The Heart of Oldra

by Georgina Makalani

‘Are there others?’

  ‘The Ancient is Oldra, but otherwise not within the Penna.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  She shook her head. Her brothers had their own skills, but they were not Oldra. ‘It marks me as the next chief, or it would have.’ She closed her eyes. It was not something she had wanted, and yet it was who she was. She was starting to understand that better now, only she was far from her own people and may never be what she was meant to be.

  Again, something in the trees called to her, and she noticed as she turned that Teven was looking in the same direction. ‘Do you hear them?’ she asked.

  ‘Do all chiefs carry such a mark?’ he asked.

  ‘Sarn doesn’t,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it is just a Penna tradition. My father is sure that I will follow him.’

  ‘Is it something you want?’

  Cora laughed. ‘I didn’t, but we get very little choice in this world. I will be what I am meant to be—destined to be, according to my mother. I must learn to embrace it, but it is not easy. I don’t have the skill she does; I don’t have the strength he has. And I will not be able to choose much in my future.’

  ‘What else would you choose?’

  She wanted to say Deen, but as much as she cared for him, she was more certain than ever that he wasn’t the right man for her. Her father had been right. There was something else for her—someone else—and she would know that herself with certainty. She looked at the man watching her. ‘Do you have a mark?’

  He shook his head quickly.

  ‘Do you have a mark of your clan?’ she asked, bringing her finger to the scar at the base of her throat.

  He shook his head again, then leaned forward to study her more closely. ‘Did someone do that to you?’

  ‘The Ancient on my naming day. It marks me as Penna, belonging to my people.’

  Teven reached forward and brushed a finger over the small raised mark. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Three or four days,’ Cora said, and he stared at her with wide eyes. ‘I don’t remember it.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘My mother does. She said it was the scariest moment of her life, with the old man and a knife to my throat. But he has a steady hand and has marked generations of us.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Your mother would have known this from her own mark.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘My mother came to this world. She was not born Penna and so doesn’t wear the mark of one.’

  ‘But she has the mark of Oldra,’ he said. When she turned, he was studying her features.

  ‘The mark is partly what called her here. She is Penna now, no matter what she was before.’

  ‘She doesn’t look like the rest of your clan,’ he said.

  Cora nodded.

  ‘You are just different enough to notice.’

  She raised her eyebrows as he continued to study her.

  ‘Almost all have brown eyes,’ she said. ‘Your eyes are different.’

  He nodded without a word and continued to study her. ‘You are tanned for someone who sees little sun,’ he said eventually.

  She looked back at the trees. The sense of urgency increased, and she struggled to her feet. She was needed, but they needed to help her.

  ‘He will look for us if we don’t return soon.’ Teven turned suddenly to look behind them.

  Cora turned to follow his gaze and was sure she saw a dark shape amongst the trees. They weren’t her dragons, but she knew dragons were out there.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Teven asked. ‘There is nothing but darkness and horror amongst the trees.’

  ‘Have you never ventured out there?’

  ‘There are monsters.’

  ‘Dragons don’t take people,’ she snapped. Did these people know nothing?

  ‘If not dragons, what would it be?’

  ‘Other people.’ Cora sucked in a deep breath to try and calm the agitation she was feeling. ‘I want to meet more of your people.’

  ‘Not until the chief says you can.’

  ‘No clothes, no food, no people. What is the chief’s name?’

  ‘Not until he is willing for you to know.’

  ‘I wonder that you didn’t leave me out there to die,’ she murmured, hobbling towards the path that led back down the hillside. She stopped suddenly and spun around to face him, pinching her leg in the process and stumbling. He rushed to her side but hesitated as he reached a hand towards her. ‘What were you doing out there?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You said it wasn’t safe. You won’t go into the trees, and you certainly won’t let me go. What were you doing out there?’

  ‘Yes, Teven,’ a low voice asked. ‘Tell us what you were doing in the trees.’

  ‘I was looking for wood. It is my task.’

  The chief nodded as he continued towards Cora, and Teven took a step away from her. ‘Did you learn what you wanted from the dragon child?’

  Teven shook his head, and Cora tried not to look between the two men.

  ‘It did not search for you,’ the chief said.

  Cora waited, wondering what he might want with the dragon.

  ‘Or is it waiting in the woods?’

  Cora shook her head once. There was something about this man that unsettled her, yet also something very familiar.

  ‘Have you other dreams?’ he asked, leaning over her.

  ‘Only my mother’s.’ She looked at him closely for a moment and then asked, ‘What do you dream of?’

  He smiled then, a smile that further unsettled Cora.

  ‘Come inside now. I may ask Rhali to find you something more suitable to wear.’

  Cora bowed her head in thanks.

  ‘You are a girl, after all. We must have you look like one.’ He marched off ahead, and Cora let out a sigh of relief. Then she jumped as a hand rested on her arm.

  Teven helped her up onto his back for the journey down the hill. She squeezed her arms tight around his neck as she stared past his ear at the steep drop before them.

  ‘I won’t drop you,’ he said.

  She pressed her eyes closed. When the ground appeared to level out, he continued towards the cavern opening, and Cora took the chance to look back into the trees.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ he warned as she loosened her hold for a better look, sure that a pair of golden eyes sparkled in the dark shadows between the trees.

  She struggled down from his hold then and turned back to the trees, leaning on the opening of the cavern for support. ‘Could you send help?’ she called into the trees. ‘Could you call Dra?’

  There was no response, but again she was sure she could see something. Then it was gone, and she looked at Teven. His eyes closed as he gave a slight shake of his head.

  Chapter 7

  Cora sat by the fire and tried not to stare at Teven. There was more to him than he was willing to tell her and, try as she might, she couldn’t work it out. He appeared to hear the dragons—and she was certain it was dragons in the woods beyond the cavern. Yet no one would talk of them. No one ventured into the trees except Teven.

  ‘Where do you get wood from?’ she asked, trying to appear as though she were looking into the flames.

  ‘We are surrounded by trees. Where do you think we collect wood from?’ he asked.

  ‘You said people don’t go into the trees.’

  ‘There is plenty of wood to be found without disappearing into the woods.’

  Cora sighed. She wasn’t sure why she thought he might allow her any insight into what he knew, but she held on to the little hope she had. ‘I’m not scared of the woods. Maybe I could explore a little.’

  He sat back and looked at her seriously. ‘You can’t even walk.’

  She looked down at her leg then. She didn’t need two good legs to fly a dragon. She just needed a dragon. Preferably Dra, but she would take anything at this stage. They knew that she came from a family with dragons, yet they’d seemed surprised that she would travel with one. She began to wonder about h
er family again, whether Wyn had gotten into trouble for frightening their mother. And whether Deen had thought through taking him hunting.

  Cora’s father would not look kindly on him taking the boy out without permission, and Deen would have known that. Why would he risk Pira’s anger for Wyn’s favour? She might never find out, for she might never see them again. She looked beyond the fire through to the other hearths and wondered if she would ever learn who these people were and what they wanted.

  She sighed again. She was used to knowing everything. Matters of the people were discussed openly with the Penna, and her parents had never excluded her from conversations. In many ways, she was sure this was her father’s way of preparing her for what was to come, for the life she would have. Only it wasn’t the life it appeared she would have now. She was trapped at the hearth of a man with no station, amongst a nameless people she didn’t know and a chief who would not talk with her.

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘Who?’ Teven asked, looking away from the flames. His face almost looked as worried as she felt.

  ‘Your chief. I still know nothing of who you are, what you do, what you want. And yet you will not let me go.’

  He shook his head and turned back to the flames.

  ‘Teven,’ she said softly as she shuffled closer, trying not to drag her leg across the mat. ‘You have to tell me something.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘You should rest. When he wants you to know, he will tell you.’ He stood abruptly and disappeared into the dim light beyond the fire.

  Cora tried not to sigh again. She glanced around and realised she was alone at the hearth. There was no sign of Rhali, and she couldn’t make out anyone else beyond the fire. If not for the glow of other fires, she might have thought they were alone. She shuffled back across the mat and onto the furs, thankful that the cushions were still piled as she eased back into them. It was a little harder to move the furs around her legs, and she wondered just how long it would take before she was well enough to run away.

  She placed a hand across her ribs, grateful that they at least didn’t hurt as much as they had, and that breathing was no longer so painful. As she closed her eyes, she remembered Teven’s cool hand over hers, but she shook the thought away. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life trying to guess what and who these people were.

  Her mother’s hands came into view again, and she could feel the cold in the air as though they were her own hands over the hot body beneath them. She sighed at the sight of the bruising, the blood pooling where it shouldn’t within his abdomen. She looked back over her shoulder at the other man sleeping fitfully, Pira. Behind him in the shadows stood an older man. At first, Cora thought it was Arminel, watching over the healing of the two men, but it wasn’t. This man was shorter, stockier, not Penna. It was the chief who would not let her go.

  Then her father cried out, and her mother’s panic filled her chest. She was sure he wouldn’t survive. The man stood over them all the while, watching everything she did.

  Cora woke with a start, groaning at the pain in her side when she sat up. She felt desperate to get to her feet, but she couldn’t. Why did she never have any of her mother’s good memories during her dreams? Always darkness and pain and fear.

  She wiped a hand over her sweaty brow and longed for a brush to rake through her hair. She might ask Rhali in the morning. Although she wondered if that was another thing the chief would have to allow before she could be given it. Her stomach growled and then quietened. She was getting used to eating less, but even if she could use her legs, she doubted she would have the energy to get very far.

  If he was hoping she could heal something, he was in for a surprise. Her limited skills were even more diminished given her current state. There wasn’t even anything she could help herself with. She did have her bow, she thought as she reached out for it. Yet her arrows had disappeared, and she wasn’t sure if that was from her fall or if they had been taken.

  She lay back, her hand still closed tightly around the bow and her eyes searching the dark void above her. In the low firelight, she couldn’t make out the ceiling of the cavern. She had dreamt of Teven, of standing before him at the hearth, the old man watching their every move. Would she still be here, helpless and trapped, until she was able to stand on her own?

  She might be able to use the bow to stand, but she might also snap it in two trying to get there, and then she would be lost. Not that she thought Tarn would create a bow so easily broken, but she had started to lose faith in herself. She had always known that she could not be what her parents had hoped she would be. Particularly what her mother had hoped she would be. Now she was proving them right, all of them, and she would never be able to let them know how sorry she was to have let them down.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, willing some tears at her predicament, but she couldn’t even find them. Arminel came to mind, looking worried, his eyes closed and brow creased. For a moment, it was as though they sat holding hands amongst the cushions of his cavern. She sighed at the feeling of comfort. Then he opened his eyes and stared straight into her soul.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Here,’ she whispered.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked desperately.

  ‘Far away,’ she breathed, and then he was gone, replaced with the scowling face of the chief.

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ the man asked, too loudly. She blinked into the dim firelight again.

  ‘Sleep,’ she murmured. ‘Yet you continue to interrupt every dream.’

  He growled something she couldn’t make out, and he moved over to shake Rhali awake. She mumbled something, then sat up quickly as she focused on the man over her.

  ‘What has happened?’ she asked.

  ‘The girl is ready to deliver.’

  Rhali threw the covers back and glanced at Cora. ‘She might be able to help me,’ she said, chewing on her lip.

  ‘You are a healer of sorts,’ the man said, looking her over. ‘Have you helped at births?’

  ‘Many,’ Cora said.

  The chief sighed. ‘Teven,’ he said, and Teven rolled over in his furs. ‘Take the girl with your sister to the birthing chamber.’

  Before Teven could even agree, the chief stalked off across the cavern. The relationship between the two of them suddenly made more sense to Cora, yet she wasn’t quite sure what use she could be. She couldn’t bend her leg, and although her ribs were better, she was still sore in the chest.

  She barely had time to consider her options before Teven had her up in his arms as he carried her through the cavern. Rhali rushed ahead of them. The cool air wrapped around Cora as they exited the cavern. Although she was relieved by the cold, she shivered. Would she ever be able to transition again?

  A scream met them as they entered the smaller cavern where she had first stayed, and in shock Teven bumped her against the wall. She groaned. The scared woman, alone in the space, blinked at her.

  ‘Why did he send her to me?’ she asked.

  ‘She is a healer,’ Teven said. ‘She might make this easier for you.’

  ‘I can try,’ Cora said. ‘Put me down beside her.’

  He nodded and did as she said. Sitting beside the young woman, who appeared very young, Cora faced in the opposite direction with her leg jutting out towards the wall. The sooner it was healed, the better.

  The girl began to sob. Cora wrapped her arms around her and pulled the girl against her chest.

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ she instructed, and the girl did as she was told. ‘Good. Now another.’

  Cora could feel the tension in her body, but she was starting to calm down. She held the girl tight and moved her hands slowly over her back. She continued this way until the girl stiffened in her hold and moaned.

  ‘This is good,’ Cora whispered. ‘This is how it is supposed to be.’

  She held the girl back and looked at her. She still appeared quite scared, but she wasn’t as panicked as s
he had been when Cora had entered.

  Cora smiled calmly, trying to imagine just what her mother would do. It was easier assisting with the Penna women in birth, as she knew them all so well. And despite her lack of skills, she was the daughter of the chiefs and next in line, so they listened to what she said.

  ‘I am going to have a feel around your belly to see what this child does,’ she said softly, moving her hands down the woman’s arms and towards her midsection. Cora doubted she would see anything like her mother, for whom whole lives unfolded. She paused. She would have seen such things for every child who had survived to their naming day, and those who hadn’t. What else might she know that she hadn’t told?

  ‘Can you heal the child if he is sick?’ the young woman asked.

  Cora shook her head and closed her eyes. She could sense the child. There was movement, and she looked beyond the skin. She wanted momentarily to pull back, but she thought the movement might scare the girl even more. She sucked in a deep breath and focused. ‘A girl,’ she whispered.

  ‘He said I would have a son,’ the young woman said, sounding scared again. Cora looked at her and smiled.

  ‘Maybe the next will be a boy,’ Cora whispered. When the girl slowly lowered her head, Cora closed her eyes again.

  She focused on the baby she could see as well as feel, and the child’s bright eyes took her in as though she was the most important person in the world. Then the child was alone and cold. Cora wanted desperately to pull away from the image, but then the child tottered along by the fire, arms outstretched and with a wide smile.

  Cora sighed with relief and looked up at Rhali, who appeared almost as panicked as the young girl.

  ‘Why is there no one else here?’ Cora asked.

  ‘Who would come?’

  ‘Her mother, other women of the clan.’

  ‘Not for this,’ Teven said, and Cora wondered why he would have stayed where he was.

  She was about to ask what he meant when the girl cried out again and clutched at Cora, her fingers digging into Cora’s skin as she gritted her teeth. Cora tried to look about the space then. The fire was still low and there was no water, nothing to indicate they awaited a child.