Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Moya, Roan, Brin, and Padera looked at one another.

“Come again?” Moya said.

Persephone nodded toward the mystic, who sat cross-legged on the floor between a stack of flat stones and a battered basket stuffed with dusty pinecones. With Minna’s head on her lap, Suri appeared oblivious to everything around her, playing intently with her string again, a spider-like pattern forming between her fingers.

“Suri came to me a while ago saying she saw signs of a terrible catastrophe, something worse than any famine. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

“But then the Fhrey burned Dureya and Nadak,” Moya said.

Persephone nodded. “Suri told me the old tree could help. Would answer questions and is the oldest tree in the forest. And she is, too, huge and ancient.”

“How’s Magda doing, anyway?” Padera asked. The old woman was fanning the fire beneath the water sack.

“You know about the oak?” Persephone asked.

The old woman nodded. “Melvin and I, we first…um. We were married under her leaves. Beautiful spring day. Songbirds filled her branches and sang to us. A good sign.”

“Probably a sapling back then, eh, Padera?” Moya grinned.

“Hard to tell,” the old woman replied. “Sun hadn’t been born yet.”

They all laughed, except for Roan, who paused in her plucking to study the old woman with new interest.

Raithe and Malcolm returned, carrying an array of gourd jugs hanging from a pole.

“Into the large skin over there.” Padera pointed.

“So you actually spoke to this tree?” Moya asked.

“I asked questions,” Persephone clarified. “Suri told me what the oak said.”

Roan, who was making a little pile of wet feathers at her feet, stopped plucking. She stared at Suri. “You understand the language of trees?”

Suri nodded without looking up from the web between her fingers, tongue sticking out as she worked the string thoughtfully.

“And what did it say?” Moya asked.

“A bunch of gibberish, really,” Persephone replied.

“Not gibberish.” Suri spoke for the first time. “You asked Magda for answers; she gave them. Problem solved.”

“But none of it made any sense,” Persephone said.

Suri shrugged. “Not Magda’s fault you can’t understand. She kept it simple for you. And she was right, but she always is.”

“She was right?” Persephone asked, confused.

Suri nodded.

“What exactly did she say?” Padera asked.

Persephone shrugged. “Something about…” She looked at the mystic. “Suri, do you remember?”

“Welcome the gods. Heal the injured. Follow the wolf,” Suri recited without looking up. “Can’t get much simpler than that.”

Persephone spilled some of her tea. “That’s right! For the love of Mari! Welcome the gods!”

Everyone looked toward the roundhouse’s open doorway, where the evening sun cast a patch of light across Roan’s floor mat. For Persephone, the light looked a little more golden, a little more magical than it had a moment before.

“I just got a chill,” Moya said.

Padera looked at her. “More clothes might help. Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to. How about we try this instead. Less jawing and more work will warm you up. Get off that swing and cut up a bowl full of potatoes and set them in the sack to boil.” Then the old woman turned to Suri. “You staying for the meal?”

“I invited her,” Persephone said.

“That’s fine, but it’s gonna take a while,” Padera explained. “Any chance you could help Persephone discover why Sackett, Adler, and Hegner tried to kill her yesterday?”

Persephone looked at Suri. “Can you do that?”

“I’d need bones,” the mystic said.

“Got a dead chicken right here.” Padera pointed at the bird Roan held. “Or do you need to kill it in some ritual?”

“Bird die today?”

“Wrung its neck an hour ago.”

“Should be fine.” The mystic pulled a loop around with two fingers and grinned to herself.

Raithe finished dumping the water, set the gourds down near the door, then turned and surveyed the interior, looking for a place to sit. “You’re certain it’s all right, us staying here tonight?” Raithe asked. “Might be a bit cramped.”

“We’ll make room,” Persephone said, then put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, I’m sorry, Roan.”

Roan, who was still only halfway done with the chicken, paused. “What for?”

“For being rude. This is your place, not mine. I shouldn’t have spoken on your behalf.”

Roan tilted her head, then looked to Moya.

“Forget it, Seph,” Moya said, shaking her head with a sympathetic frown. “I’m still trying to convince her it’s okay to sleep in the bed. Every night she curls up on the floor mat.”

“The floor mat?” Persephone looked over at a thin sheet of reeds that, being daytime, was rolled up and out of the way. “Why?”

Moya looked to Roan.

Roan rolled her shoulders. “It’s Iver’s bed.”

“Iver’s dead,” Persephone said. “You understand that, right? It’s your bed now.”

Roan offered only an embarrassed grimace.

“See?” Moya sighed in resignation.

Roan let the half-plucked chicken droop so that the bird’s neck brushed the ground. “I’ve always slept on the floor.”

“But you own this place now…everything, including the bed, is yours,” Persephone said. “You could at least sleep in one of these hanging chairs. These are very comfortable, by the way.”

Roan stared at her, breathing faster, her eyes tense, her hands wringing the chicken’s legs.

“Relax,” Padera told her. “Calm down and give me that bird before you ruin it.” Padera took the chicken back from Roan. The old woman finished plucking the second half of the bird in a pair of minutes. Once stripped, she chopped off both feet and pulled the crop and gizzard out of its severed neck.

“Roan,” the old woman said. “Go to my house and bring back a bag to collect these feathers. You can save them and make a nice pillow. You’ll find a couple in the back next to dear old Melvin’s clothes box.”

Roan nodded once more with fierce conviction, the welling panic forgotten in light of the new task. She headed for the door but halted abruptly before stepping out. “Whoa!”

They all looked over and saw that Roan had nearly run into the giant who had arrived with the Fhrey. He was standing in front of the roundhouse, blocking the entrance as he bent down and peered in.

Persephone scrambled to her feet, and Raithe moved to her side. The giant didn’t say a word. Didn’t look at the rest of them. His eyes were fixed on Padera, who worked at removing the chicken’s viscera.

The old woman peered up through her left eye, a hefty scowl on her collapsed mouth. “You’re blocking my light.”

The giant glanced down at his shadow and shuffled over a step.

“It’s easier for you.” The giant’s voice surprised Persephone. She expected a loud booming roar, but his words were soft. “Your hands are small. There aren’t birds big enough for me to clean that way.”

Again Padera looked up, this time focusing on the giant’s hands. “You need a hook.” She glanced toward Roan. “My Melvin’s hands were too big for delicate work, too. Roan can make one that even your paws could manage. Can’t you, Roan?”

Roan, who’d been looking at the giant with as much wonder as the rest, narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow. She wound a lock of hair, put the strands in her mouth, and chewed. Then she shocked everyone by walking up to the towering brute and grabbing hold of his right hand. Tilting it up to catch the sunlight coming in through the door, she studied it and placed her own hand against his palm. The difference was striking; Roan’s looked like a doll’s. The giant said nothing. Roan muttered to herself, nodded, and then scurried to the back of her house, where Iver’s workbench was buried beneath a pile of assorted sediment.

The giant watched her for a second and then turned his attention back to Padera and the chicken. “Stuffing?” he asked, struggling to see.

Padera nodded and raised the chicken up in the air. “Filling her with bread and thyme.”

“Garlic?”

“Of course.”

“Butter?”