Chapter 25 #2
"You don't know us."
"No."
"You don't owe us anything."
"No."
"Then why."
Keer's hand at the small of my back.
"Because she asked."
He doesn't say Mel. He doesn't gesture. He doesn't have to. The whole clearing already saw the look between us. The whole clearing knows.
The woman's eyes move from him to me.
Then back to him.
Then to the soldiers behind her—her people, the ones who chose forward, the ones whose families are about to be rolled out of citizenship by tomorrow night—and her face does something complicated. The kind of complicated that means a hard math problem just got an answer she didn't expect to get.
"We'll come back," she says. Quiet. "If you'll have us. We'll come back."
"We'll have you."
She nods.
Then she goes back to dividing tasks.
I'm shaking. I didn't notice until now. Keer's hand is still at the small of my back and I'm shaking against him and I can't tell if it's because the army is gone or because of what just happened or because I haven't eaten or because I asked my mate something with my eyes and he answered it in front of all these people without blinking.
"Melori."
"Don't." I can't look at him. If I look at him I'm going to cry or laugh or collapse and none of those are useful.
"There's wounded. I need to—"
"Dara's got them."
"But—"
"You've done enough."
I haven't. There are bodies to move. Wounds to treat. People I don't know the names of standing in the middle of my clearing with no swords and somewhere to go now—because Keer knew I would ask.
My knees buckle.
He catches me. Both hands, holding me up, the heat of him against my back for one second before he steadies me upright.
"Okay," I hear myself say. "Maybe I'll sit down."
Dara takes over the healing station. Someone presses food into my hands—I don't remember eating but the bread is gone so I must have. Wolves moving around me, carrying bodies, building fires, doing the thousand tasks that come after not dying. I try to help three times.
I sit.
The clearing goes quiet. Wolves in human form now, some of them pulling on clothes, some just sitting in the dirt with their arms around their knees.
Two men carrying a body between them, careful, steady.
The pyres won't happen until tomorrow. For now, the dead are laid out near the western wall, wrapped in hide, side by side.
Dara finds me sometime in the late afternoon. Plants herself in front of me. Hands on her hips.
"You're done."
"I'm sitting. I've been done."
"You're done for the day. Dwelling. Sleep."
"I'm not tired."
"You're swaying while sitting, Melori."
"That's a balance issue."
"Go. I'll tie you down if I have to."
"...only if Keer does the tying."
I gasp. My hand smacks over my mouth too late.
Dara's eyebrows climb.
"...I didn't say that."
"You did."
"I didn't mean to say that."
"And yet."
"Pretend you didn't hear it."
"No."
"Dara."
"I'm keeping that. Forever."
Ugh.
Halfway to my dwelling, Kestria intercepts me. Grabs my arm. Steers me toward the far wall without asking, which is very Kestria.
"Sit." She pushes me down against the wall of a dwelling. Drops beside me. Our shoulders touch.
We don't talk. Don't need to.
The sun's dropping. Colors bleeding across the sky. Somewhere a wolf howls—long, low, answered by another. Not a warning. Grief. The sound of it settles into my chest and stays there.
Nugget finds my feet. Still pink. Still pecking at nothing. Completely unbothered by the army, the battle, the dead. Chickens don't grieve. Must be nice. Keer Jr. comes around the corner, locks onto Nugget, and stations himself approximately one inch from her tail feathers.
"Your chickens survived," Kestria says.
I look down.
"They are everyone's chicken."
"Nugget sleeps in your dwelling."
"Yeah. You got me there."
Keer Jr. puffs himself up at a passing wolf. Neither the wolf nor Nugget acknowledges him.
"That rooster is indestructible," Kestria says.
"He's too mean to die."
"Maybe that's his survival strategy."
"Being so annoying no one wants to deal with him? Yeah. It's working."
We both laugh. Tired and raw. It hurts my throat and I do it anyway.
The clearing is quieter now. Fires crackling.
Wolves huddled in pairs, in groups. Someone is cooking—I can smell grain and salt and something that might be the last of the dried meat.
Across the clearing, Keer is moving between the wounded, checking on everyone, holding everything together while his whole body is a map of fresh injuries.
The wound on his arm is still bleeding. It's driving me insane from here.
Near the dwellings, the new humans who stayed behind are sitting in a loose cluster.
Quiet. The patchy-beard kid is hugging his knees a little ways off.
The middle-aged woman is gone—took half her people back through the trees an hour ago to start collecting families.
The ones left don't know what to do with their hands.
Kestria's eyes track mine. She sees them too.
Neither of us says anything.
Tomorrow's tomorrow.
"Do you think they'll actually come back?" I ask. "With more soldiers?"
"Probably."
"That's optimistic."
"I learned from you."
"I'm not optimistic. I'm just too tired to be pessimistic."
She laughs. Softer.
"Go find your brother," I tell her.
"What?"
"He needs you. He won't ask for it."
She looks at me. Then at the clearing, where Keer is crouching talking to Axan.
"He won't let me help."
"He didn't let me help either. Didn't stop me." I nudge her shoulder. "Go. I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I'm fine enough. Go."
She squeezes my hand and stands and walks toward him.
I tip my head back against the wall. Close my eyes.
Nugget settles against my ankle. Warm. Heavy for a bird her size. I didn't know chickens snored but she's making a sound that's either snoring or a very quiet death rattle and at this point I'm choosing to believe the first one.
The sun is warm on my face. Not hot—late afternoon warm.
A territory full of people who just revealed the biggest secret their kind has ever kept. A handful of humans with no homes left. The settlements will be talking by tomorrow. Theron will be regrouping by the next day.
I don't know what we do tomorrow.
I don't know how we feed twenty extra mouths—
Ohh, I know!
We need more animals.
We could get cows! Maybe even pigs.