Did he love me?
But there was death in the High Priest’s eyes. “You know the law,” he said. “If a man fathers two daughters and no sons, one daughter must be given to the Beast. You are Eldest of your people. You must set the example for all. You must choose, Panther Master, and choose quickly.”
I was caught in a snare. When I moved to run, Wolf Tongue stepped in my way. His movements were like those of a wild animal, too fast and too fluid to be followed. I saw how his muscles tensed like those of a panther prepared to leap, and he raised his knife. There would be no escaping this man.
The baby’s cries were becoming more desperate. My head spun with the sound, and all my instincts cried out to protect. There, before the Eldest and the priest, trapped in that small slice of eternity where only death waited, I looked down into my sister’s face.
She was so tiny, and by no means beautiful. She was red, dirty from birth. But she was alive. Her feet were small and perfect, her hands more perfect still. For a split second, black eyes, bright and hungry, gazed up at me. In their blackness shone a light like the stars, like the moon, like the silver song I had heard such a short time ago on this same hillside.
“The time is now,” Wolf Tongue snarled, and he crouched before me, his hands reaching for my sister.
I spat in his eye.
For a moment he did not move. He crouched, spit on his cheek, one eye closed. The other focused on me with such intensity I did not think I had more than a few breaths left to live.
It did not matter. I turned to my father and gave him the baby. I did not look at his face, nor did I wait to hear anything he might say. He could not have stopped me one way or the other. He was broken. Everything about this man, this strong Eldest of elders, bespoke his defeat. No, he could not help either my sister or me. So I did not wait for him.
I turned back to Wolf Tongue, who still crouched in place. His knife hand hung limply between his knees. The other slowly wiped spit from his face.
I knelt before him, my hands folded over my heart, and bowed my head.
“No!” My father’s voice was sharp behind me. “No, this is not my choice, Wolf Tongue! You . . . you must give me time!”
But there was no time. Wolf Tongue must have my blood. I had insulted him. I belonged to the Beast now.
Wolf Tongue gave no sign that he heard the Eldest speak. I felt him staring at me, felt the heat of his yellow eyes. He must have seen how my body quivered with terror as I knelt in his shadow. But I would not back down.
His knife hand never moved. The other, however, reached out and touched my cheek. In a low voice, he whispered to me:
“No one dares stand up to me. No one, little beauty.”
His touch was loathsome. I struggled to breathe, to make my lungs expand. But I met his gaze eye for eye.
Wolf Tongue ran his tongue over his teeth, which gleamed white even on that clouded night. Then he stood, towering over me.
“Hear my words, Eldest,” he said, without breaking my gaze. “For a time, you will keep both daughters, and no shame will rest upon your head. But when the Beast requires blood, then you will give him his due.”
The next instant, he was gone, vanishing silently as a dream. I, my mind so full of fear that I could make no sense of what had just happened, remained where I knelt. I felt the Eldest’s arm around my shoulders, lifting me to my feet. I heard my sister’s whimpers.
“Come inside,” the Panther Master said, “my brave Starflower.”
The midwife waited for us, sitting beside the still body of my mother. She held in her pudgy hands a stone cup of the foul brew. Her gap-toothed grin made me sick as I entered our house, propelled from behind by my father. I held my sister tight.
The midwife’s hands moved quickly. “Come here, child,” she signed. “Bring the babe to me. I will feed her this; then you must go to the village and find her a wet nurse since the mother is dead.”
I was numb. I considered running. But I knew without even a glance at the Eldest that this would be useless. Heart heavy, I knelt before the midwife and watched the woman dip a finger into the cup, then lift the brown liquid to the baby’s desperate, sucking mouth.
My sister gave a cry at the bitter taste. Then the cry shriveled away and vanished as the cursed medicine took effect.
It is the will of the Beast that lowly women should not voice the wicked thoughts of their hearts. They must go forever silent in the world of men, speaking only the language of their hands and faces. Now nothing but the greatest pain would give my sister a voice. Otherwise, she would remain as mute as I am.
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