Foxfire (85 page)

“What vows do you make to each other?” Keirith asked.

“I give you the love of my heart,” Callie said, “the comfort of my body, and the protection of my sword-arm.”

Ela swallowed hard at that reminder of the Zherosi. “I give you the love of my heart, the guidance of my wisdom, and the promise of the new life that grows in my body.”

They both smiled at the intake of breath that greeted her final words. Griane knew every woman was eying Ela's belly, hidden under her shapeless tunic, trying to guess how far along she was.

What kind of future awaited their child? A life of slavery in a Zherosi field? Death in its mother's womb before it even beheld the world?

Nedia knelt beside her sister and sprinkled a fistful of dirt over the two pairs of bare feet. “May the body of the earth goddess be ever strong beneath your feet.”

Keirith breathed four times into the couple's faces. “May the breath of the wind gods blow lightly upon your heads.”

Lisula eased sunwise through the narrow space around the couple, a flaming torch held aloft. “May Bel's fire always warm your days.”

Barasa dipped her finger into a bowl of water and anointed their lips. “May Lacha's water always quench your thirst.”

Griane stepped forward, the needle-sharp dagger resting across her uplifted palms. Keirith stared at the dagger for a long moment before grasping it. His left hand came up to stroke the fleshy mound at the base of his right thumb where he still bore the scar from his blood vow with Conn.

His gaze moved past her. The intensity of his expression made Griane catch her breath. Perhaps he heard, for he gave her a quick smile and turned back to Callie and Ela.

Griane glanced over her shoulder. Hircha's cheeks were flushed, but that could be due to the press of bodies in the cave. And many women's eyes were bright with unshed tears, remembering their bride-days, their lost husbands. But Hircha was watching Keirith.

“You're supposed to be staring at the bride,” Hircha whispered.

Keirith made the small cut at Callie's wrist, then Ela's. While Nedia wiped the dagger clean, he and Barasa bound the couple's hands together with a strip of doeskin.

“Hand to hand they are bound,” they recited. “Blood mingles with blood. Life joins with life.”

Barasa unwrapped the doeskin. Nedia stepped forward to bandage Ela's wrist with nettle-cloth, while Keirith did the same for Callie. Then Barasa accepted a small stone cup from Lisula. Instead of elderberry wine, the couple would seal their union with water.

“As the Oak and the Holly grow from one root, so Callum and Ela are forever joined.”

She raised the cup first to Callie's lips and then to Ela's. After the ceremonial sip, they faced each other, their eyes wide and serious as Keirith intoned the final blessing.

“What was two is now one. One blood. One body. One life. Callum and Ela, may your days together be long and fruitful, and may you meet once more in the Forever Isles.”

A woman's choked sob was quickly drowned out by the shout of acclamation: “Blessed be!”

Callie cupped Ela's face between his hands and kissed her gently. The tribe cheered. Ennit hobbled forward to congratulate the couple. Hircha crumbled a fragment of nutcake over their heads to ensure that they would never know hunger.

Keirith hung back. When Griane touched him lightly on the shoulder, he muttered, “It cannot end like this.” And she knew he was not thinking of the marriage rite, but of the Zherosi, waiting patiently for them to starve to death or surrender.

Soon after, he left the celebration. Griane slipped away, too, snatching up her healing bag from her meager pile of belongings. She chose a spot nearby that was shielded from the cave by a pile of boulders.

Her fingers fumbled inside her healing bag until they found the smallest of her clay jars. Ardal's mantle, they called the plant, for the drooping purple sepals resembled a cloaked head. But it was the poison in the root that had inspired some healer long ago to name it after the god who hunted the spirits of the dying.

A few grains could kill a rabbit within moments. A single drop of the root's juice on a wounded finger produced numbness throughout the entire body.

It would be easy to mix the powdered root with water. There was certainly enough for the children—probably for the entire tribe. A quicker death than starvation. And more merciful than a Zherosi blade.

“A healer's job is to relieve pain,” Mother Netal had told her, “and save lives. But when there's no hope of saving a life, you must ease the person's suffering and—if necessary—offer a quick death instead of a lingering one.”

She had done it before. But it was one thing to grant a peaceful death to men with their bellies ripped open by Zherosi blades and another to raise a cup of death to the mouth of an innocent child.

She returned the jar to her healing bag and called Rigat's name, hoping that somehow he could hear her, that he would return and end this. Three times, she called Fellgair's. She watched the blue of the sky deepen and Gheala's waning crescent rise above the trees. Then she rose and returned to the celebration.

She kept a smile on her face, but inside, felt only a numb weariness. Like his son, Fellgair had deserted them.

 

 

 

Keirith rose and stretched; short as he was, even he could not stand upright. To ease the crowding in the cave, the older boys slept in the grottos when they weren't on sentry duty. This one was too small for a fire pit—barely large enough to accommodate more than four or five people—but at least you had room to stretch out your legs, something only the children managed in the cave.

Tonight, Callie and Ela would share the other grotto, and the rare privilege of privacy. He had peeked inside when he left the celebration. The boys had built a fire there. The women had spread wolfskins beside the fire pit and scattered daisies across them. The sight of the flowers had made his throat tighten with love for his brother and for those who had tried to create a beautiful bower out of a gloomy hole.

This grotto was less cheerful. A broken pine spar partially blocked the entrance. The men had chopped off some of its boughs to use as bedding. Stones were piled near the entrance where a slinger could quickly snatch them up.

He had settled himself atop the boughs and closed his eyes, seeking stillness and emptiness—and Natha. As always, it was a comfort simply to reach his spirit guide and hear that familiar voice, affectionate and scolding. Less comforting was the concern in Natha's voice before he vanished.

“Be careful, hatchling. And remember that I am with you. Always.”

Keirith paused by the entrance of the grotto to fix the details of the vision in his mind. Instead of disappearing over the side of the cliff, the line of people seemed to melt, vanishing like mist before the rising sun. And for the first time, neither eagle chick won the contest; the vision ended abruptly in the middle of the battle. He wanted to believe these small changes were good omens, but Gortin had always cautioned him about allowing his personal desires to influence his interpretation.

Skittering pebbles disturbed his thoughts. A ragged skirt appeared in the grotto's entrance, then a spill of blond hair as Hircha peered inside. “Callie's been asking for you.”

Instead of stepping aside to let him leave, she scrambled over the pine spar and motioned him deeper into the grotto.

“What is it?” he asked. “Has something happened?”

“It's your mam. Nay, she's fine. But she left the celebration, too. And I was worried so I followed her.” Hircha hesitated. “I heard her calling Rigat.”

Keirith's bowels clenched. “He's here?”

“Nay. But I thought you should know.”

“It would be better if he stayed away.”

He sank down on the pine boughs. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled Hircha down beside him and described his visions.

“Have you told Griane?” she asked when he fell silent.

“It would kill her to imagine her sons battling. And the other . . .” He shuddered. Where once he had believed his mother was sleeping, now he feared that he had Seen her death.

“I've been thinking,” he said. “About Rigat. How much he's changed since he began pretending he was the Son of Zhe. And I couldn't help wondering—”

“If you should have become the Son of Zhe when you had the chance?”

“I was never powerful enough to convince them of that. But the Khonsel gave me the opportunity to stay in Pilozhat. To pretend to be Xevhan.”

“You never told me that.”

“It was Malaq's dream to find a way for our people to live together. Perhaps as the Zheron, I could have made it come true.”

“If the son of a god failed, how could you have succeeded? Nay, Keirith. You made the right choice. You could never have spent your whole life pretending to be someone else.”

“Sometimes, I feel that's all I've ever done. I hid my gift as a child. I was meant to be a shaman, but somehow turned into a rebel. Today, I pretended to be a Tree-Father to make my brother happy. And now . . .”

Hircha butted him with her shoulder. “Now, you're sitting in a hole in the rock, feeling sorry for yourself.”

Keirith butted her back. “Now, I'm sitting in a hole in the rock, feeling sorry for myself and wondering what's going to happen to all of us. We've only got water for a few more days. Sooner or later—”

“Stop. Just for today. And come celebrate with Callie and Ela.”

She rose and pulled him to his feet. When he clung to her hand, her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown.

“Was it hard for you?” he blurted. “Watching the wedding? And remembering yours?”

She stared at the darkening blue of the sky beyond the grotto as if the answer lay there. “It was hard. I miss Conn. I loved him. In my way. But I never should have married him. Maybe if we'd had more time . . . I don't know.”

“Xevhan casts a long shadow.”

“Aye. But only because we've let him. Fourteen years is too long, Keirith. It's time we both came into the sunlight.”

As they stepped out of the grotto, Hircha said, “There's something else. Griane called Fellgair's name, too. She waited a long while. But he didn't come.”

“You're surprised?”

“I can't believe he'd abandon her. That he'd let her die here without trying to help.”

“I can,” Keirith said, his voice bitter. “For all we know, this is what he intended all along.”

I
N HER DREAM, DARAK PACED on a sun-drenched beach. Tiny waves creamed the pebbles, leaving them glistening like precious gems.

Suddenly, he stopped and turned. A great smile blossomed on a face no longer lined with age, but smooth and young again. His hands came up, reaching for her—a young man's hands, whole and strong as they had been before Morgath's dagger did its damage.

She raced toward him, but he was already turning away, striding now through a shimmering sea of grass. He seemed to glow in the brilliant sunlight, while she remained shrouded in shadow—as if a cloud hovered over her, although there were none marring the vibrant blue of the sky. Now and then, Darak glanced over his shoulder and waved her on, but no matter how fast she ran, she could never catch him.

As he crested a little rise, she cried, “Wait!” But he just kept walking. And when she reached the top, he was gone.

She fell to her knees beneath one of the crab apples that dotted the hill. Two eyes blinked open in the knotty trunk. A blossom slid past one eye and caught on the groove of its mouth.

“I love you, Mam,” the tree whispered. “More than anything in the world.”

She looked up as more blossoms drifted downward. That's when she saw the other trees—rowan, apple, quickthorn—weeping white-petaled tears for her.

Griane awoke to Hircha's voice murmuring her name, Lisula's hands shaking her gently.

“You were calling Darak's name,” Lisula whispered.

“I was chasing after him in the dream, but I couldn't catch him.” She grimaced. “Soon enough, I will. Likely, we'll all reach the Forever Isles in—” Her breath caught. “Not the Forever Isles. The trees were in the Summerlands.”

Lisula and Hircha exchanged glances, no doubt fearing she'd lost her mind. With an effort, Griane kept her voice low so she would not disturb those sleeping nearby.