“Yano,” I say when I see Kol shivering, his body rigid with cold. “Please, help me. Kol has been sick. He’s been burning with fever. I know he won’t come out of the water until you do. I know he won’t leave you. So please, for Kol’s sake. Please come up onto the sand so Kol can get warm.”
Yano may love my brother, but he is also a healer. He looks at Kol, as if he’s noticing him next to him for the first time. His head falls forward—part nod, part defeat—and he lets Kol lead him up onto the bank.
Soon everyone is gathered in our meeting place, under the canopy. The midday meal is served, but no one is thinking about food. Everyone is talking, sharing stories about Chev, about all the ways he was like our father, the ideal High Elder.
I know these stories are meant to soothe me, but they do just the opposite. I feel like a fish held in the talons of an eagle. Every time someone speaks my brother’s name, I feel a little more of my flesh ripped away, the bones of my memories exposed. Soon I will be picked clean, with nothing left to call my own.
But if I’m hurting, at least I’m not alone. My sisters sit in a circle around me. Yano and Ela are directly across from me, beside a large fire. It must be warm, I think. Yet Yano still shivers as if he were standing in the water beside the canoe. My own hands are still cramped with cold.
My eyes search the crowd, and though I don’t want to admit it to myself, I know I am looking for Kol. He must be here. He is so good at this—so comfortable comforting others. But he’s not here. Could he be sick? Could the cold water have brought back his fever?
Getting to my feet, I pick my way through the crowd, heading for Ela’s hut, the place where Kol and his family are sleeping tonight. But even before I reach the ring of huts, I meet Kol coming the other way.
“I was looking for you,” I say. A softness lifts Kol’s eyes for just long enough for me to see he isn’t sick.
“I needed to step away . . .” He sees the question in my eyes, though he must know I would never ask. “It’s too soon, I think. My father—we gathered around to talk like this about him just days ago.” Kol shakes his head in the way he does when he wants to shake off a feeling or a memory. He glances at me, then away.
Is he holding himself away from me because of last night? Does he think I’ve all but rejected the idea of a merger? Or is it the memory of his father as he says, or even something else?
“I’ll be right there, if you want to go back,” I say. “I think I need a moment away from it all myself.”
“I understand,” he says, and then he’s gone, leaving a wake of confusion behind him.
Passing the hut Chev shared with Yano—the place where Chev’s body has been laid until his burial tomorrow—I hesitate. If there is one person I wish to speak to now, it’s Chev. I push through the door of the hut before I can question myself.
Seal oil burns on moss wicks in two shallow stone lamps. My fingers trace along the wall of the hut as I enter, skimming the edge of the room. Everything glows the color of warmth—the lamplight, the red ocher—but still my blood lies frozen under my skin.
“Chev,” I say. I stop. If I could talk to him, if I could ask one thing, what would it be? If I had only one question?
“I don’t want this,” I say. “The Divine has called me to a role I don’t want.” I pause. I wonder how many times Chev had the same thought. How many times did he wish the weight of leadership could be carried by someone else? “I am trying to do as you would have me do, to lead as you would lead, to put the clan first, at all costs.” A sob leaps up in my throat but I swallow it down. “But the cost is so high.” This last word is like breath from my mouth. Like mist on cold water. Insubstantial.
Meaningless.
“So this is sacrifice,” I say. “This is how you lived.” I swallow again, and my throat burns. “I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge you more.” My eyes move to the door. The hut feels small. I am all at once in the doorway, brushing back the hide, stepping into the sunlight.
Yano stands just beside the door. One glance at his face tells me he heard every word I said.
“Kol is looking for you,” he says. “I think he wants you to take a walk with him—”
“We took a walk yesterday—”
“I think he wants to talk—”
“We have talked.”
“Mya, come sit with me.” He tugs me by the arm, dragging me back into his hut, right to my brother’s side. “Sit,” he says, but in a voice so soft no one could refuse. I fold myself onto a bearskin that covers the floor beside my brother’s feet.
“Mya, you are not the same person your brother was. Yet you have been called to lead. The Divine knows that you will choose what’s best for the clan. Your brother would know that, too. But you need to do what you think would be best for the clan, even if it’s not what you think Chev would want—”
“But it’s not what I think he would want. It’s what I know he wanted—”
“The Divine has called you. This is your time to lead.” A hand rises to Yano’s lips, then drops again. “Chev’s time has passed.” Yano blurs and loses shape. My eyes fill with tears at the cruel truth that Chev’s time is over. “Remember,” Yano says. His voice is like heat—I feel it more than hear it. “Sometimes what’s best for the future is different from what was best for the past. I know Chev would want the clan to be strong but also for you to be happy, and for the people to thrive, no matter what the clan is called or who is said to be the High Elder.”
My eyes meet Yano’s. His face is swollen with emotions held back. He and I share a pain so deep, and yet he has brought me a different kind of peace. I don’t know what I will do, but I know that I’m not alone. “Thank you,” I try to say. The words don’t come, but he sees them on my lips.
When I step out of Yano’s hut, swiping the backs of my hands across my eyes, I find Kol, waiting for me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Would you walk with me?” I ask.
Kol’s eyes curl at the corners, a momentary smile. “I was hoping to. I thought you might say no.”
“I still might say no—”
“I meant to the walk—”
“We’re still betrothed. We should spend time together—”
“While we can,” Kol says. He holds out a hand and I take it. His palm is warm. I wrap my fingers around it like I’m enclosing some small, vulnerable thing that I want to keep alive.
“While we can,” I echo. Kol has a spear, so I know he is thinking we will leave camp. “How well can you climb?” I ask. “Are you well enough to handle the climb up the ravine?”
“All the way to the cave,” he says. “Where else would we go?”
The hike up into the ravine that leads to the cave is not an easy one, but today, with the sun out and the ground dry, it’s nothing like it was on the day Lo attacked our clan. The water that runs down from the peaks forms a shallow and winding creek, but I remember the raging river that swept us away that day—the day Lo drowned. The memory of the sight of that white water has faded like a dream, but I remember the loud roar in my ears and the cold that cut right to my bones.