by Claudia King
The group slowed down, waiting for the log rollers to move off the main path, then quickened their pace again as they passed by the first buildings on the edge of the village. Thakayn strode swiftly ahead and sent a warrior back to make sure that Adel kept up with them. In the flickering light of the fires outside the houses Kiren saw a great many people watching them. Families cooking their evening meals, craftspeople tidying up their work refuse, hunters butchering the day's kill, and others who seemed to be working with fires trapped inside large earthen domes.
There were many sights and sounds in the Sun People's village that Kiren did not understand, but they distracted her from the enormous house on the hill. The smaller buildings stopped abruptly once the slope began to steepen, then they were climbing up a dusty, pebble-strewn path that wound slowly up the western side of the hill until it brought them to the mouth of the great house. Six bare tree trunks greeted them at the sides of the path, the second pair rising higher than the first, and the third higher still, forming the entranceway to the building. Talismans like the ones Adel's people hung outside their seers' cave were scattered all around the base of each trunk. As Kiren looked at them more closely she was shocked to realise that the columns were not made of wood, but enormous discs of stone. How had they found stones like this? Or had they made them by hand? She couldn't imagine how long it would take a craftsperson to chip stone into such a shape and stack it this way, and her sense of awe only deepened as they stepped beneath the swaying banners over the entranceway and entered the house itself.
Beneath her feet there were even more stones, flat and smooth, chipped into shapes that could be fit roughly together and layered down to make a hard floor. Some of them were cracked, and the clay that had been used to seal the gaps between them was crumbling in places, but it was still a marvel to Kiren's eyes. A cave made not by the spirits, but by the hands of men.
She turned her eyes upward and saw many more columns—these ones actual trees like the ones the river men had brought—propping up a high vaulted ceiling made of thinner logs and wooden boards. Walls of timber and heaped stone opened up off the sides of the hall into additional chambers that seemed every bit as large as the first. Directly ahead of them a series of wooden steps climbed upward. Those steps looked to Kiren like the only part of the temple that had been build upon the hill's natural slope. The rest must have been carved out and flattened somehow to make room for the square chambers to sit upright.
Thakayn spoke some words and the group came to a halt. Aside from a pair of warriors flanking the entrance the house had appeared to be empty, but now that they were inside Kiren noticed voices and the smell of roasted meat coming from the chamber to their left.
Leaning heavily on her staff, Adel came up beside her. The den mother looked awful, red-eyed and flushed, her hair falling in dirty tangles around her face. Was it just weariness, or had she been crying? At any moment it seemed as if her legs might collapse beneath her.
“She needs food and rest,” Kiren said. The dark man looked at her as if he had understood, but no one said anything. “Tell them, Den Mother.”
“I will rest once I have spoken to their Dawn King,” she replied wearily, then said something in the Sun People's tongue to Thakayn. The high priest raised his forefinger threateningly and gave a curt reply. She glared at him and shot something back, then the other high priest intervened, speaking smoothly and calmly as he walked to Thakayn's side. The pair shared a more subdued conversation for several moments, during which Kiren leaned in to whisper to Adel.
“Who is that strange man?”
“His name is Jarek,” the den mother replied in a dry voice. “He is our friend. The other one is not.”
“How can you be certain? One of their spirit-talkers once tricked me into thinking he was my friend too.”
“Now is no time for me to explain it to you,” Adel said. “For now you must trust me.”
Kiren bit her lip in frustration. But I don't. In that moment she felt sure the high priests were deceiving Adel somehow, taking advantage of her while she was vulnerable.
Jarek and Thakayn disappeared through a small passageway near the steps that looked like it had been dug through the earth itself, leaving Kiren and Adel alone with the warriors. None of them spoke to one another. The discipline with which they held themselves was unnerving. Kiren hoped she would not have to fight any of these men when they escaped. Even with the body of her wolf to aid her, something told her she would still be the one at a disadvantage.
The high priests remained absent for a long time. Adel slowly began listing sideways until Kiren put out a hand to steady her. She tried to get the den mother to ask for somewhere to sit, but she remained stubbornly silent. It was as bad as dealing with Vaya.
Several men dressed in woollen clothing of white and yellow gave them curious looks as they came out of the hall on the left, and after a while more people followed. Some were dressed similarly, but others looked more like the people Kiren had seen in the village, though their clothing was neater, and they paid no attention to the warriors standing in the middle of the hall. They seemed to pay little attention to anything, in fact, save for the direction they were headed: either out of the building's entrance or down one of the smaller passages like the one Jarek and Thakayn had taken. It was as if they did not want to be noticed at all, though there were so many of them that Kiren found that very strange indeed.
The people who behaved more normally were clearly warriors, all men, wearing blades at their belts and tokens of yellow in their clothing, though they carried no spears, nor did they wear bone scales. Kiren supposed these warriors had no duties to fulfil right now, so they were relaxing and enjoying themselves.
It was not the men in wool, nor the quiet folk, nor the warriors who caught Kiren's attention, however. It was the pretty women dressed in shawls and gowns of deep red. They strode across the floorstones with elegant composure. Though Kiren could not understand what they were saying, she sensed an air of confidence in the way they spoke. The women who lingered in the hall invited the attention of the men effortlessly, many of whom seemed to regard them with a curious mix of respect and desire.
Eventually Thakayn emerged from the passageway near the steps. To a casual observer he might have appeared impassive and well-composed, but Netya had taught Kiren to look beyond the obvious things a person expressed. His sharp strides and the tension in his knuckles spoke of a man struggling to contain a great deal of anger. Kiren felt a twinge of fear as he began to walk toward them, but he turned away at the base of the steps and dragged one of the women in red away from her conversation, fingers digging into the girl's upper arm as he pulled her up the steps after him.
Adel's posture stiffened, and for a moment Kiren thought she might be about to say something, but the den mother remained silent. By the time Jarek returned the hall had grown quiet once more, with most of the Sun People having gone outside or into the other chambers.
The high priest gave an order to the warriors, and all but two of them dispersed. The remaining pair waited outside the passageway as Jarek beckoned Kiren and Adel to follow him back down it. The main hall had been lit by stone braziers between the columns, but the narrow little tunnel they stepped into was dark, and Kiren had to put her hand on the wall to guide her along the curving path through the hillside.
It surprised her only mildly to hear Jarek murmuring softly to them in the tongue of the Moon People once they were alone.
“The Dawn King waits for us in the chamber ahead. He has asked to share a meal with you.”
“The other high priest did not seem happy with that,” Kiren said before Adel could reply.
The sound of Jarek's voice made it seem like he was smiling. “He didn't, did he? I think I've made this day very uncomfortable for him.”
“What did he want with us?” Adel asked.
“I couldn't say. Maybe you were supposed to be a gift for the Dawn King, one that Thakayn could hide away until
the time was right. Or perhaps a gift for someone else. There are many powerful village chieftains who have reason to hate the Moon People.”
Not knowing what Thakayn wanted with them unnerved Kiren, especially after glimpsing his anger earlier. There had been a deep fury in him that was made all the more threatening by his eerie beauty. He seemed almost like Adel, now that she thought about it. Fair and enticing at first glance, but sharp and dangerous beneath the surface.
The passage was longer than Kiren had anticipated, yet to her relief its earthen walls soon gave way to rough stone propped up by timber frames and a roof of sealed boards overhead. Moonlight seeped in through tall gaps in the stonework to illuminate the passage with alternating bars of light and shadow. Again she marvelled at the work that must have gone into shaping this house, though she was beginning to think of it as more of a village within a network of man-made caves. A clan of the Moon People could easily have made this place their den. Was it magic, or truly heroic craftsmanship that had lifted all these stones and set them into place? The Sun People could make fire that burned quicker and hotter than anything she knew of, craft canoes that swam like water birds, and shape metal as if it were clay. When she thought of it like that, the wonder of this great house no longer seemed quite so implausible.
At the end of the passageway Jarek stood aside and lifted a thin yellow drape with his arm, inviting the two women to step past him. Kiren took the lead, surprised to see that the chamber she emerged into was small and relatively plain. An older man sat on the opposite side of a raised stone table facing them, both palms face-down on the surface as he studied his guests with an eager smile. The heavy wrinkles in his dusky skin should have made him appear weary, Kiren thought, yet something about the man's posture and his smile conveyed a sense of energy that belied his weathered appearance. The plain grey gown he wore did little to flatter him, but he did wear a circlet of interwoven twigs and a ring of metal around his beard that lent him a touch of elegance. He barely moved as Kiren stood aside to let Adel follow. The man simply watched, looking from one woman to the other, and then finally to Jarek.
“They look very weary,” he said, surprising Kiren by using the words of the Moon People.
Before anyone else could speak she asked, “How do you know our tongue?”
Adel made a noise of annoyance and rapped the back of Kiren's legs with her staff, but the man at the table did not seem offended by the abruptness of her question.
“It is a fair thing to ask,” he said. “You have Jarek to thank for that. It was a shaman who taught me the first words in your tongue, but only through my conversations with Jarek did I truly learn how to use them. I shall not lie,” his smile broadened slightly, “I have waited many years for an opportunity to hold a conversation like this. Sit, please.” He gestured to a wooden bench on the opposite side of the table. “Rest and eat. My temple is a house of plenty.”
Adel was slow to respond, but at the sight of the food spread out across the stone slab Kiren hurried forward. If their captors were going to offer them real food then she was not about to forgo the chance to gorge herself. She would need her strength to escape.
“I am Atalyn,” the elder said, though Kiren was more intent on grabbing the nearest platter than paying attention to his words. There were steaming bowls of boiled grain, fresh meats, and mouthwateringly large pieces of honeycomb. Kiren ignored everything else as she sat down on the bench, grabbing some of the honeycomb and sinking her teeth into its sweetness.
“The honey is for afterwards,” Atalyn said.
Kiren shot him a quizzical look over her dripping mouthful. Afterwards of what?
“First we enjoy our meat and brown grain,” the elder explained, lifting a few slices on to a wooden platter and sliding it across the table to Kiren. “Then we fill our bellies with white grain and honey. The sweetness and the texture, ah, there is no better way to end a meal. Do you not agree, Jarek?”
“No better way, Dawn King,” the high priest confirmed.
Kiren eyed the meats and grain, but she stuck to her honeycomb. The idea of eating food in a set order made it seem more like a ritual than a meal. Was she offending the Sun People's traditions somehow by doing this? She hesitated, took one more bite of the honeycomb, then dragged over a bowl of grain.
“What is this foolishness?” Adel said, her voice soft and threatening. She had remained standing the whole time, watching the Dawn King.
“Is it not your people's custom to tend to their guests' needs?” Atalyn answered.
“We are not guests. Guests are not invited with arrows and spears. You do not bring guests to your den with ropes about their wrists.”
Atalyn frowned. His back straightened, and for the first time Kiren sensed an alpha's authority stirring within the man.
“I hope you can find the compassion to forgive my men, Seeress. It was not by my hand that they took you, though the responsibility must be mine all the same. This was not how I hoped such a meeting of leaders might come about.”
“It was your high priest, Thakayn,” Adel said.
Atalyn nodded. “Yes, Jarek has told me of Thakayn's part in this.”
The two men shared a hesitant look, then Jarek added, “The Dawn King knows everything. Who I am is a secret to everyone else, but he knows the truth.”
“Of course he does,” Adel said. “How else would you have taught him our tongue.”
Kiren turned to look at them, a handful of grain half way to her lips. Jarek was a friend to them... because he was of their people too? She'd suspected it as soon as he showed signs of understanding their language, but nothing could have prepared her for what the Dawn King said next.
“Jarek has also spoken of you, Seeress Adel. Some people do not believe in the power of the spirits, but when I see meetings like this I cannot help but see their benevolent hand shaping our fate.” He smiled. “Old lovers, reunited across forests and mountains and a generation of time. It is like a story told in song.”
Lovers. Was that the truth of it? Despite Adel's beauty, Kiren had never thought her capable of love. Certainly not in the same way other people were. Had this been the reason for her strange behaviour after they met Jarek?
She jumped as Adel banged her staff down flat upon the table. The den mother stepped over the bench and sat down alongside Kiren, any hint of her former weariness utterly dispelled.
“Do not speak of things you do not understand. Tell me what you mean to do with us, Dawn King.”
The space between Atalyn's brows wrinkled, casting the elder's face into a forlorn shadow. Sadness seemed to fit the Dawn King's expression as easily as a smile.
“My honest answer, Seeress? I do not know. I expected to end this evening with a bowl of grain, a piece of honeycomb, and a cup of tea to set me asleep. Now I have two women of the Moon People in my temple, and two high priests with very different ideas of how to treat them.”
“Then let us go,” Kiren said through a mouthful of food.
“Don't be a fool, girl,” Adel replied. “He knows he cannot do that.”
Atalyn sighed. “I am afraid the seeress is correct. Were I an ordinary man I might release you, but I am not. I am the Dawn King. If I send you home, what will come next? After the seasons turn, will I awake one morning to hear of Moon People slaughtering my followers and burning my farmsteads? Will you return seeking vengeance for what I have done? Or will you disappear into those western lands again, leaving only tales behind you?”
“We wouldn't do what your people did to us,” Kiren said.
“He does not know that,” Adel said. “There is no way for him to be sure. So he will keep us here until his decision can be made.”
Atalyn nodded slowly. “I fear that is what I must do. Understand that I would make you my friend, Seeress. I have already done so with Jarek. Unlike so many of my people, I have no reason to fear what you are.”
“Please, Dawn King, allow them to leave,” Jarek said. “You have my word that
Adel will do nothing to harm you.”
Atalyn looked down and smiled. It was not a happy smile. “How many years had you lived when you last saw this woman, Jarek?”
Without hesitation Adel answered for him. “Nineteen.”
Atalyn nodded. “Jarek is sometimes ruled by his heart first and his wisdom second, as is befitting a priest of the Son. When I was of that age I believed the men I loved could do no wrong. Some of them never gave me reason to think otherwise. Others are now dead by my own command.” He looked up at Jarek, and Kiren saw the hard edge of an alpha within him again. “This woman that sits before us may not be the same girl you once loved. I trust you when you say she means us no harm; I would not have allowed her into my chamber unguarded otherwise. Yet what will she do when she is safe within her own lands, with a fighting band of warriors at her heel who are hungry to avenge her? That is a question only she knows the answer to.”
A moment of tense silence fell over the chamber. Kiren did not even dare to take another mouthful of food.
“You are wise, Dawn King,” Adel said slowly. “Wiser than many of the alphas I have faced.” Without saying anything else, she dragged a wooden platter across the table and began to eat.
The following meal was one of the strangest Kiren had ever shared. No one spoke, and only she and Adel ate. Atalyn occasionally sipped from an ornate clay cup, its surface woven with reliefs depicting the outspread wings of birds, but he did not touch the food. Jarek stood impassively behind them, perhaps lost in his thoughts. If he really was Adel's long-lost lover then the meal must have been just as strange to him as it was to Kiren.
She did not know what to expect any more. The future had twisted, complicating itself with the presence of Jarek and the Dawn King. Her heart wanted to trust these men, but her heart had been tricked before. And there was still Thakayn. Was escape still their best chance at freedom, or might it be better to wait and try to earn the Dawn King's trust? The uncertainty made the bench feel hard and uncomfortable beneath her. If she had been a proper seer perhaps she could have unwound the tangled threads of fate the way Netya and Adel were able to.
