He doesn’t. I can tell by the irritation that dances across his face. “We would come to know the groom and his family during the arrangement, to ensure that he will take care of her and treat her well.”
“Why do you not do that now, with the groom she has chosen for herself?”
He looks away, avoiding eye contact and my question both. But the answer is obvious enough.
I rub my temples to ward off a growing headache. “Can you not work out an agreement with Etricos? I know he has faults—believe me, I know—but can you not come to an arrangement with him? Your continued quarrel breeds unrest within the settlement. Is there no compromise?”
“She is my only granddaughter,” Moru snaps.
Etricos struck him where it hurts, in other words.
“Do you believe he is tricking you?”
“I do not know what to believe, Goddess Anjeni. If, as you say, we must submit to the Helenai—”
“I did not say you must submit,” I interrupt. “I only said that the tribes will merge under the banner of the Helenai. The influence your people have upon the culture that results will depend largely upon your attitude. If you resist, your traditions will vanish.”
I don’t know that for sure, but it makes sense. I wouldn’t observe any rituals of a people who openly scorned me.
Moru’s scowl deepens. He breathes through his nose to calm his turbulent emotions. At last he comes to a decision. “I will support this marriage if I may officiate at the ceremony, and if it may follow the traditions of the Terasanai.”
“Done,” I say. He jerks, fixing wide eyes upon me. “You needn’t look so surprised. The Helenai have no tribal elders to perform such a rite. It’s the reason Etricos himself is not yet married to his betrothed.”
Suspicion crosses his face. “And you do not preside over such unions?”
I scoff and avert my gaze. “I am not a goddess of marriage.” Before he can make further inquiry on this subject, I end our conversation. “If we are at an agreement now, will you please send Etricos to me? I will inform him of your conditions.”
He studies me from head to toe but ultimately bows and retreats. I watch from the corner of my eyes as he delivers my summons to Etricos. To my annoyance, Demetrios trails behind his brother.
“Did you orchestrate this marriage?” I ask when Etricos comes within five paces of me.
He stops short. “Orchestrate?” he asks, in much the same tone that Huna uses when she does not recognize one of my words.
“Did you arrange it? Is it a trick to force the Terasanai into a closer alliance?”
Etricos cocks his head in an unspoken rebuke.
“Did you arrange it?” I press.
“I encouraged the courtship, but they met without my help. The betrothal itself comes much sooner than I hoped, but I recognize its advantages.”
“Doubtless,” I say. “Moru will officiate at the wedding, and it will follow the traditional ceremony of the Terasanai.”
He scowls.
“Perhaps, if you are friendly enough, he will one day perform the same service for you.”
That suggestion makes him scowl all the more. He turns on his heels and starts back, but I call after him.
“Etricos!”
He favors me with a sour, questioning glance.
“Does your warrior truly love her?”
I can’t prevent concern from creeping into my voice. The youth of Moru’s granddaughter and the vulnerability of her people infest my mind in a discordant tangle. If I am committing a girl younger than myself to a lifetime of deception, contempt, and abuse, I need to know it.
To Etricos’s credit, his expression softens. “I believe he does.”
For once, there is no guile in his words. The situation is to his advantage, but he has not played the unscrupulous part that I feared. I accept his statement with a nod. He continues on to the small group.
Demetrios hangs back alongside me. “Is it important that a man loves the woman he marries?”
My hackles rise. “Of course it’s important. If he expects her to support him, to bear and rear his children to honor him, of course he must love her.”
“But should she not love him as well?”
My brows pull together as confusion twists through me. “What are you going on about? Yes, she should love him. They are meant to be partners to one another.”
I stalk past him, following Etricos’s path, silently formulating how to give the blessing I must now bestow upon the waiting couple.
Behind me, Demetrios’s footsteps rustle through the grass. He does not speak a word.
Chapter Seventeen
The wedding is simple and beautiful, with decorations no more elaborate than some wildflowers from the forest and gifts no more extravagant than the most rudimentary household items, each a sacrifice from the family that gives it.
Moru conducts the ceremony before my canopy, the afternoon sunshine spilling around his dignified shoulders and upon the happy couple. Etricos defers to him with a show of respect. This union represents more than the joining of two young people in marriage. Half the settlement stretches down the hill and into the valley to witness the alliance.
If Moru of the Terasanai can entrust his own granddaughter to the Helenai, the other tribes must reevaluate their positions.
I observe from beneath the canopy, with Huna and Tora at my side and my crew of spark-bearers fanned out around me. I have the unfortunate blessing of a beautiful dress—Huna’s flimsy, filmy creation in a rich, indigo shade—and a death-paint motif around my eyes, courtesy of Tora. I have, too, a headdress of beaten gold, worked by the one smith in the settlement, who wrought it by melting down many of the precious offerings given to me.
It has a pattern reminiscent of flames rising to a point, and it rests heavy on my skull. An armlet and necklace echo its golden brilliance, as does a delicate anklet I keep hidden beneath the flowing fabric of my skirt.
You can bet I fought against wearing any of my opulent trappings. I succeeded only in remaining barefoot. I make more of a spectacle than the bride.
When I utter as much to Huna, she dismisses my concerns with a wave of her hand. “A goddess should look like a goddess. You would insult the bride and groom if you were to appear in less than your finest clothes.”
My one consolation—and it is significant—is that Tora wears her own wedding dress. As the betrothed of Etricos of the Helenai, she too must look her best out of respect to the couple. The butter-yellow gown compliments its rightful owner well.
I do not know the traditions among the Terasanai, but the wedding ceremony appears normal to me. Moru gives a lecture to the bride and groom, they join hands and exchange vows, and the groom kisses her before the company of onlookers.
“Such things should happen only in private,” Huna mutters.
“I think it’s lovely, Baba,” Tora says, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
“Is this very different from a Helenai ceremony?” I ask, training my voice with an innocent note.
Huna grunts. “Yes.”
And my heart floods with relief. I see my modern world reflected in the scene before me. The Terasanai may be forgotten by name, but their traditions—some of them, at least—will survive.
In the aftermath of the wedding rite, as the couple greets their well-wishers, someone strikes up a tune on a pipe. A drum, fiddle, and lute join in merry harmony. Etricos bounds beneath the canopy.
“Goddess, do you dance?” he asks.
I answer with a very flat, “No.”
The grin on his face reveals that he suspected as much. He extends his hand to Tora, who takes it with a blush, and together they join the gathering revelers. Many of my spark-bearers cluster to the dance as well, forming sets with their friends rather than seeking partners from the scant number of boys. Amid the growing assembly, Demetrios and Aitana flash into view. She laughs and he smiles as they circle one another in rhythmic steps.
“Can I
go back to my tent now?” I ask Huna, dire and dismal feelings crowding within me.
She sways and claps along with the beat of the drum, her gaze fixed on the dancers. “If you want the party to end, you may. Unless you can slip away unseen, everyone will stop to pay you deference as you go.”
I should have withheld my blessing on the marriage. Look at all of the trouble I might have avoided if I had.
“Can you not enjoy the celebration, Anjeni?” she asks, sliding a concerned glance toward me. “For all the time I have spent at your side, I do not believe I have seen you smile more than twice.”
I can’t prevent the scowl that answers her comment. I’m not a smiling sort of person. I’m more brooding and intense, and when I am happy I tend to keep it knotted up inside myself. I have tried to be cheerful and bouncing before, but that persona doesn’t sit well on me. In its aftermath I always feel contrived and hypocritical.
Huna reads all of this and more in my expression. With a sardonic quirk of her mouth she pats my hand. “Suffer through this as best you can, my little goddess. It will not be forever.” She returns her attention to the dancing grounds. Offhandedly she says, “It is nice to see Dima and Aitana on good terms again.”
I fight to keep my scowl from deepening. If they want to be on good terms, it’s none of my business. Her words, though, prompt a question. “Were they at odds before?”
“He was her guard from the time she came among us,” says Huna, watching the pair flash in and out of view. “He grew to love her, but she—”
Her abrupt stop draws my attention. She looks like she’s trying to swallow a bitter pill. Forcing a smile to her face, she turns fully to me. “She set her sights higher. For a time, we thought that she would become the tribal leader’s wife.”
She’s speaking in circles around the true subject. It takes a split-second for my brain to connect her words with her meaning. “Etricos? You mean those other women you spoke of? Aitana was one of them?” I search the pair of couples out among the crowd, Tora and Etricos on one side of the dance and Aitana and Demetrios on the other.
Huna’s gaze follows mine. She banishes her bitterness from her face but she cannot withhold it from her voice. “Dima loved Aitana, and Aitana loved Cosi. And Cosi was fickle, but always with an eye for greater power.”
“Aitana is a spark-bearer,” I conclude. My mood plummets even further. “What happened? Etricos doesn’t favor her anymore.”
“The Bulokai attacked us in earnest,” says Huna. “Amid the calamity that followed, Cosi declared his love for Tora and swore he would end his days with her or no woman. In the face of certain death, mere scraps of power become meaningless.”
“They should be meaningless anyway.” I speak the words, but having witnessed politics my whole life, I know a leader must consider more than his personal feelings. He must act in the best interest of his people. In a tribal culture such as this, marriage alliances must factor in strength and power before love even enters the equation. I can almost forgive Etricos his inconstancy.
Almost.
“So after Etricos returned to Tora, Aitana turned her affections to Demetrios?”
Huna frowns, her attention upon that second couple. “I wonder.”
“What do you mean?”
“For a time it seemed so, but she often looks to Cosi with longing. Perhaps she hopes he will yet change his mind. Dima has grown cynical because of it. But today they dance and smile at one another, so perhaps their quarrel is resolved. Perhaps she realizes that, should Cosi decide to marry for power instead of love, he would focus his efforts upon someone other than her.”
She favors me with a tight smile. My brows pull together in a deeper scowl. “He would fail, and he knows it.”
Huna laughs, her bitterness dissipating. “This is why I like you, little goddess. You know your mind and you stick to it.”
I don’t know my mind. That’s largely my problem. It’s what sent me seven hundred years into the past: I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the active Eternity Gate if I had known my mind.
Right now, though, I’m more concerned with others who know their own minds. If Demetrios has been in love with Aitana from the beginning, his flirtation with me has been a weapon against her, a mechanism to trigger envy or regret. He egged her into a confrontation with me to demonstrate my greater power, then? To put her in her place and center her attentions back upon him instead of Etricos?
The thorn of resentment within me branches out in wicked spikes. He uses me like a prop to needle her with jealousy and remind her that she’s not the salvation of this people, that she’s not important enough to draw Etricos’s attention.
The rotten lout.
But why am I so angry? I said from the beginning I would not play the role of my legendary namesake where Demetrios and Aitana were concerned. All things considered, I’m lucky that legend does not paint me as the “other woman,” because right now that’s exactly how I appear. He has loved Aitana from his youth. I am a stranger he guards for the safety of his tribe.
And I have guarded myself against his attentions for no reason at all. From the beginning I was only a tool to him.
I wallow in cynicism and self-pity, the music and laughter around me an insult to my injured soul.
As the afternoon wears on, Moru joins us. He bows before me with his customary dignity.
“You are not a goddess of marriage, and you are not a goddess of dance,” he says, a gentle twinkle in his eyes. “What are you a goddess of, then?”
“Chaos and destruction,” I reply, sounding every bit the part.
His brows arch. Self-consciously he checks over his shoulder to where his granddaughter and her new husband hop to a lively jig. “If that is true, perhaps it was unwise to invite you to a wedding.”
Before I can respond, Huna speaks up. “Anjeni is a goddess of prosperous future and good fortune. Her presence ensures many blessings to your granddaughter on this day. You have my congratulations as well. I only wish I could see my own granddaughter so happily married.”
He studies her, silently assessing what this speech might mean.
“Huna is the grandmother of Tora, Etricos’s betrothed,” I say. “She does not approve of him.”
“Then we have much in common,” says Moru with a smile, and Huna actually chuckles before she schools her mirth. He returns his attention to me. “Goddess, do you stay for the wedding feast?”
I look first to Huna, and then to the dancing throngs beyond my shaded position. There are hundreds here. “Do you hold a wedding feast for all these people?” Established as the settlement now is, resources are still scarce.
He shakes his head. “Only the wedding party: the bride’s family, the groom’s family, our tribal leaders, and you, Goddess, if you will remain. All others are welcome to dance and make merry, but they know to attend to their own suppers. And it will not be a feast, exactly.”
The worry that crosses his face prompts me to say, “I would be honored to stay, Moru.”
He bows again, murmurs his gratitude, and moves on to speak with another cluster of guests.
“I thought you wished to leave, Anjeni,” says Huna beside me. Her guarded eyes shift from me to Moru and back again. “You show much favor to the Terasanai.”
She is worried. Much as she might butt heads with Etricos, her loyalty lies with the Helenai above any other tribe. I suppose it troubles her for me to show kindness elsewhere.
But it’s not kindness on my part, exactly. Perhaps it’s a sense of kinship for a people whose identity will soon be cast aside.
“Huna, within two hundred years, the Terasanai will vanish from memory.” I can give this date because that is roughly when the library of records will burn. No account of them emerges thereafter. “The Helenai will absorb their people, their traditions, their culture. Should I not show favor to a tribe in the twilight of its existence?”
She shifts uncomfortably upon the ground. “You claim you are not a godde
ss, Anjeni, but sometimes you speak things that no mortal can know.”
I smile faintly, my heart burdened with the weight of seven hundred years upon it. I sincerely doubt that Huna adds this smile to her meager list of two.
The wedding feast is to occur beneath the canopy, which necessitates that she and I vacate to another place so they can prepare. I rise from the ground, grateful to move about, grateful that so many are too absorbed in their dancing to notice my movements now. Huna drifts toward the merriment, her attention fixed upon Etricos and Tora in its midst. I tread the opposite direction, down the ocean side of the hill, my indigo skirts trailing behind me on the humid breeze.
If I were not arrayed in such finery, I would trek to the ocean itself, and straight into the water’s embrace. I could do with a swim, with a struggle against something larger and more powerful than I am.
I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere. Whatever greater force delivered me here did not do it for my benefit, but so that I could benefit others. And that’s all right, as long as I keep myself separate from them. Swathed in the wind and the lowering sun, I construct a metaphorical fortress around myself. There is nothing for me here. I will receive nothing but misery.
I must fulfill my purpose regardless.
And Huna complains that I do not smile.
The grass behind me rustles. I glance up to see Tora approach. The brilliant orange of the setting sun bathes her in golden light.
“Goddess, the wedding feast begins.”
How can she yet love Etricos when he would have put her aside for greater prestige? How could she remain faithful when she looked to receive nothing in return?
But Tora is goodness personified. I am a selfish, resentful wreck.
“Thank you,” I say. I gather my skirts and climb the hill, the wind at my back as I go. The music continues, and revelers still dance across the hilltop, but a small group clusters beneath the canopy, where low planks serve as tables. The wind shifts directions, carrying the aroma of spices and savory foods. Nostalgia strikes me like a hammer to the chest.
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