Eyes of Crow (17 page)

“You will die,” Coranna said.

“We will journey up Mount Beros to a sacred place. I will take your coat and begin the ritual. The wind will do its part and take the heat from your body until life has slipped away. Then I’ll bring you back.”

Rhia’s mind refused to understand. “Bring me back from…”

“From death.”

Someone inside her head was screaming, faintly, as if from a distance.

Rhia laughed out loud, but the sound rang hollow against the wooden walls. “You’re joking, aren’t you? For a moment I actually believed you.” She flitted her hand against her chest.

Coranna blinked slowly. “You have to die.”

The shrieks in her head grew louder. Rhia pushed back from the table and stood up. “That’s not—” She put her hands out as if searching for an object in a dark room. Something to grasp, something to hold her up before she—

Fell.

Her knees hit the floor at the rug’s edge. She barely noticed the bruising impact, for her head felt full of air and water and scream. She gasped for breaths that came too hard and quick. Her hands went cold, as if she had already started dying.

Coranna sat beside her and stroked her back. “I know it’s frightening.”

Frightening?
Rhia thought.
A rustle in the dark is frightening. A spider crawling across a bare foot is frightening.
She clutched the edge of the rug.

Coranna spoke again, softly. “Would it help to know that it could be much worse? Freezing is relatively painless, I’m told. You’re fortunate—it was summer when I began my training.” Her hand stilled on Rhia’s back. “I had to drown.”

Rhia gaped at her and finally forced out a few words. “This ritual—it’s grotesque.”

“It works. Nothing overcomes the fear of death better than facing and conquering it yourself.” She cupped Rhia’s chin in her hand. “It’s the only way to become a true Crow.”

Rhia remembered what Marek had shouted to Coranna yesterday. She pulled away. “What if you can’t?”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t bring me back.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Why should I?”

Coranna seemed to grow impatient with the argument. “Because you have no choice.”

Rhia sucked in her breath. It was not her choice to die, to be born again, to have these troubling powers, to be Crow. She had resisted it as long as she could, but she would have protested forever had she known.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have made you eat first.” Coranna crossed the room and opened the window. “Come, get some fresh air. If you feel sick, use the bucket, not the window. We don’t want to surprise anyone down below.”

Rhia forced her feet to plant themselves under her and drag her body to the window. The air was biting cold, which heightened her senses but reminded her of the ordeal ahead. She rested her chin and arms on the sill and tried to breathe.

“How long will it take?” she asked in a dull voice.

“It’s less than a day’s journey up—”

“How long will it take me to die?”

“That’s up to you. You’ll fight it at first, out of instinct. But once you surrender, it won’t be long. An hour, maybe two, depending how cold it is. I’m told it’s like going to sleep. You’ll wear light clothing from head to foot to protect your skin from frostbite.”

Rhia winced. “It’s not fair,” she whispered, though she knew it was an absurd argument.

“I know.” Coranna’s voice softened. “Being Crow is a great burden and a great honor. We must have faith that He only chooses those few who are able to withstand hardship, loneliness and the pain of mortality.”

Could Crow un-choose her? Rhia wondered. If she could just get away, maybe they could renegotiate their pact.

In any case, she would not win this argument with Coranna, not in a straightforward manner. Her shoulders sagged.

“All right,” Rhia said. “I’ll go.”

Coranna sighed. “Thank you.” She touched Rhia’s face and kissed the top of her head. “I promise it will all happen according to plan.”

Yes, it will,
Rhia thought,
but not your plan.

Rhia took a last long look at Coranna’s sleeping face before shutting the door behind her.

Her hastily prepared pack left her off balance as she tiptoed across the rope bridge connecting Coranna’s and Marek’s homes. She may not have even packed sufficient supplies, but it didn’t matter. If Marek said yes, he would make up any deficiency. If he said no, she’d be on her way back to Coranna.

Back to death.

A wooden slat beneath her feet creaked. She held her breath and glanced back at Coranna’s home before moving on to Marek’s door.

It opened before she could knock on it. She stared into darkness.

“You shouldn’t have come.” Marek’s voice cracked on the last word. An invisible hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her into the house.

“I couldn’t—I can’t—”

“Shh.” Marek folded her into his arms. She clung to him and sobbed without tears.

“Coranna wants to kill me.”

“I know. I know.” He caressed her back in long, soothing strokes.

“There must be another way. I can study her methods, learn by watching—”

“You can’t just grasp it with your mind.” He held her at arm’s length. “Your soul has to learn it, too, that death is nothing to fear.”

She wished she could see his face. “What if it doesn’t work? What if she can’t bring me back?”

Marek fell silent. Even his breath stilled.

“I heard you ask her yesterday,” Rhia said. “You said, ‘What if you can’t?’ Marek, could she make a mistake and leave me on the Other Side?”

“With the right conditions, Coranna can bring anyone back. She’s done it before for other Crows.” He brushed the hair out of her eyes. “But when you come back, part of you might stay over there. And the part that is here might wish it wasn’t.”

Her spine went cold. “Why?”

“Death seduces. It brings peace, they say, and contentment and so many other things we spend our lives trying to find.”

“So they say.” She gave an impatient sigh. “But if death is some kind of paradise, then why do we all fight so hard to avoid it?”

“Good question.” He touched her pack. “What’s in here?”

“Everything I have.”

His voice turned cautious. “Are you moving in?”

“No, I’m leaving Kalindos.”

“Why?”

“
Why?
Because Coranna’s going to kill me.” She struggled to keep the panic from her voice.

“You can’t run off on your own.”

“I know. Take me away.”

Marek’s breath caught, then he let it out in a huff. “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere. Just don’t let me go to the Other Side.” She grasped his shirt. “I want to stay here. With you.”

He pulled her close again, the intensity of his embrace no doubt reflecting the turmoil inside. She hated herself for asking him to betray Coranna, but she had to live.

“Save me,” she whispered. “Please.”

He let go of her abruptly, almost pushing her away. “Help me pack.”

They scrambled for as many necessities as they could gather in a few minutes. Marek slung the pack in front of his chest, where it disappeared into him, followed by his bow and arrows.

“You’ll have to climb on my back to take on my stealth. Scouts always patrol at night.”

He squatted so she could wrap herself around him. After she had disappeared, he stood and opened the door.

“This ought to be fun,” he said dryly, at the top of the ladder. He gripped the rungs hard as he descended, while his labored breath slid between his teeth.

When they reached the ground, he trotted north through the village. His footsteps glided over the soil, disturbing not so much as a pine needle. Rhia pitied his prey, who would be hard-pressed to detect his approach.

The same could not be said for his fellow Wolves. Two patrolled the outskirts of the village. Marek stopped when he saw them, then changed course so that he and Rhia would travel downwind of the sentries.

He was so occupied with avoiding humans that he ran into the path of a prowling cougar. Marek leaped to the side, startled. Rhia lost her grip and fell backward onto the ground. The cougar spied her, shook off its own surprise, and gathered itself to pounce.

Rhia’s arm shot up to protect her face, though she knew it was useless. Marek shrieked her name.

A sharp twang, accompanied by a muffled crack, came from the right. A heavy weight thudded in front of her.

Rhia lowered her arm to see the cougar lying in the dirt not two paces away. Its gaze fixed on her, then dimmed as it gave a last tremor.

She sat up. An arrow, still quivering, protruded from the back of the cougar’s neck. It had severed the spine in an instant, the same way the creature would have killed her.

“What are you waiting for? Run!”

Rhia looked up to see Alanka lying on top of a large flat rock, the bow vibrating in her hand.

“Thank me later,” Alanka said. “If I see you again.”

A hand grabbed Rhia’s shoulder. She scrambled to her feet and climbed on Marek’s back.

“Now we’re even,” he said in Alanka’s direction. Then he began to run. Behind them rose a plaintive song for the cougar’s spirit, a hunter’s tune that mixed triumph and mourning. Alanka’s vibrant voice faded as they ran, and Rhia wished she had had the presence of mind to tell her goodbye.

Over the crest of a steep hill and down the other side they flew, silent as snow, until Kalindos lay miles behind them. Her arms and legs ached from gripping his body.

Finally Marek halted behind a thicket of brush and waited. If he had been a real wolf, his ears would be twitching back and forth, listening for the faintest noise.

“We’re safe for now.” He let her slide off his back, then collapsed, panting, on the forest floor.

“Do you think Alanka will tell Coranna?”

“If Alanka wanted to keep us in Kalindos,” he said, “she would have escorted us back.”

“You told her you were even. Did you save her life?”

“Once or twice. We all make mistakes in our early hunting days. Alanka’s, er, bolder than most.” He chuckled with the little breath he had. The pack appeared, and two blankets were drawn from it. “We’ll rest here for a bit. Keep warm.”

They shifted together, drawing the blankets around their huddled forms.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“A trapper’s shelter, about a hour’s walk from here. Near the river, way upstream. Depending how frozen it is, maybe we can escape by water.”

She took his hand. “Marek, I made you betray Coranna. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t make me do anything. And you’re not sorry.” He drew her close. “Neither am I.”

They sat together a while longer, gathering warmth and strength, then set out again more slowly, side by side into the waiting darkness.

Every time she shivered, Rhia remembered the fate that would have awaited her in the mountains. A death without pain, perhaps, but not without suffering. She remembered a lamb in Dorius’s flock that had frozen in a late frost. It was stiff and gray and hard, like a stone sculpture of itself. She imagined her body’s heat leaving her—the chill would start at her hands and feet, then move up her limbs until it reached her heart, which now pounded in protest at the thought.

Yet her people needed her. If dying was the only way…

She tried to calm her mind, to reach out to her Guardian Spirit for answers, wondering if even Crow himself could convince her to undergo the ritual. But no Spirit’s voice rose above the storm of fear inside. Instinct drove her onward.

But what drove Marek to help her? Why did he place his allegiance with a woman he’d known only five days, rather than the one who had given him both a home and a purpose?

“If Coranna can bring people back to life,” she asked him as they walked through the dark forest, “why doesn’t she do it more often?”

“It has to be special circumstances. She obviously can’t bring everyone back.”

“But how does she decide?”

Marek uttered a sour laugh. “If I knew that I’d be Crow.” He lowered his voice as if talking to himself. “Maybe not even then.”

Rhia sensed that they were dancing around a place of pain. A picture of the situation was forming in her mind, and she began to grasp the complexity of Marek’s devotion to Coranna. She had been either unable or unwilling to revive his mate and child.

“You would have liked Coranna,” he said, “if you’d come to know her. She seems aloof, but it’s only because the life has made her that way.”

“Life as a Crow woman?”

“A Crow woman in a place where death is everyone’s neighbor. In Asermos you would have found it easier.”

She thought of her home, of her family and of Arcas. Already they felt far away and less familiar than this forest and this man. Could she ever return to her village? What kind of life would she lead without the full use of her powers? Her heart grew leaden in her chest.