free.

  They sat together quietly for a while, watching the small groups of women milling around them. The square was emptying now, as the Amazons prepared for their evening council.

  “The queen’s awake, I hear.” Samantha cradled her elbows in her palms.

  “Yes.” Brenna rubbed her eyes. “Shann’s awake. We have no earthly idea what woke her up. Or what knocked her flat in the first place.”

  “You care a lot about her.”

  “I do.”

  Another silence fell between them.

  “I’m sorry, Sam.” Brenna kept her gaze on the tall trees ringing the village. “I hope you’ll forgive me someday for bringing Caster down on you and Matt. And I’m so sorry about your daughter.”

  Brenna lowered her head. The words were out, and she’d needed to say them, but she expected no immediate reply. She didn’t receive one. Samantha sat quietly beside her, shivering in the biting air. Brenna took off her denim jacket and wrapped it around her sister’s shoulders.

  “So, is it
okay if I stay?” Samantha asked at last.

  “Oh, honey. Of course it’s okay.” Brenna found a smile. “Tristaine’s full of women who are refugees from the City. You can make a home here. I’ll help you. Lots of us will help.”

  “All right. Thanks.” A smile ghosted across Samantha’s face.

  Brenna turned as she heard the distinctive, clopping gait of a particular mountain mustang.

  Jess cantered into the square, scanning the women around her, then finding Brenna. She slid from Bracken’s back in one smooth motion and walked toward them. Brenna drank in the sight of Jess’s wild, dark hair blowing around the planes of her face, the breadth of her shoulders, that easy, graceful step, and fell in love all over again.

  She jumped from the low rock wall, met Jess midstride, and wrapped her arms around her neck with a grateful sigh.

  “Where’s yer coat?” Jess growled into her hair.

  “I’m warm enough,” Brenna mumbled. “Just don’t let go.”

  “Never will.”

  Brenna finally released her and gazed up into Jess’s eyes, which sparkled with warmth. “Damn. My girlfriend is such a hunk.”

  Jess’s eyebrow arched. “A hunk, am I now?” She looked past Brenna and saw Samantha lift herself off the wall. “How’s the young one, Bren?”

  “Better,” Brenna murmured. “We have to talk, but it can wait until after the assembly.”

  Jess nodded and turned to include Samantha as she joined them. “Hello, lass. Good to see you up and about.”

  “Hi.” Samantha smiled at Jess shyly. “I guess there’s big doings tonight?”

  “Aye, a gathering of our clan. A good chance to see Tristaine in full force, if you’re up to it.”

  “I am. Should I just wait here, or—?”

  “Nope, nope.” Brenna took her sister in one arm and Jess in the other. “We’re going home. You haven’t seen our cabin yet, Sammy, and Jess hasn’t eaten since dawn. I’ll rustle us up some dinner before the council.”