For five years, I had remained hidden, avoiding the village people. Now I would be displayed before all their unfriendly eyes. I would not allow myself to be shamed.
Three maids and two warriors came to the house at sunset to escort me down to the village. I hated leaving Fairbird behind . . . she had never been alone before. Desperately, I signed to Frostbite to watch over my sister, not knowing how much of the command the dog understood. Then, flanked by the warriors and preceded by the maidens—girls I had once known and played with but who now pretended they did not know me—I was led down into the thick of the revelry.
I caught no sight of Sun Eagle in the throng. Men were laughing and shouting, women were scurrying like silent shadows, girls danced in a ring around a great bonfire, and the young boys who had yet to make their passage into manhood watched them and called raucous remarks. Warriors drank heavily, their stoic faces melting into either jollity or anger. Brawls broke out among some.
If this was the solemn ceremony of betrothal and oath swearing, I wondered what horrors awaited me on my wedding day.
At long last I was brought to the center of it all, amid the noise and clatter and roiling smells. The night was deep and lit red with torches. My father wore a great panther skin across his shoulders, his bare chest painted with red claws. He was noble and terrible, a frightening and foreign figure as he presided over the madness. Darkwing, seated at my father’s feet in the place of a conquered enemy, wore black feathers in a collar around his neck. Like his son, he was a handsome man, but with a cruel line to his mouth that Sun Eagle had not acquired.
My father put out a hand to me, and I went to him, took that hand, and bowed over it. He must have felt how I trembled, for his other hand rested briefly on my head, an almost tender gesture. Then he turned me to face Darkwing, who had risen and stood before us, his mouth still more downturned.
“In pledge of our newfound friendship, I offer you my daughter,” said the Panther Master.
For a brief, terrifying moment, I thought I was being given to this man, not to Sun Eagle. Darkwing turned, however, and drew Sun Eagle forward from the shadows. The sight of the young man’s face, while not dear to me, was such a relief that I smiled at him. He saw my smile and perhaps took it to mean more than I intended. He did not smile in return, but his eyes shone in the torchlight. My stomach dropped and my smile vanished. I wondered if it was dread that I felt. Perhaps it was something else, but I was too frightened and confused in that moment to know. The man who was to be my husband was presented before the Panther Master.
“And I, in token of my loyalty, give you my son,” said Elder Darkwing. “May the joining of our children mark the eternal joining of our nations.” There was bitterness in the elder’s voice but truth as well. He would not turn back on his vows.
Then his eyes fell upon me for an instant. I shuddered under his gaze. I saw in that man’s face everything he would not dare to say aloud.
Curse! his eyes screamed. Blight on your father’s house! And you will curse my son as well!
But he had lost the war to the Panther Master. He must pay the price.
I lowered my gaze and scarcely dared to look up again, even as my hand was joined with Sun Eagle’s and the rites of betrothal were performed by a young, skinny priest in a wolfskin robe. He trembled as he spoke the words, and I saw his hand shake as he sacrificed the goat. The terrible bleating of that animal rang in my head, and I thought I would be sick. But at our wedding, many more awful sacrifices would be given to the Beast, and these would be made by Wolf Tongue himself. How I dreaded that night to come!
Before it could take place, however, Sun Eagle needed to make his passage into manhood. This, I learned, would take place in three days’ time. A week later, when Sun Eagle was officially made a warrior, we would be wed.
But what of the Beast? I wondered. Had he forgotten the bargain he and my father had made? Or—and I trembled at this thought—would he simply take my sister when the time came to collect the debt? My heart began to race. I could not marry! I must not!
And I wondered suddenly if this was my father’s plan all along . . . to spare me from the Beast should he come down from the mountain. For the Beast would never take any but a maiden. If I was married, I would be safe.
Fairbird! My heart cried out desperately inside me so that I could scarcely hear the young priest’s babble or my betrothed’s voice whispering in my ear. Fairbird, my darling! I cannot let this happen!
Yet what choice did I have?
It was deep into the night before the warriors escorted me back to the hill. They left me at my father’s door, and I entered the house so exhausted I could scarcely see straight. I fell over Frostbite, who waited just inside the door. She yelped and snarled, then came back nosing my legs and wagging her tail, cringing as though she expected a blow. Poor creature. I patted her soothingly, then cast about for my sister.