Daughter of the Wolf (Pathway of the Chosen Book 2)

by Cat Bruno

  Sharron had sensed it as well and reached for a large roll of bleached linen. “Would you be more at ease lying down?” she asked.

  Caryss felt as if she could no longer speak, her body flowing and swaying to a song she could not hear, only feel. With a nod, she let them lower her to the ground.

  A blanket was draped over her and the healer’s pants removed. Around her, the courtyard was quiet, the light faded except for a dancing orb-light across the field.

  “No magic,” she breathed to Gregorr, who was seated beside her.

  Just as quickly as she had muttered the words, Gregorr was gone, and, when she looked up again, the orb-light had disappeared.

  The birthing cramps still came, one after another, but the pain had lessened, from Gregorr’s runes or from the herbs, she knew not. As she shifted her body, leaning onto her elbows, Caryss felt dampness spread across the blanket where she lay. It was too dark to see if it was blood-tinged or not, but she had birthed enough babes to know that her own time was near. For the last moon, Caryss had known that the babe was facing downward, unlike Asha, whose own babe would have died if Caryss had not cut him from her. For a moment she thought of the woman, hoping that both mother and child were thriving.

  Sharron whispered to her, and a wave of consciousness fell over her, bringing her back to the courtyard. “Are you ready to push?”

  More times than she could remember, Caryss had been, like Sharron now, kneeling with her sleeves rolled high, at the feet of a woman ready to meet her babe. With her mind again clouded with pain, Caryss thought of the clinic, a life long past, and stared into the silver-edged darkness.

  Again, Sharron was speaking, and Caryss had to shake herself back to understanding.

  “Open your eyes!” the other healer called.

  With effort, she followed Sharron’s command, struggling but finally managing to keep her heavy eyes raised. When she looked to her, Caryss noticed concern.

  For a moment her lips would not move, yet, after a few tries, she asked, still in a daze, “Is something amiss?”

  “It seems as if you are sleeping, Caryss, and the babe is ready. You must begin pushing.”

  “I feel as if I am on boat, Sharron, sailing across the sea on gentle waves,” she mumbled, as way of explanation.

  “You are on no boat,” Sharron chided. “You are lying on the ground outside the home of the High Lord. Gregorr’s blessing calmed you too much perhaps. I need you to keep your eyes on me. Do not look away from me, Caryss. I want you to breathe in deeply, and push both breath and babe from you.”

  Like a child chastised, Caryss could only nod and obey, keeping her eyes on Sharron as she sucked the misty night air into her. As she exhaled, Caryss squeezed her hands closed and pushed, never looking away from the other healer.

  “Good,” Sharron called, “But not quite strong enough. Again.”

  So again she pushed, this time groaning as a fiery pain tore through her, bursting and crackling. No longer sailing gently as her thighs grew sleek and her lower half ripped open.

  In the air, cool and foggy, she tasted blood.

  “Have Gregorr prepare some cayenne and chamomile tea,” Caryss moaned as she readied herself to push again.

  Without moving, Sharron turned her head, and called for Gregorr. When he joined them, she hurriedly explained what was needed, pointing to a bag of dried leaves mixed with a fine, red powder. Carefully, he built a small fire, without the aid of magic, and reached for the small pot, setting it into the growing flames.

  As he waited for the water to heat, Gregorr lay beside her, humming as his hands reached for her own.

  “I can hear her song, Caryss,” he whispered.

  Between her legs burned a fire hotter than any she had ever known, and Caryss screamed in pain, the noise echoing through the yard, as if all of Eirrannia could hear and silencing the fennidi’s singing. With the searing ache came a sudden thought, and Caryss grabbed Gregorr’s hand, clasping it tightly as she forced her eyes to open.

  Through clenched teeth, she hissed, “Are your runes strong enough to keep the gods away?”

  His eyes, almond-shaped and forest-stained, shifted, as if he did not understand her concern.

  “The night the babe was made, it was as if someone else was there, too. I will not speak his name, but I do not want him here tonight. Will your spell protect her even from one such as him?”

  Twinkling as if his voice was a bell, Gregorr answered, “My lady, Ohdra has long known of the girl, although none of us knew what she would mean for the fennidi. She is Tribe, as is her father, and his father, who is more. I am here for you and for your daughter, as are all my people now so vowed. We are not here for the men who came before her or the gods who are kin. Tonight, her story will begin.”

  With his hand still in her own, he told her, “Tonight is yours alone.”

  Gregorr placed his black-tipped fingers into his mouth, and reached for Caryss once again. Across her rounded stomach, he painted Luna, slivered and hanging.

  The tears that fell from Caryss’s forest-colored eyes glowed as bright as Luna herself. When she wept, the gods watched, absent, yet knowing.

  There was only a small fire burning, a naturally made one, and the woman at her feet was no mage or god; she was only Sharron. Beside her sat the fennidi, who despite his green skin and silver hair, was like her, and would die as he had lived. All present were man and not god, light and not dark, and, for that, Caryss cried anew, loving the fennidi deeply for giving her this night with the girl.

  Both Sharron and Gregorr sensed the change, as Gregorr prepared the tea and Sharron opened Caryss’s legs gently, her pale and slender hands steady and bright against the darkness.

  Exhaling, Caryss pushed again, panting and moaning.

  “Her head is nearly out!” Sharron exclaimed, reaching closer.

  With shaking legs, Caryss pushed, biting at her lip to prevent herself from screaming. Tasting the blood there only made her push harder, until Sharron started weeping, her shoulders shaking as her hair fell from the healer’s knot that she had tied earlier.

  “Sharron?” Caryss cried, still watching the girl.

  When Sharron lifted her face, her eyes were like the sea and her cheeks were wet, but she was smiling, and Caryss watched, breathlessly, as her hands rose.

  Into the silence came a squalling cry as Sharron placed the babe onto Caryss’s chest.

  Nearly purple, her tiny face trembled as she cried.

  Under the soft light of the small fire, Caryss examined the babe, reaching for the linen that Sharron had readied, and wiping away the birth fluids as she gazed upon her. Her hair was dark, although Caryss knew that, in time, flames of red would join the black, and covered all of her head. Her eyes, still mostly closed, were dark too, although Caryss knew that they would lighten, until, like her grandfather’s, they would shine as green as a gemstone. The babe had been born early, but her size was fine and her breathing steady.

  Once wiped clean, she was wrapped in a finely woven blanket made of golden thread, and Caryss looked down, imagining that the babe glowed. But it was only the blanket, bright and shining against the dark sky.

  Without looking up, Caryss whispered, “It is as if I hold the sun in my hands, yet they do not burn.”

  To Gregorr, she called, “It was she who was aflame.”

  Sharron, her face red and still tear-soaked, sobbed, “All my days at the Academy were for this moment. Just this.”

  “Will you mark her, Gregorr?” Caryss suddenly asked, gently rocking the babe who lay quiet in her arms.

  Handing a mug of steaming tea to Sharron, he answered, “There is only one rune needed for her, Caryss. With your permission, I would give her it now.”

  When she nodded, he picked up a juniper berry near him, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, and crushed it, as he had done with Caryss. With darkened fingers, he leaned close, his silver hair falling across both mother and babe. Yet, when his hand was ready
to begin, the babe’s eyes opened, dark and clear.

  As if she watched.

  With a laugh that sounded like song, he continued, placing his stained fingertip over her reddened forehead. Caryss watched as he slowly painted a small, blue streak, as if it was a bolt of lightning, down the center.

  When he was done, he lifted his fingers and sang, “Let this be the first step along your path, both doorway and guide. And remember how many wait for your return. Seek knowledge, child, with each step that you take.”

  He had not been wrong, Caryss thought; only one rune had been needed.

  Before he rose, he told Caryss, “Call for the boy.”

  She nearly questioned him, but nodded toward Sharron who hurried to find Jarek.

  All three had been so focused on the babe that none had heard Conri approach until he, kneeling beside Caryss, whimpered, “Ask anything of me and you will have it.”

  Caryss struggled to sit up, wincing in pain as she shifted her lower half. As she felt a gush between her legs, she reached for the mug, knowing that she still bled. Sipping the tea, she looked at him, with eyes newly opened.

  There was so much to be said between them, and so much ruin behind.

  She loved him, she realized then, although it was impure and damaged, beyond repair, even to her healer’s touch. The High Lord had taken more from her than her parents, more than her memories. He had taken her life, using it for his own gain.

  For that, she would never forgive him. Even with the babe as gift. He would not apologize, she knew, nor did she have need for it.

  Without taking her gaze from him, Caryss said, “I want what I have always wanted and nothing more. Keep her safe, Conri. No matter the cost.”

  “May I hold her?” he asked, his voice low and rumbling.

  Wrapping the babe tightly, she lifted her to him. But before he could reach for her, Gregorr yelled out, stopping her.

  As he neared, with Jarek trailing behind, Gregorr called, “There is one more rune to be written, Caryss. It might be the most necessary of all.”

  She knew not what he meant, nor why Jarek was needed, but she cradled the babe as they kneeled beside her. The boy looked scared, his hair messy and his hands clenched into fists, but he did not object when Gregorr handed him the juniper berries. With the fennidi’s instructions, he crushed the berries, allowing the juice to color his fingertips dark.

  Nodding, Gregorr told Jarek, “Before either of you were born, your kin were enemies, and our lands were torn apart as you battled. A new day has come. If you mark her now, Jarek, you offer her protection. Your protection.”

  Reaching for the boy’s shoulder, he asked, “Do you understand what is at stake here?”

  Caryss listened, as did Conri, whose dark eyes watched, veiled but filled with unspoken warning. She thought he might interrupt, but he waited for Jarek to answer as they all did, in silence.

  “If I mark her, sky and storm can cause her no harm,” Jarek quietly answered, holding his berry-stained fingers in front of him.

  “Is it your desire to offer her such protection?”

  “Yes,” he told them all, his words clear despite his shaking.

  Had she not been holding the babe, Caryss would have reached for him. In her arms, the babe stretched, trying to open tired eyes.

  “On her brow is the mark of wisdom. Atop it, you must place three lines, drawn from west to east. The first shelters her from storm, and the second from sea. The last marks her as yours.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Conri hissed.

  Caryss, too, was surprised by Gregorr’s words and asked what he intended.

  “It is an old rune, one of the oldest known to my people. What the rune offers, it also asks in return. If he marks her, she will be safe. But she will owe him that in return.”

  “She is but a babe!” Caryss cried.

  “Caryss,” Gregorr called, “The choice will be hers. I doubt the boy will hold her to a birth-night vow.”

  “Did I not tell you such were the ways of the fennidi?” Conri growled.

  It was Jarek who answered.

  “I offer her my protection. What choices she makes will be her own, High Lord. I desire nothing more.”

  When she had first met the boy, she did not know the history between Elemental and Tribe. Now, she knew that the girl would need Jarek, more than most perhaps.

  “Make the mark, Jarek,” she called. “She will honor the vow just as you will.”

  The boy looked to the High Lord, who, with a quick nod, gave his assent.

  Without waking her, Jarek brushed his fingers across her forehead, each line steadier than the last. When all three were complete, he held out his hands to Gregorr, who wiped at them with a cloth threaded with runes, some that she had not yet seen. The boy’s hands would likely remain stained for days to come, but he did not seem to mind.

  “Jarek,” Gregorr said, “Let’s go tell the others the news of the babe.”

  Sharron followed them, leaving Conri and Caryss alone. Knowing that Sharron would return soon to tend to her, Caryss glanced down at the babe, lightly traced the juniper stains, and quickly handed her to Conri, before she could change her mind.

  The babe woke, her gray eyes blinking slowly at the High Lord. Caryss watched, wondering if the girl’s eyes would darken in recognition. As he looked down, the babe’s eyes shifted, turning from gray to gold to green. They were murky yet, not the shimmering hue they would one day become, but Caryss could see her own father in them still.

  She is mine, Caryss thought, and of the North.

  In his large hands, the golden-wrapped babe looked tiny. When his finger brushed gently along her cheek, Caryss half-gasped.

  Where just moments before green eyes stared out, now the babe’s eyes were as black as night, the eyes of her father.

  Around them, unseen and hidden, rumbling howls erupted, deepening and loudening as Conri stared at the babe. Beneath Caryss, the ground trembled as the drumming of the wolf calls echoed through the Tribelands.

  Over and over, they called to her, in greeting, their howls welcoming the new daughter of the wolf.

  Smiling, Conri took his hand away, and, again, her eyes faded. The howling ceased. Wordlessly, Caryss sipped the tea before reaching for her daughter. Let them rejoice, she thought.

  After he had given her back, Conri stood, and asked, “Have you given her a name?”

  Each time the girl had visited, Caryss had never called her by name, not by intention. She had never known it, she realized as Conri waited for her to answer. As Conall often reminded her, she had learned little of the Tribe and did not understand their naming rites. But the babe was more than Tribe. She would always be. To name her for her father alone would never be right.

  The girl would be more than Tribe. And more than Eirrannian, if Caryss had her way. And she must have a name to match it.

  A name that many would follow.

  She was asleep in Caryss’s arms when the healer looked toward the High Lord.

  “Syrsha.”

  Freedom.

  *****

  With Gregorr beside her, Caryss stood, leaning on the small man while keeping a woolen blanket wrapped around her lower half. For a long moment, the night darkened further and haze covered her eyes, her head heavy and spinning, as if the ground shifted beneath her bared feet. Without Gregorr’s aid, she would have fallen, weak with blood loss from the birth. Sharron held the babe, who was neatly wrapped in a blanket, fine and soft, more so than any Caryss had seen.

  “It is too soon, yet, Caryss. Rest here until your strength is restored, or let the High Lord carry you inside,” Sharron scolded her.

  Her words were spoken softly, as if in hesitation, yet Sharron was not wrong. Caryss held tightly to the small fennidi, her fingers cutting into his earth-dyed skin. With each step they took, Caryss felt her thighs growing slick with blood. The night sky masked the wet trail that followed her, but she knew that both Sharron and Gregorr sensed her
weakening.

  “It isn’t much farther,” she told them. “There is little else I want than a bath and a bed.”

  “Aye,” Gregorr agreed. “Let us see her to her bed and tend her there if necessary.”

  He offered again to call for the High Lord, but Caryss refused. As she did when he nearly called for Otieno.

  With none but Gregorr beside her, Caryss stumbled her way across the courtyard. When she entered, the slate floor was cool beneath her feet, yet soon the stone shined, glistening with blood.

  Soft orb-lights glimmered around her, and Caryss noticed how stained the blanket she carried had become. Steps away, a large tub sat, steaming and fragrant as a mint-scented fog encircled it. Without thinking, Caryss dropped the blanket and peeled the ripped healer’s robe from her tired body. Again Gregorr was near, leading her to the tub, while Sharron stood just behind them both, the babe asleep in her arms.

  For how long she rested, Caryss did not know, but when her eyes opened, the water had cooled and was tinted with blood. Sensing someone beside her, Caryss rolled her head to the right. Through slitted eyes, she saw Conri standing over the tub, with the babe in his arms. It was not whom she had expected.

  Clearing his throat, he told her, “The babe grows hungry.”

  Moving slowly, she climbed out of the tub. Sharron had laid towels nearby, and Caryss reached for one, pulling it around her cape-like. Conri did not watch as she dressed, and only neared once she was seated on the cot. For the second time since the birth, the babe took to the breast, and Caryss paused, reveling in a peace that had become rare since her departure from the Academy.

  It was not long before the silence was broken.

  “Is it still your desire to leave the Tribelands?”

  Sighing heavy with pain and fatigue, she murmured, “In a half-moon, I should be strong enough to travel.”

  “Will you return to Eirrannia?”

  “I seek safety, Conri, for me and the babe. Where can I find shelter from both Tribe and crown?”

  Running a hand through his dark hair, he replied, “They might not think it so, but Eirrannia is still under the rule of Rexterra. You travel with several who are unforgettable, and some from the North might sympathize with the crown.”