by DM Fike
“So why are you so defensive?”
He cupped his water glass between his palms. “Because my family’s really nutty about it. I understand on some level it’s cultural. Mom believes in Bigfoot and el Chupacabra because her folks told her those stories were real, and she bought it hook, line, and sinker. But I stopped believing in that stuff a long time ago.”
“And you haven’t changed your mind? You know monsters from other worlds exist out there.”
“That’s completely different. You live a life full of magical creatures. It’s not at all like the weird delusions my family clings to. They think they’re attuned to the supernatural in a way that boosts their personal lives. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to endure my mother, aunts, and uncles talking about ‘meeting’ ghosts and ‘predicting’ commonplace things. When I finally told my mom off as a teenager, she nearly disowned me, saying I was betraying family history.”
“Sounds a lot like how they harassed you about becoming a cop.”
“Recognizing a pattern now, aren’t you?” Vincent clenched his jaw.
I found Vincent’s reaction a little stubborn but understood where it came from. My own parents had strict ideals for me. They would have much rather I’d become a middle manager and married an engineer. They thought I’d gotten suckered by a bunch of hippies and was throwing my life away.
“Families are hard,” I said as a peace offering.
“Especially big, loud, invasive ones like mine,” he huffed.
The food came then, and we moved on to lighter topics. Vincent had bought some new fighting video game he thought we should try out, one with super flashy graphics and a lot of gore. We’d played once before, and he somehow thought this gave him bragging rights to tell me how much he could stomp me. Since I recalled complete victory on my part, this led to a colorful argument on how we each would beat the crud out of the other. Everything passed in a pleasant blur: good food, funny banter, and a handsome guy to boot.
I snatched the bill when it came since it was my turn to pay. Even though I didn’t have a job, I refused to just mooch off Vincent. Vincent grumbled about it as we walked to the counter, and I told him for the millionth time I’d always bought my own food before I met him. Despite his obvious irritation, he held my hand as we walked out the door.
He didn’t let go as we weaved through the parking lot back to his SUV. One of the tiny cars next to him had driven off, leaving only an empty space and the crowded forest. Vincent led me over in that direction, then once shrouded in privacy, he wrapped both arms around me. Every nerve in my body danced as I felt his hands on my back, his forehead close to mine, his smiling face the only thing in my universe.
“So, you’re coming back to my place, right?”
“To play video games?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Sure.” He lowered his head. “That.”
His lips tentatively drew toward mine.
“CAW!”
The unmistakable scream from a raven acted like a bucket of cold water on me. All romantic feelings evaporated as I pulled away from a confused Vincent.
“It’s just a bird.” Vincent attempted a second kiss.
The raven plopped down on top of the SUV’s roof, thudding so hard I hoped he hadn’t made a dent. I recognized his ruffled feathers immediately. Fechin, Guntram’s favorite bird stooge. He poked his sharp beak in my direction and squawked several more times.
I sighed. “With me, it’s never just a bird.” I reluctantly removed myself from Vincent’s embrace. Satisfied with his mood killing, Fechin flew back off into the air, darting into the nearby woods and then coming back out again, screeching all the while.
Vincent’s arms hung limply in the air for a second or two more before they fell in defeat to his sides. “Looks like he wants you to follow him.”
“Yep.” I popped the ‘p’ at the end to emphasize my irritation.
Vincent retrieved his key fob from his pocket. “Well, far be it for me to interrupt a goddess’s work. Sounds like you’re needed elsewhere.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Vince.”
“Don’t be.” He squeezed my fingers between his own. “It’s an occupational hazard. Raincheck?”
“Of course.”
I dragged my sorry butt away from Vincent and cut into the forest, the sound of his engine fading as the trees overtook me. Fechin waited for me on a branch a few steps in, bouncing up and down at my apparent slowness.
I scowled up at him. “I’ll have you know I was enjoying myself before you showed up.”
“Maybe a little too much.”
Ravens don’t talk. A shadow slipped out of the foliage, forming into a shredded cloak. A lumberjack of a man frowned at me, clear disapproval written on his bearded face.
“Guntram?” A thought flickered across my mind, coming out of my mouth before I could stop it. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to see your entanglement with Mr. Garcia.” He loomed over me, still the disapproving mentor figure despite the fact that we hadn’t seen each other in weeks. “You know personal relationships are frowned upon, especially with the outside world.”
“Frowned upon, but not forbidden.” I’d known this would come up and had done my research. “Besides, I’m not an eyas anymore. You can’t just order me around. That’s the Oracle’s job.”
A flicker of something crossed Guntram’s face. Pity, maybe? But it left almost as soon as it came. “That is precisely why I’m here. The Oracle sent me to summon you.”
I beamed with excitement. “Finally, a mission! Have you been assigned, too? I can’t wait to—”
Guntram held up his hand. “I am to escort you to the northern homestead.”
His tone indicated it wasn’t the job I’d been hoping for. “Jichan, what’s going on?”
He motioned for me to follow him. “Come. I’ll explain on the way.”
CHAPTER 6
“WHAT DO YOU mean my shepherd status is being challenged?”
I tried to keep the panic out of my voice but completely failed. My mind still reeled from what little Guntram had explained as we trekked north toward the Mt. Rainier homestead. Although more than a couple hundred miles away as the crow flies (pun intended), we would make the journey in an hour via wisp channel, mostly through flat terrain.
Prying information out of Guntram, however, proved considerably more painful. Even as he promised to tell me what was going on, he began with a lecture on why I shouldn’t see Vincent anymore. This led to a heated argument as I pointed out the numerous times Vincent had saved not only my hide, but other shepherds’, especially by helping me rein in Rafe. Only when I finally realized Guntram was using this topic as a stalling tactic did I press him more about our reason for visiting the Oracle, and he spilled the beans.
And they were some gigantic-sized frijoles.
Guntram guided us around a pond in the remote wilderness at the base of Mt. Hood. “How many times did I tell you during training not to rely on lightning, Ina? It’s not a recognized element of Nasci. The other shepherds have been wary of you for years, especially the northern ones who blame you for our recent troubles.”
Like Darby, a lot of shepherds believed my rashness caused the whole situation with Rafe. Hell, I’d even blamed myself for a while, but it wasn’t like Rafe would have stopped killing people if I hadn’t been around. Also, when you meet ghosts of shepherds past in lava who tell you to quit throwing pity parties, you listen. Especially when that ghost was Tabitha.
“So what?” I stepped around a garter snake with yellow and black stripes. She slithered away under the bramble. “They can complain all they want. Nasci calls the shots, not them, and she blessed my shepherd status with a trial and everything.”
“The trial is exactly what’s being questioned.”
I had to force my fire pith to stay out of my extremities. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Baot, Zibel, Euchloe, Sipho, Darby, and ev
en you were there when the fox dryant assigned the trial. How many people are supposed to back me up on this?”
Guntram grimaced, his anger barely suppressed. “It’s one of those six who calls your Shepherd Trial into question.”
I froze in my tracks. “Darby.”
Guntram nodded.
I stalked back behind the augur. “But how? What’s her angle?”
“I don’t know. All will be revealed in a meeting with the Oracle tomorrow morning.”
We approached a lodgepole pine with the glowing base and walked right through. It zipped us from the shade of Mt. Hood to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington. I recognized the subtle shift in vegetation mix as a common access point to get to the northern homestead. One more teleport ought to do it.
“What about the others who saw the fox dryant?” I asked Guntram. “Will they be there to tell the Oracle that Darby’s full of herself?”
“The Oracle claims Darby has a reasonable objection, one that cannot be nullified by extra witnesses.”
I wracked my brain for any loophole Darby could have possibly found to revoke my shepherd status and came up empty. “You really don’t know what she’s up to?”
“I honestly have no idea what she’s found, but I do know why she’s bringing up a formal charge.”
I laughed without mirth. “I could have told you that. She wants to punish me for Tabitha’s death.”
“It’s more than that.” Guntram slowed so I could see his furrowed bushy eyebrows. “Many of the northern shepherds feel the southern homestead has lost our right to autonomy. The Oracle nearly died after her battle with Rafe. They blame me since he was my former eyas, and you as well for exacerbating the situation.”
“What does this have to do with Darby?”
“They’re trying to influence her in order to get you bound. They can leverage that to label me as negligent in my duties as your mentor. With Tabitha’s death, that leaves no responsible augur in the southern Talol Wilds. The Oracle would have no choice but to shut down Sipho’s homestead and consolidate everything in the north.”
My heart stopped at the mention of closing Sipho’s homestead. “What? They can’t do that!”
“They’ve been wanting to ever since Sipho built the place a decade ago.”
This gave me pause. “I had no idea her homestead was so new.”
“There was a big personality clash in the Talol Wilds around that time. Some shepherds valued tradition and structure. They liked to create rules the rest of us were to follow. I always valued the ability to make my own decisions. So did Tabitha.”
I snorted. Tabitha did not strike me as a person who respected personal liberties.
“You laugh, but compared to the other augurs of the Talol Wilds, it’s true. She and I were the ones who proposed creating two separate regions within the Talol Wilds with the southern shepherds following less stringent rules. The traditionalists hated the idea, but the Oracle saw its merit. Each structure has its strengths and weaknesses. So we split.”
I’d never thought to ask about our regional history. It seemed like the kind of thing that had been around forever. “They think Tabitha’s death nulls the current arrangement?”
“Yes. And with all the Talol Wilds shepherds under one roof, certain shepherds would increase their influence overnight.”
“The Oracle could just ignore the loudmouths in the north and let you handle things in the south.”
Guntram looked at me like I’d just flunked a test. “The Oracle has more diplomacy than you. Her position is as much a political as a magical one. It’s best for unity’s sake that we all get along, and for many years, we did. The southern homestead ran smoothly, and thus was considered a good experiment. A handful of northern shepherds even recognized us by visiting. Mere acknowledgement meant we could peacefully coexist.”
Thinking back to my first days as an eyas, I did remember more shepherds passing through Sipho’s. That had slowed to no northern visitors over time. “What changed?”
Guntram cast me an unreadable glance. “I chose you as my eyas. Many have never understood why I would train someone so advanced in age.”
“Haggard,” I spat out. A shepherd trained past puberty, a derogatory term the others called me all the time.
“It’s utter nonsense, of course. I’ve met others trained much later than you in the Onyara Wilds, but that’s not the tradition here. The northern shepherds might have gotten over that eventually, but your ability to harness lightning put the final nail in the coffin. Many refuse to recognize it as a proper element. The northern shepherds don’t want anything to do with us anymore.”
I reddened. Tabitha’s growing animosity toward me over the years suddenly made a lot more sense. “It’s my fault?”
Guntram sighed. “People fear what they don’t understand, Ina. In the end, shepherds are only human, after all.”
We reached the last will o’ the wisp channel, its luminescence stark in the waning evening light.
I grabbed Guntram’s arm before he went through. “You can’t let the north ruin the southern homestead.”
Guntram flashed me a mischievous grin. “What do you think I’ve been doing these past few weeks? I’m working on it. But as usual, I’ve been sidetracked by a mess you’ve made.”
“Hey now!” I protested, but Guntram leaped through to the other side. I knew he teasing, though, and followed on his heels.
We emerged two thirds up the slopes of Mt. Rainier, overlooking a vista half covered in trees, the other half in large boulders typical of high summits. Tucked away on the eastern slopes, snow sprinkled the area year-round. The sudden shift in altitude gave me shortness of breath, so I drew two circles with a sideways S on top and directed more air pith into my lungs. Guntram did the same. Oxygen levels back to normal, we walked along a barren ridge for fifteen minutes before our destination came into view.
The valley looked like a giant had carved a triangular piece of mountain pie and ate it. At the apex of the V, a large cave entrance dribbled out a stream not listed on any known maps. Although you couldn’t see it, I knew that deep inside those dark shadows sat a massive hot spring. The stream cut the valley in half, most of it covered with shaggy Alaska yellow cedars. Building rooftops poked out here and there. Unlike the rustic wooden cabins of Sipho’s homestead, every structure had been built painstakingly with stone and brick. An invisible boundary protected the valley and beyond where the farm fields began. Hikers would never find this little fairyland, although I’m sure they’d wet their pants if they did.
Guntram huffed into his beard, more resigned than delighted by the scenery. “I know you have a propensity to say however you feel, but you must exercise tact here, Ina. Your words could be held against you later.”
“You think I’m going to run my mouth off?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you even have to ask?”
“Fair enough. I’ll try to keep my lips zipped.”
The slopes of the pie-shaped wedge were gentle, but we still had to use earth pith to clamp our hands to exposed stone to make our way down to the valley floor. The tops of coniferous trees obscured our birds-eye view, and I only caught glimpses of the structures hidden within. I didn’t feel anything when we crossed the actual boundary into the northern homestead itself, but I could tell we had by the rise in temperature and decrease in evening insects swarming around my ears. One final slash of sunlight still bathed the wider meadows, but total darkness would soon wash over everything. In response, torches on metal poles like medieval lamplights flickered on at odd intervals, casting flickering shadows around building entrances and marking paths. Fancy. I almost asked Guntram why Sipho didn’t have lights down south, but then remembered how overworked she was. She probably just didn’t have time.
A long snake suddenly slithered out of a nearby bush, cutting between me and Guntram. I recognized its black and yellow stripes instantly. “That’s like the fourth garter snake I’ve seen to
day.”
Guntram froze, but it wasn’t his deep baritone that filled the air.
“Just another one of my kidama.”
An older shepherd emerged on the path in front of Guntram. He had deep brown hair with white at his temples, allowing him to appear both older and wise, yet still youthful. A short, trim mustache graced his upper lip. He wore a short, dark tunic with golden trim at the cuffs. His pants hugged his legs, outlining firm muscles, like those you see on professional ice skaters. He moved toward us slowly, but I knew he could draw a sigil faster than I could blink.
Guntram narrowed his eyes but gave him a curt nod. “Sertalis.” The fire augur. I’d only met him before in passing at all-shepherd meetings. He’d ignored me thoroughly both times, the kind of guy that only talked to you when he wanted something.
Apparently, he wanted something now. Sertalis gave the smallest bow possible to Guntram, but only looked down his nose at me. “You brought your eyas, I see.”
I stiffened, but Guntram held up his hand for me. Okay, fine. Keep quiet. I folded my arms over my chest.
“Ina is a shepherd now,” Guntram corrected firmly, like a professor to a student who should know better.
“Isn’t that why she’s here?” Sertalis talked about me as if I wasn’t even there. “To determine if that’s even true.”
Guntram straightened, and although Sertalis had several inches of height advantage, Guntram’s broad shoulders and chest made him more intimidating. “We came here to correct an unfortunate misunderstanding born out of Darby’s grief. I’m confident the Oracle will see things clearly.”
“Yes, the Oracle does seem to favor your confidence.” A smirk lingered at the edge of his lips. “Despite your current track record.”
A wind whistled overhead. Guntram’s eyes turned to steel. His ravens, who hadn’t made a sound for miles, suddenly cawed overhead, making their presence known.
Whoa. I didn’t expect Guntram to lose his cool first. I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s been a long day,” I said loudly, causing both men to stare at me in surprise. “I’m tired. Aren’t you tired, Guntram?”
