Chapter 22
Hands moving. Mortar rocking. The bite on my shoulder pulls when I lean too far forward.
The tooth is on the corner of the worktable. Wrapped in a strip of leather. Two scraps of cord beside it, one knotted wrong and abandoned, one half-tied. I'd worked at it for an hour.
Started the paste instead.
The paste, my hands can do.
"Mel."
I don't look up. Crush. Scrape. Crush.
"You've been at it since dawn."
"Paste doesn't make itself."
"Your cottage burned down yesterday."
"I'm aware. I was there. I saw the ash. Very thorough burning. Whoever did it should be proud."
"Mel."
"I'm making paste, Kestria. The paste is more important than my feelings about a building."
"Is that what we're calling ten years of your life? A building?"
My pestle catches the crack in the mortar and skips. I scoop the petals back. "It was wood and stone. Wood burns. Stone doesn't. I kept the stones."
"You kept a broken bowl."
"The bowl survived. Iron and stone and stubbornness. That's what—"
"What's this?"
I look up.
She's at the corner of the worktable. Reaching for the leather wrap.
"Kestria—"
"What's—"
She picks it up.
"—don't—"
The leather falls open in her palm. The tooth rolls into view. White. Sharp. Dark red at the root.
She lifts it to her nose. The casual sniff of someone double-checking a cured hide.
Her face changes.
"...why the fuck is Keer's tooth on your table."
"Kestria."
"This is Keer's tooth, Mel."
"I know whose tooth it is."
"This is a wolf tooth. From his mouth. Why is it here."
"He was here last night."
"...okay?" She turns the tooth in her fingers. Squints at me. "Did you punch him? Like, really hard? Because I smell him everywhere, Mel, his scent is all over this dwelling, very pungent—" she sniffs again, closer to the tooth, "—wait. Too pungent. That's not just—Mel. Mel, what did you guys—"
"WE HAD SEX."
She freezes.
"HE GAVE ME A SEX TOOTH."
The tooth hits the table.
She's already three steps back, hand wiped down the front of her tunic like she can scrub it off. "OH—oh, oh no, oh no no no, Mel—"
"Kestria—"
"That is my brother's—"
"I KNOW—"
"You handed me my brother's sex tooth—"
"I didn't hand it to you, you grabbed it—"
"You let me PICK IT UP—"
"I tried to stop you! I said don't! I literally said don't!"
"You said don't like a normal don't, not a, don't, that's the tooth my brother gave me after we—" She makes a gesture. A bad gesture. Both hands. "—don't!"
"Well now you know!"
"NOW I KNOW."
We stare at each other across the worktable. Her hand still hovering away from her body like the tooth-touch is going to crawl up her arm.
I put my face in my hands. My hands smell like crushed moonbright. My face will too now. Wonderful.
"...I'm so sorry," I say into my palms.
"Mel."
"I'm so sorry, Kestria, I should have—"
"Mel."
"—warned you, or moved it, or—"
"Mel."
"What."
She's still standing three steps back. But her hand is coming down. Slow. Her eyes are on me now, not the tooth.
"He gave you a tooth."
"...yeah."
"He—" She stops. Her face does something. The wolf-sister underneath the horrified-friend doing math. "He pulled out his own tooth and gave it to you."
"...yeah."
"Mel."
"I know."
"Mel."
"I know, Kestria."
She breathes in. Slow. Her nostrils flare. I watch her process whatever she's pulling out of the air.
"Mel."
"What."
She breathes in again. Shorter. Sharper.
"That's not just—" She stops. Tries again. "That's—there's blood. Under everything. Under yours, Mel. Old blood. Set blood. Why is there—"
She stops.
Her eyes drop to my shoulder.
I watch her get there.
"...no."
"Kestria."
"No, no, Mel, no—" She's standing up off the bench. "He didn't. Tell me he didn't."
"Kestria—"
"Show me your shoulder."
"Kestria—"
"Show me your shoulder, Mel."
I tug my collar down.
Her face goes still.
The wrapping is clean. I did it myself in the dark.
Kestria looks. Her mouth tightens.
"It's set well." Her voice is careful. "It's deep, Mel."
"I know it's deep."
"Did he—" She stops. Tries again. "Did he ask? Before."
"No. He didn't plan it."
“I’m going to kill him—”
I shrug my shirt back into place. "He said the wolf reached me before he did. But he would have."
"He told you that?"
"Yeah."
She lets out a long breath. Looks at her hands.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." She picks up a handful of petals. Sorts—purple-edged in one pile, white in the other. "I'm processing. Out loud, mostly. Just not at you yet."
I laugh. I swipe my face with my forearm because both my hands are full of crushed flower.
"Left at dawn. I don't know where. Pack duty, I think. He left water on the ledge for me, which is stupidly tender by the way, he made sure there was water before he left."
"Ugh. Are you two going to be one of those gross, lovey couples now."
"Have you met your brother?"
"Mel. He left you water."
"Tactical hydration."
"Tactical hyd—he left you water, Mel.” Her nose scrunches. “I will throw up on you."
"I am aware of the risk."
She sorts petals. I crush. The clearing wakes up around us. Footsteps. The clang of someone at the forge. Keer Jr. screaming at the dawn from across the territory because the sun had the audacity to rise without his permission. Nugget chirps from inside my dwelling.
I should feed her. After this batch.
"Was he careful with you."
I think about it. His hands on my face.
"Yeah." Quieter. "He was careful."
She nods, approving.
"Good."
Dara joins us mid-morning. Doesn't look at the tooth. Doesn't look at my shoulder. Sets down her satchel and crushes.
Maren arrives. Reaches for the oil.
"If you pour that"—I don't look up—"I will end you."
"It's a drizzle."
"Your drizzles are pours. There is a meaningful difference between a drizzle and a pour, Maren. I've told you this. Multiple times. In increasingly specific language."
"How much, then?"
I hold up my hand. Pinch my thumb and forefinger almost together. "This much. Watch me do it first."
Movement at the tree line.
Four figures. Staggering. Catching each other, one bent double, the other three barely upright.
Coughing. Wet and deep. Not throat—lungs. The rattling carries across the clearing and my stomach drops.
I'm on my feet, running.
Keer is already ahead—everyone's ahead, wolves converging—and the coughing is getting worse, getting thicker—
Keer Jr. starts screaming from across the clearing. Not his usual rage at the sun—higher. Thinner. Even the rooster knows.
Brennan goes down. Not a stumble. His knees just quit. The other three catch him but they're barely standing themselves, all four gray-faced—not pale, gray, ashen—and their eyes streaming and the blood coming up is gray-tinged.
My hands are on the youngest one—Tarek—before I fully stop running. Tilting his chin. Checking his pupils. Constricted. Wrong.
"What did you breathe?" Fingers on his pulse. "Tell me what happened."
"Smoke—" Gasping. Choking between words. "They threw—couldn't see—"
He doubles over. Gray blood hits the ground.
Moonbright. Airborne. They weaponized moonbright as smoke.
The rumors.
"Paste!" I'm already at Brennan—pressing my ear to his chest. Fluid crackling in there. Wet. Wrong. "All of it. Everything we made this morning—"
I stop.
The paste sits on skin and the poison is in their lungs. I cannot smear paste on the inside of someone's—
Think.
Paste binds poison on contact. Skin, wound, surface. The poisoned tissue is inside. I can’t reach inside.
Smoke went in. Something has to follow it.
"Steam." My head snaps up. "Steam. We need steam. Boiling water, the biggest pots we have, and now."
Kestria's already running. Dara is right behind her.
"Move that fire." Pointing. "More wood. Build it hotter. Maren—pots. Every pot, every kettle, every cooking vessel. I need water boiling in thirty seconds or I lose them."
Tarek is the worst by sound—rattling, shallow. I drop next to him. His lips are gray. Spit in the corner of his mouth gone the same color.
"Hold him sitting up." To whoever's closest—turns out to be Axan. "Sitting. Not lying. His lungs need to be up."
Axan hauls him.
"What are you doing?" Keer. Right behind me.
"They inhaled it. Paste won't reach. Steam will." I'm at the first pot Kestria's hauling over—water sloshing, half from the bucket, half on her tunic. "Same route. Smoke went in, steam comes after. Drop it."
I scoop paste into the boiling water. Stir hard with the handle of a knife because I do not have time to find a spoon.
"I need cloth. Big cloth—wool, linen, anything. I'm tenting their heads so they can't escape it."
Dara throws me a hide-blanket. Good enough.
I drag the pot to Tarek. Axan bracing him upright. I throw the blanket over both of them, the pot underneath, Tarek's face over the steam.
"Breathe."
He coughs. Hard. Body seizing—convulsing under the blanket, hands clawing at the wool, gray spit hitting it from the inside. Axan holds him through it. Doesn't let him pull away.
"Keep breathing, Tarek. Through it."
The cough goes on. Gets worse first. Then drier. The wet rattle changes pitch.
He breathes. One clean breath. Another.
I'm already moving. "Next pot. Bring it. NOW—"
Nugget is underfoot. Literally underfoot. I almost go down trying to reach Brennan and she does not move. She never moves. "Nugget. Move."
Brennan. Same protocol. Pot. Blanket. Steam under. Face over.
"Hold him up, Dara. Up means up. His head goes over the pot."
Dara holds him up.
"Breathe."
He breathes. He coughs. He seizes. Gray spit on the inside of the wool.
This poor blanket.
But the rattle clears.
Third scout.
Then fourth. Maren's brother. Worst of them. Gray down past his collarbones. Breathing shallow and wet and slowing.
I dump more paste into his pot. Stronger ratio—I'm inventing the ratio right now—I don't know if his lungs can take this concentration but I know what they can't take is the poison still sitting in them.
"Hold him. Tighter than that. He's going to fight."