The Heart of Oldra

by Georgina Makalani

‘You cannot continue in fear of what you don’t know.’

  ‘The chief knows,’ Teven said behind her. ‘He does what he can to keep us safe.’

  She bowed her head to him. He placed two containers of water down on the mat. Long woven handles stretched above them and then flopped down beside them as he let them go. ‘Take one for the child,’ he said to the couple seated at his hearth, and they bowed to him.

  The man took a container and waited as the woman took the child from Cora’s arms. Then they disappeared into the dark. She looked after them wondering if she would get the chance to talk with them again. Teven remained standing at the fire and staring at her.

  ‘I could help you get more,’ she offered, and he surprised her with a nod.

  She followed him towards the door and found a pile of closely woven baskets piled high. What else did this man do for these people?

  As he collected several of them, she did the same and followed him out into the sunshine. She longed for the trees, but instead followed him around the cavern. Then she stopped, jogged back to where she had left her spear and lifted it up over her shoulder. She paused for a moment, sure that the shadows moved around her as they had before. They were just out of sight, yet she knew they were there.

  She barely contained her shiver as she rushed back to where Teven waited. The stream was only a short walk from the cavern. Of those she had met, they could have easily travelled the distance. They were in the open as they walked, but the world was silent around them. Perhaps the people had experienced the shadows as well, or something very similar. She could understand why that would keep them inside, but was it the chief doing such things to keep them there?

  She stood at the edge of the narrow stream as Teven filled the containers and lined them up along the bank. He didn’t appear cold. The only running water Cora had ever seen was in the lake by the hunters’ cavern, which was icy cold even when she was transitioned. She had only ever put her hand in it. But she had dreamt her mother’s experience with the water that made her bones ache. Her father still shook his head at that story. He said she had constantly confused him, but that she was more confused than any when she realised she was standing in the lake.

  ‘Can I touch it?’ Cora asked, watching the clear water rush over the golden rocks.

  He nodded. She stepped forward, squatted down and put her hand in the water. It was almost warm. She laughed as she splashed at it. She wished her mother were here to experience this.

  Moving back to her spear, she looked over the containers and realised they had filled more than they could carry.

  ‘We will do several trips,’ Teven said.

  Cora lifted the staff and placed it across her shoulders. ‘You can load them onto this,’ she said.

  Nodding slowly, he carefully placed one on the end of the spear. She had to adjust to maintain it, and he moved quickly to level out the weight. She nodded. ‘More.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I have had to carry far more in my training alone.’

  ‘What did you train for?’

  ‘To be a warrior. To fight.’

  ‘Who do you fight?’ he asked, putting another basket on the spear.

  ‘No one anymore, but we still train. Our clan is built around strong warriors. We may not have an enemy, but we train all the same.’

  ‘Women as well?’ he asked, putting the fourth basket on.

  She nodded and turned slowly towards the cavern. ‘My mother was the strongest female Draga the Penna had seen in some time. If I am to be chief, I must have the same skill.’

  ‘If you return,’ he said behind her.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘If I return.’

  He placed the baskets down at the front of the cavern and helped unload those she had. Then they headed back to pick up the rest. She carried the spear over her shoulder, but he put out a hand to stop her before they reached the water.

  ‘Fish,’ he murmured as he crept towards the water.

  Cora followed, but she couldn’t see what he was looking at.

  As he stood looking into the water, she stepped back. Would she get the chance to go home, or was the chief correct? That she would stay until she was what he needed her to be and then he would take that away. She put her hand over her mark and turned to stare into the trees.

  She had spent so much of her life resisting her mother, yet she wanted nothing more than for her mother to walk out of the trees right now.

  ‘Don’t fear,’ her mother’s voice whispered in her ear.

  Cora breathed out slowly.

  ‘What has happened?’ Teven said, too close behind her.

  She startled and swung around with her hands up, which found his chest. The sharp, burning pain coursed through her, taking her breath away. She cried out as she pulled back from him.

  He stepped forward and she stepped back again, nearly tripping. He reached out and took her by the shoulders. She clenched her fists in front of her in case she accidently touched him again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘What did you see?’

  She shook her head, still trying to catch her breath. He reached for her again, and she stepped back. ‘How do you live with such pain?’

  He looked confused, so she pointed to his chest.

  He put his hand over the point the scar sat beneath his tunic. His face clouded in anger for a moment, but it passed quickly. ‘It doesn’t hurt. It is ugly, but it doesn’t hurt.’

  She nodded once and took a deep breath. ‘We should get the water,’ she said, pushing past him and back towards the stream. She lifted the spear back onto her shoulders and then turned, looking back towards him. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

  He nodded once and helped her load the baskets. They moved in silence back to the cavern, where he unloaded the baskets and she noticed the other baskets were gone. She leaned the spear against the wall by other containers and headed back to the hearth, but Teven wasn’t behind her when she turned. He didn’t appear to be in the cavern anymore.

  Cora sat on the mat before the fire and stared into the flames. Again, she was alone at the hearth and wondering where they’d gone. Was there more to this pair than she was aware of?

  When she closed her eyes and thought of Teven, the same burning sensation filled her. Although not as intensely as it had when she’d put her hand on him. If he wasn’t in pain, was it another type of pain? Emotional rather than physical? It seemed strange that she would pick that up. Perhaps it was his mother’s pain. Causing such an injury to a child must have been devastating.

  If she could teach him to transition, she might be able to work around it, find a way to heal him without feeling his pain. She put her hand over her mark. She had been so sure that she had heard her mother’s voice by the stream. And yet she knew it couldn’t be. Cora had burned quite brightly herself at one point, long before she was born. If she was to meet another Oldra as her father was sure of, she would burn again. Was there a connection with Teven?

  Chapter 14

  Cora walked out into the morning sunshine. The hearth had been empty again when she woke, and although the people of the cavern were nodding in her direction, very few of them were talking to her. Other than a few names, she knew no one and had no real idea of who these people were or what they were hiding from.

  She stretched in the sunshine and pointed her face towards it, closing her eyes. She still couldn’t quite get used to the warm sun on her face, but she loved it. As the days slowly passed, she missed the snow less and less, but she still often headed into the cool woods to transition.

  The chief had not called her back, nor had he reappeared in her dreams since she had so forcefully denied that she was what he needed her to be. Cora continued to wonder just what she might be and how he might take that from her.

  She had dreamt of Teven. The burning pain in his chest seemed to follow her around, and she found it hard to breathe when he was close, even in her dream. It wasn’t a feelin
g either of her parents had relayed to her. And despite the clear connection between them, she knew it was not what her parents had.

  It was a relief to find him gone when she woke. But if she could find a way for him to transition, she might be better able to understand him. She stopped at a tree not too far within the wood where she could still see the sunshine. The transition was easier in the cool shade. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember Darring. He looked more like her mother than any other member of the Penna, yet he was so clearly one of them.

  Human was the word her mother had used. But she was Penna now, no matter where she had come from. Cora ran her hand over her own nose, lower than that of the others and a little rounder, as were her ears. She tried not to sigh. Deen had similar features.

  If she ever managed to find a mate, her children might be similar. Her father’s gentle smile came to mind. He loved Gerry so completely. And he would give Cora that very smile when she raised any concerns for her future. Like he knew what the future held for her better than her mother could.

  She didn’t feel that way when she looked at Deen. She wanted to—she wanted desperately to feel more than she did, partly to prove her father wrong. That she didn’t need another Oldra to be happy. And she missed Deen now, his quiet confidence and mindless chatter.

  The cavern here is far too quiet, she thought as she looked back towards it.

  Cora took a step closer to the cavern, wondering what might be on the other side. She had headed out into the woods directly from the opening. She had sat on top of it and looked out across the trees on all sides, but was that all there was? What did these people fear so much that kept them locked away while two young people cared for their needs?

  Cora walked quickly around the cavern and thought of Rhali. The girl disappeared all the time. No one questioned where she might go or why she would leave the cavern when no one else did. But she never returned with anything. Not with food, or wood, or water, that Cora had noticed. She wasn’t helping her brother, although he had done so much to help her.

  Cora rounded the hill that was the cavern and wondered for the first time whether these people had built it. Someone must have built the cavern she lived in with her family—or had it always been there? She shook the idea away and noted that the soft green grass covered the entire structure. There was no way to climb up from this side. It was too steep, with no steps or paths cut into the grass.

  She looked up for a moment, wondering if Rhali simply lay in the sun all day. Looking back into the dark trees, she headed forward, then stopped briefly to check her tracks. She wasn’t leaving any marks that she could see in the dirt and leaflitter, but it was different from snow. She might not have the skills she thought she did.

  Walking as straight as she could through the trees, Cora hoped she could find her way back. When she saw movement in the trees, she slowed her walk.

  She half expected another dragon, but there was only Rhali standing in the trees. As Cora drew closer, she realised Rhali was talking with someone else, someone with his arms around her.

  Cora froze. Perhaps they weren’t brother and sister after all. A disappointment washed over her, although she wasn’t sure why she would be disappointed. Then the other person moved, and Cora saw it wasn’t Teven. He was human, like her mother; tall and broad, like Darring.

  He took Rhali’s face in his hands and bent down to kiss her lips, and then he was disappearing back through the trees. How had he come to be here? She moved quickly through the trees to remain out of sight as she headed towards Rhali. Then she stopped and looked back after the man.

  Cora thought to call out after Rhali when she turned and headed in another direction. Not back to the cavern. Cora wondered what else this girl might be up to. She waited a moment longer, her back to the tree. Did Teven know of the man? Or what his sister did of a day? Did he understand what this might mean?

  Cora was torn between following Rhali or the man. After too long, she decided to follow him rather than Rhali. Maybe he had only just arrived; maybe he was alone in the world. As she tried to follow the direction he had gone, she considered whether he might belong to the people the clan was scared of. But if they were this close, they would attack, or at least try to do more than ignore each other’s presence.

  Cora walked for a long time, but she saw no further sign of the man or any people he might be with. He had been dressed in leather clothing similar to Teven’s. She wondered if he had found the clothes or been given them by Rhali.

  Cora was starting to think that she had imagined the whole episode when she caught sight of a man in the trees. And then, just as quickly, he was gone again.

  She took a deep breath and transitioned in case there was a danger to her, hoping she was following the path he had taken. There were no signs in the dust that he had come this way, but she wasn’t sure if he was able to cover his tracks or she wasn’t able to read them as well outside of the snow.

  She stopped intermittently to listen, but there wasn’t a sound. Again, she thought she might have actually imagined the whole situation when the trees opened up before her and the sun shone brightly.

  She was above the trees. Raising her hand to shield her face from the sun, she smiled into the light. She was standing on top of a ledge, a very high ledge, which reminded her of the training ground she had found. It was higher than being up on the cavern, and the trees spread out before her, bright and green. With so many different greens all blended together, she wondered if they were different types of trees. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the Essawood. There were different types of plants, but the trees were all the same.

  She looked down again. She could see so far, and amongst it all was silence. Not the sound of a bird or cry of an animal. Not even the wind in the leaves. The wind always seemed to clatter branches to some degree in her own world. Cora wondered again if she had come to a new world—not just a different part of her own, but one like her mother had come from. That might explain the human.

  A branch snapped behind her, and she turned to find Teven quickly closing the gap between them. ‘No one comes here.’ His voice was gruff, although there was a hint of something else. Fear perhaps.

  Beyond him, in the shadows of the trees, Cora was sure she saw the chief. Teven continued towards her, and she could feel the heat of his pain. She stepped back, her hands up. His angry features turned to concern as he slowed his step, but she backed up once more, and then she was falling.

  She’d had only long enough to realise she was falling when she stopped with a thud. Teven’s worried face appeared over the edge of the cliff top. Cora climbed slowly to her feet and brushed herself off. She had jarred herself, but she hadn’t fallen far enough to do any damage.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Teven called.

  She turned slowly and looked out over the same view. Thankfully, she had fallen onto a narrow ledge below the main one. She could have been less lucky. She leaned over a little and was surprised by the sheer drop and darkness beneath her.

  ‘I said, don’t move,’ Teven growled. She looked back up at him holding a woven rope down to her.

  She tried not to sigh as she tied the rope around her waist and worked with him to climb back up. He had to lean over the edge of the world to pull her up the final part, and he groaned as she landed on the firm soil.

  ‘I’m not that heavy,’ she murmured as she lay down, her feet still over the edge and her focus on the bright sky above. It wasn’t just bright; it was pale blue and clear of clouds.

  He sighed, and she turned to see him holding his arm.

  She sat up quickly, but he waved her off. ‘It is just a scratch.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said as the blood seeped through his fingers. ‘Let me look.’

  He pulled the short tunic he wore up over his head, groaning again as it lifted over his arm. The blood flowed quickly, and she leant forward to press her hand over it. He sucked in a breath, and she closed her eyes. The tear was rougher t
han she had expected. She could see a small part of the rock that had cut into him still in the wound.

  She lifted her hand away and peered into it. ‘This is going to hurt,’ she said, then quickly pushed her fingers into the wound. She felt around and pulled the small stone out.

  ‘Is this how you fixed your leg?’ he asked, his face growing paler.

  She shook her head and pressed her hand over the wound again. Closing her eyes, Cora willed it closed. The muscle moved back into place and the skin healed over.

  ‘That is cold,’ Teven said.

  Cora nodded and removed her hand, then held it up against his skin. Was that the blood she had seen in her vision with the chief? She hadn’t felt any of the desperation her mother had felt while trying to hold her father together. And there was still no mark.

  Teven put his hand over his arm and looked at it closely. ‘How?’

  She shrugged then, tempted to lie back down. Wiping the blood from her hand across the grass, she wondered whether her mother tired so much when she healed.

  ‘Cora?’

  She looked up at him, and he tapped his chest. The mark looked less ugly today, yet without getting close she was sure she could still sense the pain.

  She shook her head. ‘You don’t need...’

  ‘What did you see when you touched me?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yet you cried out—was it so bad?’

  ‘I couldn’t see anything. I felt the pain of the scar, I think. It was sharp and hot, and it burned right through me. I can still feel it burning.’

  ‘You thought you could see something at the birth. You were sure the child was a girl.’

  ‘But I was wrong,’ she said, climbing to her feet and brushing at her clothes. The twigs and debris remained firmly attached, and she managed to smear some blood over her tunic. ‘I saw her past. I can only see the past.’

  ‘What of your own?’

  She shook her head and turned back towards the trees. ‘Where did the rope come from?’

  ‘I keep some supplies in different places, just in case someone goes over.’