Chapter 37
37
N YX LIFTED HER arms as one of the Kethra’kai, a woman named Dala, wrapped a length of spotted fur across her bare breasts. The tribeswoman then snugged it securely and clasped it in back. Once done, Dala inspected her and nodded her satisfaction.
With the study of her body ended, Nyx donned her breeches and soft boots. They had warmed her clothes by a small fire. The heat helped calm her. Plus, the gathering around her was welcoming, if not somewhat reserved.
She reached to Jace’s cloak, but the heavier wool was still sodden, so she left it drying beside the fire. She looked down at herself, judging herself to be adequately attired. She heard the men talking beyond the bushes. She didn’t know if they had dressed, but from the way a few of the women peeked through branches and whispered with winks, she guessed they were still naked.
The elder Kethra’kai, the one held in highest esteem, stood up from a stump and crossed toward Nyx. The old woman had been present for the entire examination, but she had drawn no nearer. Her gaze never left Nyx’s face. As she reached Nyx, she leaned on her cane. Its white length was adorned with a row of pearlescent white shells imbedded into the wood. Each had been carved into the changes of the moon, running from sliver to full, then back again.
She breathed harder, reminded of what had started her on this journey. As handsomely as the moon was depicted on her cane, the sight was wrought with too much bloodshed and heartbreak. She heard an echo of Bashaliia’s keening, saw her dah fall to the ground. She pictured the cairn of stones in these woods. All of it drawn around a single word of dread and premonition.
Moonfall.
The elder seemed to read her sudden distress. The old woman lifted a hand and placed a warm palm—withered but still as firm as the hardwood of her cane—on Nyx’s cold cheek.
“I heard you, child,” the woman whispered.
Nyx didn’t understand, but the confusion drew her back from the brink of despair.
Dala bowed toward the elder, then spoke to Nyx. “Xan. Dob van Xan.”
Nyx understood Dala was offering the elder’s name.
“Xan,” she whispered, testing it.
The elder gave a nod of acknowledgment. “You bridled so sweetly,” Xan said. “How could I not be drawn by your song?”
Nyx swallowed. “What do you mean?”
Nyx remembered the tyger and her poor attempt to confront its savagery. It was nothing like the chorus of the Kethra’kai. The forest tribe’s ability with bridle-song was unique, ingrained into their blood. Such was known throughout Hálendii and much of the Crown. A few others were so gifted, but even they often had some distant connection to these tribesmen.
None knew why the Kethra’kai retained such a talent. Nyx remembered some debate in her sixthyear class, between alchymists and hieromonks, on this very subject. The monks believed it was a blessing of the Daughter, the dark Huntress of the moon.
Nyx stared again at the cane’s row of sculpted shells, depicting the Daughter’s endless chase of the silvery Son, marking the moon’s waxing and waning. But she also remembered what the alchymists believed: that the gift of bridle-song was not a blessing of the gods, but instead rose out of necessity. To survive in this ancient forest, rife with dangers at every turn, it would require more than a hunter’s skill and woodland knowledge. The alchymists suspected bridle-song had helped the tribes survive, to bend a portion of the fauna here to their will.
She pictured the tyger leaping away.
Maybe the alchymists were right.
Still, such an explanation had not satisfied her back in her sixthyear and still failed to do so now. It didn’t answer the fundamental mystery. Where and how did the tribe acquire this bloodborne talent?
“I heard your song,” Xan repeated. “It was so full of grief, yet also love. Your call traveled far to reach me, to call me to you.”
How could that be possible?
Nyx again felt brittle leaves under her knees, Kanthe’s blade in her hand, a finger rubbing velvet fur. The cairn of stones was so far from here. They had traveled from midday and deep into latterday before reaching this river.
“How could you have heard me?” she asked aloud.
“Ah, the power of bridle-song comes not from the lips but from the heart.” The woman placed her palm between her own breasts, then over to Nyx’s chest. “It reaches those who know how to listen with their spirit.”
Nyx did not want to believe any of it, certainly not that she might be gifted with bridle-song.
“But be warned,” the elder said. “There are beasts, like that tyger, who will be drawn to your trail. They will seek to kill anyone who risks bridling them.”
Nyx remembered the soak of blood in her clothes. If the old woman was right, it wasn’t blood scent that drew the beast. It was me. No wonder Kanthe’s attempt to misdirect the tyger by leaving false trails had failed.
“And it’s not just beasts that you need to fear,” the elder said dourly.
Nyx frowned for some explanation, but Dala interrupted, looking impatient. “Nee crys wan jar’wren.”
Xan lifted a palm, calming the younger woman. “Dala is telling you we all heard your song.”
“Wee jar’wren,” Dala stressed.
“Ya, jar’wren.”
Nyx struggled, looking between the two women. “Is something wrong?”
The elder smiled. “No, the opposite. Dala is honored to meet someone who the jar’wren bridled themselves to. The gods who inhabit them never listen to us, never sing to us.”
“What are the jar’wren ?”
The elder’s expression turned pensive, maybe worried, then she answered, “ Jar’wren are what the Hálendii call Myr bats. But they are so much more. They were touched by the old gods long ago and—”
Xan was cut off by a shout from nearby. Nyx turned, recognizing Frell’s voice. One of the tribeswomen posted at the bushes waved to Xan and spoke rapidly.
The elder patted Nyx’s arm. “Maybe it’s best if we leave this for now. I see how pale you grow from it all.”
Nyx wanted to object. She had a thousand more questions, but she let the Kethra’kai women walk her back toward the others. As she did, her thoughts remained on Xan’s words, on the possibility that she carried some aspect of bridle-song in her heart. She tried to fit this knowledge into the hollow spaces of her past. She pictured the naked squalling babe in the swamps. Had the large bat who had rescued her known about this ability? Had some nascent version of bridle-song already been in her cries, drawing the bat and maybe later even Gramblebuck? Was that why the bullocks seemed to always follow her about, why Gramblebuck loved her so—and she him?
Was it song that bound our hearts?
She remembered Frell’s attempt to explain her ability to meld with the Myr bats. You lived your first six moons under their tutelage, when your mind was soft clay, still pliable, far from fully formed. Your brain grew while under a constant barrage of their silent cries. Under such persistent exposure, your mind may have been forever altered by their keening, as a tree is gnarled by winds.
She now wondered if that was only part of the answer. Not only was her brain unformed back then, but so was her ability. Had the keening of the bats somehow tangled her with them, binding one to another, creating something unique and new?
She shook her head at these speculations. She could not know, could never truly know. Especially with Bashaliia gone.
As Nyx passed through a break in the bushes, she watched Frell grab at one of the Kethra’kai.
“That is mine,” the alchymist warned sternly.
The tribesman ignored Frell, fascinated by the trophy in his palm. It was the alchymist’s wayglass, the tool he had used to guide their party through the woods.
“I need that to help us reach Havensfayre,” Frell demanded.
Kanthe pulled the alchymist back. “It’s their way, Frell. The Kethra’kai share everything. What is yours is everyone’s.”
“Well, then it’s still equally mine,” Frell argued.
“Only once the other relinquishes it. If he sets it down, you can reclaim it. But only then.” Kanthe grinned at his friend’s frustration. “Considering how that guy is ogling it, like some big diamond, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
Jace offered a compromise. “Why not wait until morning? We have to be deep into Eventoll by now. Maybe by dawn, the hunter will have grown bored with his prize.”
Nyx realized how exhausted she was, especially as more campfires were lit. The growing spread of bright flames circled their camp. Plainly the Kethra’kai were bedding down for the night.
By now, Nyx had come up behind the others in her group.
Jace was the first to note her return. He swung around with his mouth open, ready to greet her or maybe to seek her support. Then his eyes widened, and he quickly faced back around, looking down at his toes.
Kanthe and Frell turned to her with similar shocked reactions.
The prince’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed with appreciation. His lips quirked crookedly with amusement. “I see the Kethra’kai adjusted your clothing, or at least lessened it. I have to say I approve. Though as your possible older brother, might I suggest a nice cloak to go with it?”
Nyx scowled at him and started to cross her arms over her bare belly—then dropped her limbs. She had nothing to feel shame about.
She motioned to the spread of fires. “Jace is right. We should start fresh in the morning.”
Xan joined her and spoke to Frell. “Fear not, we will take you to Havensfayre. We were going that direction anyway. Until we heard the child’s song. It drew us over to your path, one that we will share from here.”
Frell glanced at Nyx for an explanation, but she shook her head. The alchymist squinted at her for a breath, then returned his attention to Xan. “So, you’re all traveling to Havensfayre, too?”
“No,” she corrected. “We head only north. To where another calls to us. We will pass Havensfayre and leave you there.”
Frell nodded, plainly mollified and satisfied with this plan. He waved to Kanthe and Jace to set up their own little camp.
Nyx stayed with Xan, who remained leaning on her cane, staring forward but not leaving. It was as if she were waiting for Nyx to speak, expecting her to, maybe testing her. Nyx knew what the elder wanted her to address.
“Xan… you said someone else calls to you from the north.”
The elder nodded.
“Who?” Nyx pressed.
“I do not know.” Xan turned away with a thump of her cane and spoke as she left. “But someone sings darkly, in the voice of the old gods, a song of danger and ruin.”
Nyx started to follow her, but the other Kethra’kai women closed behind Xan without a word being spoken.
Nyx stopped and stared after them.
Xan reached the break in the bushes and glanced back. As she turned away a final time, her thin fingers traced down her cane, along the row of moon-sculpted shells, as if polishing them. But that was not the purpose of that last gesture. Nyx knew it was a confirmation of her worst fears.
Xan’s last words stayed with Nyx long after the elder had vanished.
A song of danger and ruin.
While Nyx still doubted she had been gifted with bridle-song, she remained certain of one thing. She knew this particular refrain all too well. Especially its last, resounding note.
Moonfall…