The day before his passage, Sun Eagle came to me in private. I was in the mango grove just below the Eldest’s House, harvesting an early crop, still green, which I would set to ripen in covered baskets away from pests. Though my hands were busy, I struggled to keep my mind from pursuing any of the dark paths before it: the Beast, Wolf Tongue’s threats, my father’s silence. Most of all, marriage and what it might mean for my sister.
To keep these thoughts at bay, I concentrated on the blistering heat of the day, on the sweat gathered on my brow, on the leathery green leaves tickling my face and arms, on the hard skins of the fruit as I plucked them from their clusters.
A shadow fell across me. I looked up into Sun Eagle’s solemn face.
“Starflower,” he said, “I come to beg a boon of you.”
My heart leapt, perhaps with fear, and I nearly dropped the basket balanced on my hip. I cast about for Fairbird, but she was some way up the hill, closer to the house. Only Frostbite was nearby, dozing in the shadow of a silver-branch tree.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
I startled at Sun Eagle’s words and looked up at him quickly. But he wasn’t laughing or mocking. He seemed merely curious. Hastily, I shook my head. I set down my basket, then folded my hands, indicating that I was willing to hear what he had come to say.
“As you know,” he said, “I make my passage tomorrow. I shall descend into the gorge and journey into the Gray Wood. When I have killed a beast and returned with its hide, I will be deemed worthy of manhood.”
I nodded. This was an ancient custom. The only time men entered the forest down in the gorges was at this momentous point in their lives. Some had returned with strange creatures, fabulous beasts with two heads or many horns, and even stranger still! One man, it was said, had come upon a goat with panther’s legs and a mouth full of fangs. But it had never happened in my lifetime. Most of the lads returned with a squirrel or a rabbit, though this did not matter. The courage it took to enter the Gray Wood was enough to make them warriors.
“Your father,” Sun Eagle continued, “has told me to keep his name mark and to carry it with me for luck. An honor I scarcely deserve from a warrior such as he!” A warrior who had bested his father in battle. The honor must be a bitter one for Sun Eagle. “But it would honor me still more,” he continued, “were you to let me bear your name mark as well.”
My hand flew to my throat, where I wore the blue bead painted with a white starflower. My mother had made it for me when I was younger than Fairbird. It was a beautiful piece, more beautiful by far than those worn by the other village girls. My mother had been gifted.
Sun Eagle watched me, his dark eyes intent. He must have known or at least guessed what it was he asked of me. He asked for my trust. He asked for my loyalty. To give him this gift meant so much more than a mere wish of luck.
“Please, Starflower,” he said. And there was that look again, that look as though he knew my true name.
My hands trembled as I reached up and untied the leather cord from around my neck. I hesitated a moment, thinking of my mother’s hands. I had watched them mixing the paint and carefully decorating the little marker. I had watched them string the trinket on this cord and had bounced with excitement when she held it out to me.
I placed it in Sun Eagle’s outstretched hand. He tried to catch hold of my fingers, but I withdrew quickly, though I smiled a little. Then I signed, though I knew he would not understand, words from a song my mother had taught me: “Beyond the Final Water falling . . . won’t you return to me?”
I signed it as a blessing. But Wolf Tongue’s dark threats lurked on the brink of my mind. I shivered as a shadow of foreboding passed over my spirit. When I raised my gaze to Sun Eagle’s, I found his eyes alight. But my own, I knew, held only fear.
“I’ll slay a beast,” said he, clutching the bead in his fist. “And I’ll bring it back to place at your feet. You shall wear its fur as a mantle on our wedding day.”
The next morning I stood beside my father at the edge of the gorge. It was near the place where I had met Sun Eagle not many weeks ago. I held Fairbird’s hand in mine, and she wiggled and squirmed and kept signing to me, “Where is he? Where is he?” She was devoted to Sun Eagle, though shy in his presence.