Icy fingers trailed Wren’s spine. She said sharply, “What do you mean, my kind?”
The woman glided forward, so smoothly she could only be a shaman. Even though she wasn’t using magic, the echoes of it clung to her, an ethereal glimmer in the air. As she came closer, Wren saw a bald head and weathered skin riddled with tattoos. Bright eyes shone from heavy-lidded sockets.
The ancient shaman wore a wide, toothless grin. “Your blood relatives, of course,” she replied, opening her arms. “Your clan. Welcome back, little Xialing.”
FOURTEEN
WREN
MORNING SUN SPARKLED THROUGH THE BOUGHS, dappling the forest floor where Wren and Ahma Goh walked. The forest had seemed cold in the dark; in the daylight, spring burst from every spore. Flowers blossomed in the cracks of rocks. The stream, rushing happily by to their right, twisted and twirled like a dancer’s ribbons. Overhead, gold-green leaves flashed like tiger eyes. Wren felt drunk from the sweet air, from the colors and beauty. And, best of all, from old Ahma Goh’s words—her wonderful, impossible words, punctuated by a gap-toothed grin and generous laugh.
None of it felt real. Here she was, walking in the mountain forests her birth clan—her lost clan, her lost family—had once walked, too, in the company of a shaman who knew their stories.
Who had known them.
Ahma Goh chuckled. “Your sister Leore, now she was a real firecracker. From the instant she could walk, she was running, forever trying to outdo the others. Oh, and Kucho, what a little troublemaker! He was your cousin on your mother’s side. Aiyah, how he used to menace your grandfather. Always getting into scrapes and relying on others to get him out of them.”
Wren laughed with her. “And my grandmother?”
“Yakuta—a brave woman. The way she’d scold your grandfather! He called her his Ox for how strong-willed she was. Always the first to grab her weapons anytime the clan was threatened.” Her smile flickered. “And the last to drop them.”
They had walked in a full circle. They were almost back at the compound where Ahma Goh and the rest of the mountain shamans lived—and where they’d invited Wren and the others to stay.
Earlier, when Ahma Goh led Wren away at sunrise to show her around the forest and connect the stories of her clan with the places they’d played out, the settlement had been quiet. Now there was chatter and the clatter of pots and pans. Incense lifted from where shrines lay nestled among the leaves. The fragrance of simmering herbs drifted on the breeze. A hazy glow lay over everything: protection daos to keep the settlement safe.
Magic crackled in the air, but more than feeling like magic, the place simply was magic. A sanctuary not just from the war but the rest of Ikhara; even from time itself, the echoes of her Xia family weaving in and out of the trees. Her sister Leore, speeding over the stony grass. Kucho trying—and failing—to trip her. The elder clan members, shaking their heads in that fond, weary way of the old watching the young.
Wren couldn’t believe her luck that their rest stop had been so close. Half a mile away and she’d never have known this place existed.
Her ears popped as they passed the perimeter enchantment. Within its protective bubble, the sounds they’d heard from outside were instantly louder. Even the air was clearer, sunlight winking off the varnished eaves of shrines and sparkling off the river’s surface. Cherry blossom drifted through the air. A petal landed on Wren’s brow. Picking it off and holding it delicately, she was reminded of another secret temple—the one within the Hidden Palace’s Ghost Court. She’d taken Lei there to see the paper tree with its lost women’s names.
Wren let the petal loose. The breeze danced it away. She hadn’t yet brought herself to ask Ahma Goh about her parents. It wasn’t that she didn’t long to know what they’d been like. It was that she was too nervous. Would Ahma Goh think they’d have liked her? Been happy with the young woman they’d brought into the world?
Ahma Goh smiled fondly at the bustling encampment. “This is the Southern Zebe Sanctuary,” she explained. “We’ve been around for as long as the provinces themselves. The four Sanctuaries were set up throughout the mountains as a safe haven for travelers.” They followed the stream. Trees hid the lake it led to from sight, where the splashing of morning bathers rose. “This is one of the tributaries that feeds the River Zebe. Its source is deep in the mountains. Many shamans make pilgrimages there. The Sanctuaries became known as places for them to seek refuge during their trips. And as more and more shamans visited…” She slid her eyes sideways, her wrinkled face mischievous. “Can’t you feel it?”
Wren frowned. “Magic? The protective enchantments—”
“More than that, child.” Ahma Goh grabbed her hands. “Feel it.”
Wren closed her eyes, breathed deeply—and felt. There it was, what she’d been sensing all along. She thought it came from being in a place linked to the Xia. But it was more literal than that.
Magic lived here.
It was why colors seemed sharper, each smell and sound keener. Why the constant pain she’d been in from her injury had dimmed. The earth’s qi was open and bountiful here, nourished by constant shaman care. The Sickness hadn’t touched this place.
It must be one of the only places in Ikhara where the rotten heart of the King and his demons hadn’t poisoned.
Wren wished Lei was here. Not only for the wonder of it all, but to show Lei that magic could be beautiful, too. As much as it took life, it could breathe life back into the world. It could be a source of good.
She could be good. At least, that’s how being here made her feel.
Ahma Goh led Wren toward a small temple. “The Xia spent much time here. Like all who have passed through the Sanctuaries, we share their histories from shaman to shaman.” She beamed up at Wren. “Storytelling is a wonderful kind of magic, don’t you think? It is how we keep people alive in our hearts long after they are gone.”
Wren replied quietly, “And even when they’re not.”
Ahma Goh squeezed her hand. “And even when they are not.”
They approached the shrine, idols adorning the walls, with just enough floor space for a prayer mat and incense pot.
“Why didn’t the Xia stay here, if it’s so safe?” Wren asked. “When they knew the Demon King’s men were coming for them?”