Tara shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“The Outliers are finished, now that Old Ponchy’s dead,” Allen replied.
“Don’t be so certain,” Roshin put in. “I won’t sleep soundly until I’ve seen the northern country again for myself.”
“Will you go back to Rolling Ridges to check?” Aeifa asked.
“Not right away,” Roshin replied. “I’ll have my hands full back in Avitras territory, with Aimee telling Piwaka I’m taking over as Alpha. I’m not looking forward to that, but as soon as I get the Guard under my wing, I’ll send a detachment up to Rolling Ridges to scout around. I’ll never leave my northern border unguarded again as long as I live.”
“I’ll get Donen to put a new patrol on the Ursidreans’ northern border, too,” Taman told him. “In a way, it’s a good thing we had this experience with the Outliers. Now, at least, the leaders of the factions understand the danger. If we hadn’t been there and fought them ourselves, we might never have known until it was too late.”
“How are you going to get Donen to do that,” Roshin asked, “when you’re living with Aeifa at Honor’s Mansion?”
“After we get settled,” he replied, “I’ll take a jog over the border and talk to him and Mirin.”
“We already talked to him about the Outliers when we were at Harbeiz,” Allen pointed out.
“We talked to Donen,” Taman replied, “but we never talked to Mirin. We talked to him as Faruk’s sons, not as future leaders of the Angondran people.”
“If that’s what we are,” Allen countered, “we should be talking to Mirin alone, without his father hanging over his shoulder. We should be talking to him as equals.”
Taman nodded. “Exactly.”
Chapter 2
Carmen stroked Reina’s cheeks and ran her fingers through her short hair. “Come back soon.”
“I will,” she replied.
Reina pulled away and took Ari’s hand, but Carmen wouldn’t let her go. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Reina smiled. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. I’m a lot more sure of this than you were about coming to live with Father.”
Carmen smiled, but tears swam in her eyes. “You’re right. You two belong together.”
“You should come visit us,” Reina told her. “You’ll see we’re happy there.”
Carmen shook her head. “I won’t leave Melnili again.”
Reina studied her mother, but didn’t answer. She gave her one last kiss on the cheek and moved away. Renier stepped forward to take Carmen’s place and laid his two big paws on Reina’s shoulders. “I won’t ask if you’re sure about this. I can see it in your eyes. I’ve never seen you like this before, and I know you’re going where you belong.”
Reina kissed him. “Thank you, Father. I knew you’d understand.”
Renier clapped Ari on the back so hard he knocked him off balance. “Take good care of my little girl.”
“I will, sir,” Ari replied.
“And don’t forget,” Renier told him, “you can always send us a message if you need us.”
Ari nodded. “Thank you, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. We have lots of help waiting for us there. The rest of the village will get there before us.”
Renier nodded back, but a cloud crossed his face. “I know, but I can’t help worrying about you. I suppose I’m just getting old.”
Carmen took his arm and drew him back. “We all are.”
“I won’t be gone long,” Reina told her. “I just want to do my part to rebuild the village. Once Taig gets on his feet, I’ll have to come back here to do my job.”
Renier beamed. “You’ll be the first female Alpha in Felsite history.”
“Your job is to convince the rest of the people,” Reina replied. “I don’t want to come home to find an insurrection on my hands.”
Renier shook his head. “You’re my daughter, and there’s no other male to take over, in my family or Leflin’s. I don’t have any sons, and his are too young. It has to be you, and you’re going to be great.”
“Besides,” Leflin added, “it only makes sense for you to work with your friends. Your core group should maintain its integrity as far as possible. If one of you can be Alpha, you should do it, even if you have to break Felsite tradition.”
Reina nodded. “As long as you think it’s a good idea, I’ll do it. We can work together as friends much better than we could work with anybody else.”
A short distance away, Emily embraced her two grown sons. “I know it’s useless to say I wish you were coming back with us.”
“Yes, it is,” Taman replied. “But we won’t be far away. We’ll see each other often.”
Emily nodded. “I plan to visit you, too. I enjoyed my time with the Lycaon. I’d like to spend more time there.”
Faruk clasped Taman’s hand, but in the end, he pulled his son against his chest. “I’ll let Donen know you’re coming. I’ll let him know what you have in mind, so he isn’t surprised.”
Taman shook his head. “You can say what you like to Donen. It’s Mirin that counts now, and he’ll have to hear everything directly from me. Otherwise, it won’t mean anything.”
Faruk furrowed his eyebrows and nodded down to the ground. “I know it. That’s what makes it so hard.”
Emily laid Aeifa’s hand in Taman’s. “My heart goes with you both.”
He and Emily withdrew, along with Carmen and Renier. Leflin stepped forward and shook hands with everyone. “You’re all going to be just fine. Anyone who could go through what you all went through and come out the other side with nothing more than a few scratches can run this planet with one arm tied behind their backs. I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do, and I’m glad someone else will be taking over as Alpha so I don’t have to do it.”
Taman turned to Roshin, and the two men shook hands. “I’m sorry to see you go, Roshin. I almost wish you were coming back with us.”
“I almost wish that, too,” Roshin murmured. “Almost, but not quite. I know where I belong.”
“Send us a messenger,” Taman told him, “and we’ll coordinate our border patrols together.”
Roshin nodded. “The sooner the better.”
He and Talya shook hands with the rest of the group, and then took to the air. Tara shielded her eyes against the rush of air. “I never thought I’d be sorry to see him go.”
“He’s the best we could hope for in an Avitras Alpha,” Taig remarked. “We got lucky when we bumped into him.”
Tara glanced around. “What about you, Aimee? Will you come back to Lycaon territory to take Sarai home?”
Aimee hugged Sarai around his shoulders. “Sarai is coming back to Avitras territory with me. He’s been with his father all these years. We have a lot of catching up to do, and we have a lot of news for Piwaka when we get there. The world can never go back to the way it was, for any of us.”
“You know you’ll always have a home with the Lycaon, Aimee,” Taig told her.
Aimee smiled at him. “Thank you, Taig. Knowing that gives me great comfort. When you get home, get in touch with Sarai’s father. He knows more about the Ursidrean border than almost any Lycaon warrior. He can help you.”
Tara glanced over her shoulder. “What about.....?”
Taig followed her gaze. Lilith stood several paces away with her back to the group, the way she had ever since they brought her to Melnili. She pretended not to hear them. “Do you think she should go with you to Avitras territory, too? You two barely know each other.”
Aimee lowered her eyes. “She doesn’t want to come with me.”
“She doesn’t want to come with us, either,” Aeifa pointed out. “She doesn’t want to do anything.”
“We can’t leave her like this,” Tara told them. “We have to find a way to bring her into the group.”
“How?” Aeifa asked.
Tara took a step toward Lili
th. “You’re coming with us, Lilith. We’re taking you with us back to Lycaon territory.”
Lilith shot her a malicious glare. “Go hang with your Lycaon territory.”
Aimee came to her side. “Won’t you say good-bye to me, Lilith?”
Lilith snorted. “Good-bye.”
Aimee’s face fell. “I’m your mother, Lilith. If you go back with the Lycaon, who knows when we’ll see each other again.”
“I’m not going back with the Lycaon,” Lilith growled over her shoulder.
Aeifa spun around. “You’re not? Where are you going then?”
Lilith waved her hand. “I don’t know, but I don’t belong with any of you. So far as I can tell, I don’t belong with any faction.”
“You belong with your family,” Aimee told her. “Sarai and I are the closest thing you have to family now. Come with us.”
“Your father is Lycaon,” Tara pointed out, “and you lived the first years of your life in our faction. Let us take you home.”
Lilith gritted her teeth and turned her back on them all again. She walked away toward the distant mountains leading to the northern plain. Tara turned to Taig. “Say something, Taig. Don’t let her walk away like this.”
Taig watched Lilith disappear around a rock and shook his head. “Let her go. She doesn’t want to stay.”
Allen made a face. “She’s heading north. She probably plans to rejoin the Outliers. She doesn’t need a family as long as she’s got them.”
“She couldn’t rejoin them,” Aeifa pointed out. “She killed Old Ponchy. She couldn’t go back to them if she wanted to.”
“She probably plans to make herself their new leader,” Allen went on. “Only someone strong enough to kill Old Ponchy could bring them together under new leadership.”
“Maybe she plans to make herself Alpha of the Outliers just like we plan to become Alphas of our own factions,” Tara suggested.
“If she does,” Aeifa replied, “Aimee will have to tell Roshin about it. Another leader to take Old Ponchy’s place would put the Avitras’ northern border under threat again.”
“She won’t reform the Outliers,” Taig murmured. “She’s going off to be alone.”
“But why?” Aeifa cried.
Lilith vanished behind the rock. Aimee gave Anna and Carmen her last good-bye kisses, and they all promised to stay in touch. Anna and Emily and Faruk started back toward Ursidrean territory, and Allen and Taman started back toward Lycaon territory with Tara and Aeifa.
Down in the trees by the stream, Tara looked back. “Is anything wrong?”
Taig stood in the same place. He gazed at the corner by the rocks with a dreamy expression on his face. “I was just wondering....”
“Let her go,” she told him. “If she hates us so much, we’re better off without her.”
Taig didn’t answer, and she walked on. She trailed the others to keep her brother in sight, but when they crossed the stream and threaded their way through the trees to the first undulations of land rising into the mountains, she looked back again. Taig was gone.
Chapter 3
Lilith climbed the rocky terraces to the Felsite border. She halted at the top and surveyed the country all around. The northern plain stretched away to the Ursidrean mountains, and the rolling grasslands extended behind her to the tiny dot of Melnili tucked among shimmering heat waves. Far to the south, out of sight, black forests sheltered the Avitras and Lycaon.
The lost Lycaon villagers would be halfway home by now. They would welcome their new young leaders, and Turk and Caleb would be happy to pass the torch to their own children. Ari would recover from his ordeal must faster in his own territory, surrounded by people who shared his experience.
Lilith closed her eyes and turned away with a sick heart. Not all her strength could hide her misery from her friends. She couldn’t even show them they were her friends, after everything they’d done for her. Their leave-taking tortured her more than anything.
Countless times, she told herself to slip away in the dark of night, before anyone realized she was gone. In the end, she could never bring herself to do it. She dreaded the day their group broke apart and went their separate ways. She dreaded it more than the coming of sunrise when she started her own hopeless isolation in the face with no reprieve in sight.
Now, the very sight of all that territory laid bare before her robbed her of her very will to live. She couldn’t face the choice of which direction she should go. She couldn’t go anywhere. No territory on the planet offered her any haven anymore. Not even the Outliers’ forbidden territory offered her a welcome. She’d burned every bridge and turned every friend she had into an enemy.
In the beginning, Allen kept his ideas to himself about her returning to the Outliers and taking Old Ponchy’s place as their leader. As time went on and she still didn’t thaw to their cozy little arrangement, he gave up murmuring those ideas when she was out of earshot. By the time they arrived in Melnili, he spoke them openly to her face. He would never understand the truth. None of them did.
She couldn’t face her own mother, and all their entreaties to get her to come home, to settle down and be part of their family—any family—ripped her heart out of her chest. More than once, she lay awake, after all the others fell asleep, so she could bury her face in her pillow and let loose the tears she wouldn’t shed by the light of day.
The more she held back from them, the farther they drifted away. The more distant she held herself, the less often they reached out to her and beckoned her to join them. She saw as plain as day how her own frigid behavior hardened them against her and drove the wedge deeper between them, but she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t take the first step to cross the divide. She couldn’t reach out and take hold of the hand extended in her direction. She couldn’t accept the care and welcome of these people who called themselves her friends.
She gulped hard and turned away again, she knew not where. It didn’t matter anymore anyway. She would wander with no destination. She would avoid everyone and everywhere. She would become nobody.
She started down the slope toward the Ursidrean mountains. The Ursidreans lived in caves. She could wander their mountains without interference, so long as she avoided the border patrols. If she stayed inside their territory, she would in all likelihood avoid the Outliers, too.
Not one person she knew from the Outliers entered her mind as a friend she might call on in her hour of need. Not one of them held out the hope these young travelers offered her. In the short time she knew them, they wiped out everything she thought she could rely on. They took the place of her people, her family—everything.
She didn’t watch where she put her feet and stumbled a few times. Rocks and boulders jumped into her path, but she didn’t care. An insane desire to destroy herself overpowered her. She would drive herself, without food or shelter, without comfort of any kind, until she ceased to exist. She would become nobody, and in the end, she would become nothing. That’s the best she could do for Angondra now.
She hiked down, out of the dry mountains into the trees. For some reason, she didn’t see a single Felsite outside the city. Renier and Leflin must have reduced their border patrols further than they let on. Someone should have followed her out of the territory, but no one did—at least, they never let her know they followed her. Felsite couldn’t keep themselves hidden if they tried. She knew enough Felsite to know how to detect one.
At the bottom of the hill, the path took three directions. To the south, it crossed into vast forests where Lycaon hunted and roamed. The eastern path led to Harbeiz and the other cavern cities of the Ursidreans. The Outliers used to haunt the northern country beyond the highest passes. Were they still there? Had they reformed under some new leader?
Lilith doubted it. Too many unwilling Outliers had waited too long for some random circumstance to get Old Ponchy out of the way. They would migrate back to their own factions or some other territory betwe
en the borders. Old Ponchy’s traditions and laws would die with him, and good riddance.
What would the stragglers say if she turned up at Rolling Ridges? No stragglers might ever find her there. She might live the rest of her life unmolested there. She couldn’t go back there to find out, though. She swallowed a sticky, bile taste in her mouth. She couldn’t run the risk of anyone finding her, or even seeing her, again.
The wretched feeling got worse the closer she came to the fork in the path. Where would she go? Where could she go? She might as well sit down on the ground next to the fork and wait to starve to death.
She dragged her feet the last steps down the hill. There was the fork. She couldn’t lift her feet another step. Then she stiffened. A figure moved between the trees. A shadow crossed the sunny space between two tree trunks, and the figure emerged from the forest to block her path. “What are you doing here?”
Taig nodded at her. “Where are you going, Lilith?”
“I asked you a question,” she shot back. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” he replied. “How do you think I got here? I ran around to get in front of you.”
She started forward to push past him. “Leave me alone.”
He blocked her path. “Where are you going go? You’ve got nowhere left to go.”
“That’s none of your business,” she muttered.
“I came to bring you back, Lilith,” he told her. “You didn’t really want to leave the way you did. You didn’t want to turn your back on your own mother and walk away from the only friends you have in the world. Come back with me now.”
She waved him away. “I don’t need you. Go back to your adoring friends and family. Go back to your faction and be the Alpha they want you to be. Leave me alone.”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that. I nearly lost my life going back for you when your life wasn’t worth a drop of rain in the ocean. Do you think I’m going to let you throw it away now?”
“I never asked you to come back for me,” she shot back. “You should have left me where I was. You should have saved yourself and your friends and kept on running.”
The New Angondra Complete Series Page 33
