Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Kai waited alone with her thoughts for a long time. The entry chamber to the Eternal One’s tower room held a distinct chill despite the roaring fires. It had always been this way, resulting in ghost stories and fear of her power. Did the gods control her, or was it the other way around?
Her mother’s words were a fire all their own, burning a path she couldn’t escape beneath her pacing steps. She couldn’t get away from them.
The gods had already spoken.
What did that mean? She and Fala would take a male in the upcoming week?
Her stomach turned like a stone off a mountain peak, falling a hundred feet.
A young, cream-robed woman appeared out of the spiral staircase and bowed her head. “The Eternal One will see you now, Kai Silver Wolf.”
Kai could only nod, her mouth suddenly too dry to speak. She followed the woman up and up and up toward the mountain’s peak. Few made the lengthy journey in either direction. It was as if a whole other world existed at the top. In truth, it did. A clan all their own.
While she climbed, Kai finger-combed her windblown braids out, cursing her mother again for not allowing her time to clean up and dress properly.
Ochre fabric wrapped crossways across her upper body in an X pattern, and her leather pants and boots were her most worn-in and comfortable. One lone blade hung at her side.
The way up turned charcoal gray, then slate, then pitch black, stripping Kai’s sight. Her fingers acted as guides on the cold stone wall as she followed the shuffling footsteps ahead. She quickly lost herself in the rhythmic walk: scuff, scuff, scuff—
Shuffling, scraping, dragging steps woke Kai from where she slept with all the other children.
Firelight glinted off the head of a raised spear.
The weapon thrust down, and the sound it made as it cracked through Doba’s chest was unlike anything she’d ever heard. Hot blood splattered across Kai’s face.
She screamed.
Kai froze and gasped into the obsidian stairwell, her thoughts caught in the trap of that long-ago memory belonging to a six-year-old child.
The female’s voice carried down to her. “Are you all right, Kai Silver Wolf?”
She swallowed, and her dry throat clicked. “How much longer?”
“It is just ahead.”
The steps began again, but Kai’s legs felt too heavy. Old blood stained her memories. Pitched screams—the final cries of entire families—rebounded in her ears.
Kai shut her eyes and imagined Fala’s soft smile in the morning. Her venturing caress. Whispers against her mouth. Her heartbeat slowed, and the weight that had locked her body evaporated like a sigh.
Chin raised, she climbed.
Candlelight soon filtered into the darkness, and the robed figure reappeared like an apparition. She waited at the top, just inside a vast, cavernous space.
Kai drew close and paused to await further instruction.
Inside the hood’s pale shadow, almond-shaped eyes—one brown, one blue—stared back.
She was of the Unseen. A clan that might as well be outsiders and disliked by many for one simple reason.
Their strange-eyed children were born at random within the nine clans and taken from their mothers at birth, hidden away for the rest of their lives.
“The Eternal One will be with you momentarily,” the Unseen said. “Please wait here.”
Kai entered the room—no, a temple. The mountain’s black stone had been carved into a perfect hexagon with pillars and prayer bowls full of clean, still water. A monolith of pale stone etched with veins of gold rose from the center.
“They call this a Llinunae Stone.”
Kai startled at the voice suddenly filling the quiet like calm water.
A pretty, brown-skinned woman stood within a doorway on the far side, draped in loose gray fabrics. Her brown hair hung so long that it nearly swept the floor, and she, like all Unseen, had eyes of brown and blue.
Kai bowed at the waist to the Eternal One. “You wished to see me?”
The woman smiled. “We did, yes.”
A second woman wearing black robes blustered into the temple as if on command, a storm. She had the same brown skin tone, oval face, and high cheekbones that were common with their people. She also had the same large eyes, but her irises were as black as her hair.
The Eternal One gestured to the woman. “This is Soyala. Our seer.”
A small creature scurried into the room, scaled and winged, pearlescent white. It skittered up the Eternal One’s robes using long claws at the tips of short arms with tiny paws. Perched on her shoulder, it watched Kai with large blue eyes and a slight head tilt.
Kai fisted the bone pommel of her blade. “What is that?”
“A nuisance,” Soyala said, though she gave it a gentle pat on the head.
The Eternal One chuckled. “He’s harmless. Curious to see a new face, is all. He thinks you’re quite beautiful.”
Strange that she would speak for it, but ignoring the compliment wouldn’t be polite. “Thank you.”
Soyala circled Kai, black gaze analyzing her from bottom to top. “I was right.”
“Right about what?” Kai asked.
“The gods are fascinated by you.”
Kai turned with Soyala, never offering her back. “You brought me up here to talk about the gods?”
“So many voices,” the female muttered, “only one vessel. They all want to speak, but they never listen.”
Soyala finally stopped beside the Eternal One. “They are in agreement. It’s her.”
Tse’s words came back to Kai. “Is my mother right to be concerned? Is her time coming to an end?”
“No,” said the Eternal One.
“Shadi has much left to do in her time,” Soyala said. “And she is not a daughter called upon by the gods to rise. You are.”
Kai laughed, then found she couldn’t stop. Why couldn’t everyone leave well enough alone? Or, at the very least, leave her out of it. She laughed herself onto a seat near one of the prayer bowls and wiped the tears from her eyes.
The women stared at each other, then her.
“With all due respect,” Kai said, filling her burning lungs, “I’m as uninterested in whatever this is as I am the male you intend to place in my marriage bed. Which is to say”—she lowered her chin and stared dead into their eyes—“not at all.”
Standing, she marched for the stairs.
“Kai Silver Wolf.” The Eternal One’s voice lashed across Kai’s back with even greater command than Shadi was capable. “You cannot ignore the will of the gods.”
Kai spun on her back heel and took two equally commanding steps. “Fuck your gods.”
The moment she said it, she sent silent apologies to them before they struck her dead. Her mouth often got away from her, as they were likely well aware.
Soyala’s mouth hitched up on one side. “We’ve heard that one before. It makes no difference to them or us.”
The Eternal One heaved a great sigh, then came forward several paces.
Her winged pet climbed down into her arms, and she stroked its scaled head and back.
It purred. “Several months ago, a great voice called, crossing many seas and lands to reach us. It took us a long while to decipher even a fraction, which is why you are here.”
Kai returned to her seat and slumped forward, bracing her forearms on her knees. Veins of gold broke through the stone mountain floor beneath her boots, not unlike those in the Llinunae Stone. Strange. She had been all through this mountain and had never seen them before.
Kai met the strange eyes of the Eternal One. “Whose voice called to you?”
“Another conduit,” Soyala answered, her gaze drifting skyward. “A very powerful one. Gone now, but they have not forgotten her. They whisper her name like a prayer: Cassia, Cassia, Cassia.”
“Several lines of fate are converging,” the Eternal One said. “A great battle is on the horizon, and our people will play an essential part. You, especially, as your mother’s heir.”
Anytime someone mentioned her ultimate use as the heir, they meant only one thing. “What is it you’re asking me to do? Ensure an immediate line of succession because—”
“No. Nothing so obvious. You will accept your husband in your own time.”
So, it was true then. Her time had finally run out.
Kai’s shoulders sank from the abrupt absence of weight. “I wish you’d reach the point.”
Soyala dipped fingers into the prayer bowl and swirled the water, staring into its vortex. “You will want to spend your energy battling your new mate—he is not the battlefield. There are men and there are daughters. Choose and prepare your most trusted and faithful warriors.”
Kai straightened, understanding little but one thing. “Our warriors are already honed and prepared for whatever comes.”
Soyala glanced up and spoke plainly. “You will need these warriors during a crucial time. They must unwaveringly trust your lead and you theirs. A choice must be made. You or her. Us or them. The wrong choice will doom us all.”
“Us or who?” The answer was easy. Kai would choose her people. Always.
Soyala started away, sharing one final thought. “You will know when the time comes.”
The Eternal One watched Soyala disappear, her expression unreadable. The winged creature leapt from her arms and scurried after the seer.
Meanwhile, Kai imagined—in great detail—pushing over one of the prayer bowls to relieve her tension. She didn’t come all the way here to leave with vague, nonsense messages. If the gods needed her, they could, at the very least, be clear with their directive and why.
Her jaw pulsed with pain, as if she’d been biting back a scream for hours.
“Be at ease, Kai Silver Wolf,” the Eternal One said, coming forward. “I can see you’re upset. Allow me to attempt clarity.”
Kai straightened as the woman sat to her right and folded delicate hands in her lap.
“Is she always like that?” Kai asked.
“Yes. I cannot speak to what it is truly like for her, but she is not”—she tapped her temple—“always here. Soyala is always open to the voices, who speak over each other quite a bit, as I understand it. She sees many paths, and many needs along each one. Our world is much more vast for her.”