“Mom.”
Her mother clicked her tongue as she took the Sun altar out of Vantra’s hands, wrapped thick white cloth around the pyramid’s pointed top, and settled it carefully within the pack.
“Mom! I can pack myself!”
She glanced at Vantra, then snagged a light cloak of the deepest purple.
“Mom!” Where had that come from? She had not purchased it, so it must be a gift from someone. Had her parent bought it for her?
“I know, I know.” She folded it into the smallest square she could, then set it inside with a sad smiled, a hint of tears making her eyes gleam like glass. Vantra bit her lower lip, then slid her arm around her shoulders; her mother needed a hug, even if that would not console her.
“I’ll be fine.”
“You weren’t fine when they brought you to the camp.”
She squeezed harder. “Maybe not, but I protected Laken and Jare from the enemy. And if I have to do it again, Fyrij will find me afterwards.”
Her mother pressed her lips together. “He’s remaining at camp, though, isn’t he?”
“Mom.” She laid her forehead against the side of her parent’s head. “I’ll be fine.” How many times must she say it?
“It’s dangerous, Vantra.”
“I know.”
Her mother pulled away and retrieved the Sun shard. She hunted and found a cloth to wrap it in, then slid it into a side pocket, tying the top down with a sharp yank. “I wanted to do so many things when you woke,” she whispered. “I wanted to tell you . . .” She swallowed and rubbed at her throat. “When you were alive, I neglected to tell you, every day, how much I loved you. How proud I was of you.”
“I didn’t do anything worth talking about when I was alive.”
“That’s not true. You wouldn’t have become a target, if so.” Her mother slipped her arms around her and held her close, cupping the back of her head as if she were a child in need of comfort. “I’m so afraid, that our second chance will be ripped from us again. I want to hear about what I missed. I know your time with the Finders wasn’t what it should have been, but you found your footing and stayed the course, despite the steepness of the slope and the uncertainty of the gravel. You’re so strong.” She tightened her hug until Vantra thought she might squeeze her essence into oblivion.
“I’m not the strong one. That’s always been you.”
“Has it?” She shook her head, her tresses tickling across Vantra’s nose, a reminder that she could no longer smell the comforting scent of her parent’s spicy herbal hair wash. “I was strong when I needed to be. It’s not how I see myself.” She pulled away, slid the Sun badge from the table, and held it up. “Katta will be listening. Don’t hesitate to call.”
She pursed her lips. “I’ve called before, and they haven’t answered.” Did she sound as resentful as she thought? Her mother huffed on laughter and put the item in the front flap pocket.
“Syimlin don’t listen every moment of every day. The flood of voices would drown them quickly. I always thought prayer was salvation, but it’s not. It can’t be. Too many desperately need help, and the syimlin shouldn’t interfere in the natural progression of things. Listening might make them choose the wrong way to assist.” She smoothed the leather, her eyes vacant. “It’s painful to realize a miracle for someone might be the death knell for another. A man saved might end up committing atrocities, and the compassion felt for him in his desperate hour becomes unmitigated guilt for rescuing him. Syimlin can’t scry the future; that’s for Sun oracles and no other. They can guess, hope, but what they expect might never come to pass. They take chances, every good deed they do.”
Was her parent referencing Talis? What ill did she think would come from his sacrifice? “And what about evil deeds?”
Her mother laughed, a sad, choppy sound. “Those are chances, too. Every one has unintended consequences.” She rubbed at her cheeks. “This isn’t the send-off I’d planned. I’m sorry, Vantra.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She hugged her hard enough to squeeze love into her. “And I worry about you, too. You’re alive here, in the rainforest, where bugs carry disease, and you can die of the heat.”
Her mother pulled back, startled, then a self-deprecating smile lit her lips. “I won’t die of disease or heat.” She held up a hand. “My shielding makes me a bug zapper and cold wallower.”
She laughed at the thought of Kasoris, Priestess of Sun, sparking after every insect attempt to sink a proboscis into her skin.
Her mother packed the portable mister, wrapped the hose around her fingers, then opened the side pocket on the other side. “Ew!” She held up her fingers; black gunk dripped off and landed on the carpet.
“Fyrij,” Vantra sighed, exasperated.
“Fyrij?” Her mother’s mouth pulled down into a disgusted frown as she held her hand away from her. “This isn’t—”
“No, he collects things and hides them in my pack.”
Her revulsion turned to horror as her fingers parted with effort. “And what was this?”
Vantra bit her lip and searched for a cloth. Hopefully the stuff cleaned up with water. “I don’t want to know.”
“How old are they?”
Vantra remained in a half-slumber, eyes closed, thoughts drifting to the frantic hunt for something to get the gunky whatever it was off her mother’s fingers, and the transfer of her stuff to a fresh pack. She did not know the two rufang who accompanied them on the transport to Selaserat, so she sank into the black leather seat, put her feet up on her pack, and rested while they chatted with Kenosera and Yut-ta. They appeared curious about the two, and she wondered why.
“Eighty half-cycles, I think,” the second rufang murmured, as if intimating secret information, then clacked her beak. They resembled Yissik, with ebon to bright pink beaks dividing their faces, one with dark eyes, the other with deep gold. Brown plumage mingled with tan fur on their upper torso, with black stripes crossing their lower backs and legs. Unlike the ex-yim, they glared at her, Jare and Lorgan, and rushed to the back of the ship to avoid them.
“Eighty?” The first’s voice dropped. “A bit naïve, for having lived that long, don’t you think?”
“Yissik was yim, Nalla. They’re not naïve,” the second protested.
“Why do you think they’re naïve?” Kenosera asked in a soft thrum. Vantra almost smiled as it delighted her ears.
“Because they believe anything of value comes from them.” A moment of silence preceded a sigh from Nalla. “Surely your people don’t like them either.”
“Them?” Kenosera asked.
“Ghosts,” she muttered, low enough she likely thought no one but the four of them heard.
“Some do, some don’t,” Yut-ta said over the flubbery sounds of him readjusting his seat. Kie and Nuçya had placed him against the wall dividing the cargo hold from the twelve passenger seats so his wings had space, with crisscrossed buckles meant to secure crates keeping him from jostling around. He preferred the flat surface to curling his feathers around his shoulders, but the pull-down bench was not as comfy as the chairs. “I’m a member of the Sun temple in Selaserat. I associate with them all the time.”
“Sun temple?” the second asked, surprised. “Why?”
“Because of Lokjac. Because of Xafane. Lokjac visited my hometown when I was small, and I followed him everywhere. When I reached etato, I traveled to Selaserat to meet with him again. He was surprised a lad like me remembered him, and that he had such an effect on my life, considering the Evenacht doesn’t get sunlight. I think that’s why I was enchanted. His experiences were so different from my own.”
“You look up to a ghost?” The second’s suspicious tone only made him laugh.
“Yes.”
“Ghosts caused the flood,” Nalla whispered with firm conviction. “They kill us fast instead of slow. Yet you support them.”
“Yet you trust enough to fly with us to Selaserat for supplies,” Kenosera said with soft skepticism. “Besides, I’ve spoken with the villagers who lived near the dam. They said Wiiv flowed from the shadows and used magic to shatter the stone. Wiiv, not ghosts. Why would the dryans destroy their home to flood a few small villages downstream?”
“I’ve heard the same about the Wiiv,” the second reluctantly agreed. “But why would forest dwellers attack a dam? They would know others of the leaves would get washed away. There is no point to it.”
“Or maybe that IS the point,” Yut-ta said drily. “Especially if the villages had any trade with the lake. The Wiiv have a history of not liking anything or anyone associated with faelareign, and they’ve been attacking farmers to prove it.”
Nalla softly clacked her tongue. “You who ally with the ghosts should tread carefully. They are not trustworthy. Wiiv may have destroyed the dam, but they did not drown the forest in fire.”
“No, only water.” Kenosera managed a drier tone than Yut-ta. “And you can thank your false Strans for the fire.”
Vantra did not want to listen any longer, guilt crashing through her at her hand in the destruction, but sitting just in front of them did not grant her the space to ignore them. She pulled her thoughts inward, mulling what it must be like, as one driven from their home by floodwaters and mourning the dead, to look to hated ghosts for help. Ultimately, without the lake, there would have been no flood, that was true. But no one knew why the Wiiv had destroyed the dam in the first place. Punishment for those who did not see spirits as an enemy? The waters would drown far more than that number. Did they believe it worth the sacrifice, in an attempt to drive spirits from the forest? Or did a darker purpose underlie it all?
If Kjiven led their strike, corruption fomented the plan. His reason remained elusive.
She rubbed at her eyes and resettled in her chair; the leather, supple and with much padding beneath, was comfortable enough. Only the blinking of multi-colored lights from the pilot console distracted her from a deeper sleep. They reflected off the shiny black metal interior and whizzed through her perception, bright flashes that caught her attention.
She studied the white-clad shoulder in front of her nose, then looked up at Jare, who stared at his boots with half-lidded eyes.
“An argument with no end,” he murmured, glancing at her before sliding further down into his chair. She supposed so. However much the forest dwellers hated ghostly presence, they were there to stay. Some had spent thousands of years in the forest and considered it home; she did not think many would meekly leave because a few tribes loathed them. Maybe they should; events like the flood would not have happened without ghosts changing the environment to suit their preferences.
Yet those who resided there had done so for thousands of years—and thousands of years longer than they had lived on Talis. Jare, being the same age as Qira, had dwelt in Greenglimmer for over twenty thousand. Would the forest community ever consider him a resident rather than an interloper? How long must he exist there, to be seen as a member of the forest community instead of an outsider?
Did the Wiiv resent the dwellers displaced from Dryanthium to Greenglimmer, or just ghosts? They did not hold back in raiding the farms of those who left the trees for a different life, and Yissik thought the tribe’s shamans convinced the other yim to exile them because they associated with spirits, so the distrust, bitterness and loathing ran deep.
How many faelareign essences reflected that back? No end, indeed.
