*
THE TEA STEAMS FROM Kiran’s tin cup, misting with the fog. Rain is coming, I saw it in the red dawn, felt it tightening the curls of my hair.
My hands shake; Metea’s voice whispers in my ear.
“More, little girl. Just a bit more, sweet girl.”
It was too much. Even then I knew it.
When I told her so, Metea held me tight in her arms and said, “She’s ready. Help her let go.”
I remember holding the cup, tilting it back as Metea held my ma’s head up. I was the one who had to do it. Her blood. Her only child. So that her soul could be freed from her failing body.
“You must be brave, Aya.”
“Drink,” I tell Kiran, propping his head up against his saddlebags. He’s tossing from side to side, and between that and my trembling hands, I can barely get the warm liquid in his mouth.
But I do.
It doesn’t take long—moments is all—and Kiran becomes deathly still. I place my fingers gently on his throat to feel his pulse. It’s so slow each space makes my own heart skip a beat.
A light rain begins to fall, and Kiran’s eyes drift close. His mouth goes slack. He looks dead. I check his heart three more times before peeling all the extra weight off Dell’s back. I place the knife beside Daphne, along with the remaining meal supplements.
“I’ll be back with the doctor.”
“So you’ve said.” She doesn’t believe me, I can tell.
I kneel beside Brax, rubbing his ears.
“Take care of them,” I whisper, then climb a large rock and mount Dell. As I turn away from the camp, towards my mountain, his howl splits the heavy air. It sounds like the forever kind of good-bye.
I dig my heels into Dell’s sides, and hold on as tightly as I can.
*
RIDING DELL IS A rush unlike any I’ve ever known. Kiran dreamed me a bird and he must be a seer because now I’m flying.
My legs tremble, latched on tight to her barrel body. My fingers ache from holding onto her mane so tight. I lean down over the saddle horn and keep my head low as the forest whips by.
Dell is a mountain horse; she knows this land. She doesn’t shy from anything—leaping over fallen trees and the streams that are swelling with the pelting rain. She keeps her head low and runs full out on the straightaway, chomping on the bit. It’s as if she knows Kiran’s in trouble.
We slow when the land makes us, but that’s it. Noon passes. Dusk falls. The rain doesn’t cease. The leather saddle becomes slippery, burns blisters between my knees, and it’s hard to stay on. I keep my eyes trained east, and when I see the line of jutting peaks loom out of the gray before us, my hope soars.
I am almost there.
The only way I know to Three Rivers is past my camp, so that’s the way I go. At last the woods become familiar. We pass a long, narrow rock I used to balance on as a child. The walk-up trees, bent so severely by wind that you can run halfway up their trunk. My hearing’s honed not just for Trackers now, but for children’s voices. I sniff the air for the smell of wood smoke, but the rain drowns out everything.
The sky grays, making me wish I had a Watcher’s night vision. I look out for traps and snares, hoping the twins have kept them up like I taught them. But we come across none.
I urge Dell on faster. We come to the cave where I’d taught them to hide, but there’s no sign anyone’s been there for months. We head through the meadows. No tracks. No snares.
We reach my tent. And it is standing. But barely. One side has collapsed; the broken wooden bones sticking out on the ground from under the torn hide patchwork.
“Salma!” I shout.
There is no answer.
“Tam! Nina! It’s Aya! I’m home!”
Nothing.
“TAM! NINA!”
I shove off Dell, swaying on weakened muscles from so many hours in the saddle. And then I’m running. Running to the rawhide walls, stripped down by the weather. To the one-time circle of stones around our fire, scattered by the rain and wind. To what remains of our supplies, left in ruins by the raiding animals. A few rusted knives, a steel pan, and even our old cast-iron kettle. Each is tied to a memory. Metea making tea. The crackle and hiss as Salma fries elk over the fire. The laughter of the twins. Memories as thick as the spirits haunting this place.
I yell until my throat goes dry. Until I can yell no more.
They are gone. All gone.
I fall to the ground, barely noticing the sound of the arrow as it whizzes through the air. It’s not until the point embeds in the mud beside my wrist that I realize I’m being attacked.