The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (12 page)

I was the Cedna, and this was my purpose. Not even my own child could trump this requirement.

Duty. Obligation. Responsibility.
Onatos’s words haunted me, cutting deep. Even he thought me a child for wanting a tiny slice of happiness to call my own. Even he believed one’s duty came before one’s desires.

I would do what all Cednas had done before me. I would give myself up. I would sacrifice. I would protect my land, even if it meant I was left with nothing for myself.

I tried to convince myself that things might somehow turn out all right. I tried to hope that the Ganteans would learn to make new stories, that we’d find ways to protect our world that had nothing to do with ritual or pain or suffering.

But the anguish of the ongoing scream in my head wore me down, and not even the tiny heart beating in my womb could rise above it.

I slipped into my old Gantean skins in the dead of night and followed Laith’s route down the aqueduct. I had bitten off all my tears and would shed no more.

The ocean called, a distant thrum in my blood, as if the water seeped into my head from behind the thick, chained barrier I’d erected to keep it out.

I did not turn southwest towards Orioneport. Instead, I headed east, a wraith in the night, moving stealthily away from the Alcazar. Leaving all love behind. Why did it have to come to this?

This is what a real Cedna did. She sacrificed the woman in order to become the goddess. I left the warmth to return to my duty and my people in the cold as a Cedna should.

I had gold. Onatos had given me money to replace what I had lost in Galantia. I hired a dhow from Lysandra out of the small Amarian port city of Perevesport. The dhow would take me all the way to Queenstown.

It is bitter to taste love but once in life, but the nourishment of the Cedna has always been sour. I took out a newly made ulio and did what must be done to make my leaving complete: I sliced the beautiful braid of bloodlight I had made by mating with Onatos. No more would his moonlight be bound with my blackness. I thought again of the opal stone in his bedroom, where a tiny snippet of that braid had been trapped and preserved the first night we had made love. A shred of proof that our love had once existed. Perhaps that was why I felt a phantom of the ung-aneraq still lurked behind my breastbone even after the cutting was done.

I put the ulio away and turned my attention to the days ahead. I had the beast and its scream to subdue.

I stood on the dhow and tentatively reached into the darker corners of my mind. I did not open the door, but I sought contact with the water below the ship. The sea danced in reply to my tentative touch. A crazed desire to throw myself off the deck pulsed through me. I wanted to submerge myself in the sea and surrender to the weight of it.

Some part of me melted into the ocean as easily as a raindrop. Those feelings that normally writhed beneath my skin—pride, fear, rage, love—were vanquished as easily as water destroys fire. Only a cool comfort remained. I could face this.

Standing on the dock where the dhow dropped me in Queenstown, I put my hand on my center and felt the fluttering movement of the new life inside me. Leila.

I turned back, ready to run onto the ship and return to Orioneport.

Then the beast screamed again, and I forced myself onward.

I
did not need
to explain myself to the dour Gantean sail-father I found at the Queenstown harbor; the Tuq man did not know the Cedna’s face any more than I knew my blood-sister Malvyna Entila’s.

He agreed to take me to a southern outpost of the Shringar lands. He would go no farther out of his way, and I did not demand it.

I worried over my reception back on the island. How desperate had they been in my absence to maintain the tunixajiq? Had they been forced to sacrifice many others? I had no doubt that the Kaluqs had made their own offerings out of fear that I might shirk my duty. They had always liked to be martyrs to my inadequacies. But had the Kaluqs’ bad feelings towards me tainted everyone else?

When the clouded lands of Gante rose on the horizon, I patted the ulio I had finished for myself at the Alcazar. I would not walk onto the island unarmed.

No structure marred the rising bluffs; no stray bush or branch revealed the presence of humans. I walked a steep path up from the beach. The Tuq sail-father did not stay to track my progress.

I found a small community of Shringars behind the bluffs. Two young people approached me, hoods pulled low over their faces, though I could see the wary furrows on their foreheads. No Gantean community liked an unheralded visitor this late in the season.

I hurried to make the formal greeting. “I burn with the great heat that feeds the world.” There was no use denying it, so I added, “I am the Cedna, Iksraqtaq.”

One of the youths stepped back, bumping into his companion. He whispered to the other boy, who fled back towards the camp behind them.

He brought back an unsmiling old woman whose long, white braids reminded me of Skeleton Woman. She wore an ulio at her hip and a red Hinge amulet at her throat, marking her as an Elder of the Shringar Clan.

“I flow like the waters that feed Her sea; I am Nautien Shringar, Iksraqtaq.”

I bowed and put my hands together in a sign of respect.

“You are the Cedna?” The old woman eyed me up and down. She stood several hands’ breadths below me, small like most Ganteans. “You left us for the comforts of the south, we heard. Why are you back?”

Kaluq rumor had tagged me as abandoning Gante then, rather than going for help. I was not surprised.

“I went to Lethemia to plead our case to their king. He will not help us against the Entilan raiders. I have returned to make Gante safe, to use my magic to protect us from southern raiders. I have been given a vision from Skeleton Woman—”

“You stink of the south.” Nautien cut me off. “You must be cleansed before you enter our community.”

T
he Shringars had already begun
to settle in for the coming winter, I could see as Nautien led me around the camp outskirts. Few summer tents remained standing, and stockpiles of wood and flesh marked the entrances of tapiats that would lead to warmer spaces below ground.

Nautien led me to a small circle of silver birches a good distance above the camp. “Sit,” she said, indicating the center. “I will be back shortly.”

Afternoon light shone in a pale blue sky as I waited for the woman to return. My eyelids grew heavy; I’d barely slept since leaving Amar nearly two sennights ago, and when I did, dreams of Onatos plagued me, warm fantasies of his fingertips brushing my spine, his body fitting into mine. I shouldn’t have such memories, not after cutting the ung-aneraq that had connected us. Why did I still feel that bind like a tight band in my chest?

It did me no good to pine for him. He was gone, and I would not love again. Even so, I rubbed my palm across my chest, trying to sooth the ache there.

Moss covered the ground in small patches, but beneath that rested only dry, hard dust. Fall was upon the island. Even if I wanted to turn and flee back to the ease of the south—and as the familiar smell of pujoanuki tea wafted towards me on the breeze, I fervently wished I could—winter would prevent me. I was stuck here in Gante, and I had to face my fears.

Those fears governed my thoughts. I had come to the Shringars because I knew the Kaluqs or the Ikniqs might kill me out of hand upon my arrival, even without a named successor. My first order of business had to be to tell Nautien that I carried a child—no Gantean would kill a bearing woman. Children were precious to our people.

“Drink.” I had not heard Nautien’s footsteps, though fallen birch leaves littered the ground. She moved as silently as a hunt-father, holding out a steaming bowl as she came before me.

“I am iksuruq. I bear a child,” I spit the words out quickly. I did not know if the pujoanuki tea was safe to drink in my state.

A shadow flitted over Nautien’s wrinkled face. “The Cedna was never mated,” she said slowly. “We were told you refused the one they had picked for you. They sent the young man to us.”

I met the woman’s dark gaze. “Atanurat? Atanurat is here with your people?” I would be glad to have his support and to see his face again.

“He lives here now, yes. The Kaluqs were disappointed with him and sent him to us. Where did you get this child you carry, if not from a Gantean man?”

Heat crept up my face. I faced severe disapproval. “I got it in the south.” That was the most I dared to say.

The fold between Nautien’s brow deepened, and she sighed, shaking her head. She set the foul-smelling bowl of pujoanuki on the leaf-scattered ground. “Child, what were you thinking?”

I could not explain what had come over me in the south, but I could explain why I had returned. “Gante is in great danger. I had a vision from Skeleton Woman that I must return and make a protective magic to guard the island against Entilan raiders.”

I had a job to do. I had a scream to silence, a duty to perform, a world to make. Onatos could not say I knew nothing of my responsibilities.

Had I returned to the Kaluqs and tried to speak of this with Ikselian, she would have curbed my words already. Nautien only nodded thoughtfully. “Drink,” she said. “The pujoanuki cannot harm your child. Drink and be cleansed.”

I obeyed, though I hated the bitter brew as it made its way down my throat and stirred in my gut.

Moments later, I was forced to the edge of the birch circle to lose the taku squares and seal jerky the Tuq sail-father had offered me on my journey here.

Nautien waited silently until the purging was done. “Now,” she said, “your blood is clean again. Let us offer it to the ground as we discuss this magic you propose.”

I knelt beside her and offered my arm. She sliced with her ulio. Her hands were far gentler than Ikselian’s had ever been, cutting me.

“Long have I petitioned the Kaluq Elders to make the ritual you suggest,” Nautien said. “I have seen that it is the only way Gante will survive.”

“You mean that you want me to make a protective magic? Ikselian Kaluq says it will overtax the Hinge—”

“And so it might,” Nautien said. “But if we go on like this, every spring and summer facing the Entilan raiders, someday there will be no Iksraqtaq left to feed the Hinge, and what then? If your southern mission has failed, your magic is the only answer left. It must not fail.”

A shiver rippled down my spine. “So you will allow me to make this magic? You will give me what I need?”

“Child, I would offer my own lifeblood for the ritual, if it means you will do this magic. My Shringars lost over thirty men this summer, and a full tiguat of children were taken south as slaves. We had given up hope that you would ever return to the island.”

I bowed my head as shame and guilt trickled over me. While Nautien’s Shringars had suffered, I had been making love to Onatos and dressing in silk.

“The Kaluqs will hear of your return,” Nautien went on. “We must act quickly, before they arrive. Come.” The tiny woman pulled me to my feet with surprising strength, and together we hurried along the path that led to her community.

We were already too late. Ikselian, Drasuq, Verusuq, and a collection of hard Kaluq men blocked the path at the bottom of the hill.

Nautien stilled fifty spans away from them, holding me back with one arm.

“How?” I whispered, “How did they know?” Had the old Shringar woman deceived me? Had the Kaluqs been here all this time?

“Quiet now,” Nautien said. “You let me do the talking.”

“You dare!” Ikselian expelled, breaking from her party and hurrying up the hill. “You dare to return here, a tainted traitor!”

“She has been cleansed,” Nautien said, still holding my arm, as though she could feel my rising anger.

Ikselian’s eyes narrowed. “Very well, then. Let us return to the camp, and we will hear what meager excuses the Cedna offers for her absence. We will hear her traitorous drivel. And then we will select a new Cedna. This one is useless.”

“This Cedna is carrying a child.” Nautien must have also concluded that my pregnancy was my best argument for staying alive.

That stopped Ikselian in her tracks. Her nearly black eyes took on a calculating gleam as she turned to me. “You consorted with a sayantaq?”

I shrank back behind Nautien, recalling the list of my mother’s crimes that the Elders had shouted above the cold sea:
consorting with our enemy.
They could use this against me.

“The bloodline of the babe is of no consequence,” Nautien said sternly. “It is a child, and it will live. We do not kill our young.”

Ikselian jerked her head at one of the Kaluq men. “Fetch Atanurat. He will see for us if this story about a baby is a lie.” She scanned me up and down as the man hurried towards the camp. “It may be that she has simply grown fat on rich sayantaq fare.”

“Why are you here, Ikselian Kaluq?” Nautien asked.

“In ritual I saw that the Cedna would return here. We have come to take her back to the Kaluq camp where she belongs.”

“The Cedna belongs with the Ikniqs,” I cried.

Ikselian turned her granite gaze towards me. “
You
belong at the bottom of the Hinge. You have betrayed us. You do not serve.”

Ikselian had always had this power to rile me into rash speech. “The southern king would not hear my arguments. He locked me in his prisons and held me captive; that is why I did not return. You must understand, Lethemia will not stop. They will plunder us until there is nothing left. They will not stop until Gante is destroyed, abolished. I have returned to use my sea magic to protect the island. If we can—”

“You, control the power of the sea? When your mother used that magic our Hinge almost crumbled,” Ikselian bit out. “It is now too weak for your mistakes. No. We have one choice, one path, one ritual. You must name a stronger successor and make a Cedna’s final offering. There is no other option.”

Sweat trickled down my back, though the air was cold.

“I will not condone killing a child,” Nautien said, intervening.

“Sayantaq spawn,” hissed Ikselian. “Better off dead.”

The collective intake of air of all the people standing on that trail reassured me. Ikselian had shocked even the other Kaluq Elders with her hatred. Yet her words birthed a new fear inside me:
would she try to harm my Leila?

Drasuq spoke. “Here is Atanurat. Let him look into Yaqi to see if this child truly exists before we get too carried away.”

Atanurat had nothing of the boy left in him. His shiny black hair was braided into intricate weavings that hung nearly to his waist. How the Gantean girls must have fought to braid his sleek, long hair. How would such hair feel beneath my fingers, unbound?

Not half as fine as Onatos’s.

Atanurat rested a hand on my arm, near the edge of my poncho so his flesh touched mine, but he would not meet my gaze. I wanted to whisper to him, to tell him I had missed him, to win him back to my side, but a cloak of shame and chagrin seemed to hover over him. His eyes glazed as he slipped from Ijiq to Yaqi to see my bloodlight.

“It is true,” he said, reanimating. “She carries life within her.”

I clutched hard at Atanurat’s hand when he sought to withdraw, using him to hold me upright as relief weakened my knees.

Ikselian turned her back to me and strode down the path towards the Shringar community. Drasuq and the other companions fell into step behind her.

I looked at Nautien for guidance. The old woman wore a perplexed expression on her face. “Come then,” she said. “You may rest in my tapiat house.”

I followed her down the path and tried not to rue returning to Gante.
Don’t behave like a child, Cedna.

N
autien left
me in her tapiat while she held a council with Ikselian and the others. I hoped Nautien had other Shringar Elders who agreed with her views to counterbalance Ikselian’s arguments. My fate hung in the balance of their decision, and I paced the small tapiat, waiting and thinking.

Leila thrashed and kicked inside me. She had grown active since my return to Gante. Ikselian’s words had sown a kernel of fear in my heart. I had counted on the Ganteans respecting my child in the traditional ways. But would they do to Leila what they had done to me? Separating her from the tiguat, leaving her in my care? The thought tore me right in two. One part hated the idea that she might be raised an outcast as I had been; the other part thrilled that I might keep her bloodbound to me, that I might hold her and care for her as my own. Either chance depended on Nautien convincing the council that Leila and I both deserved to live.

After two sennights, Nautien returned, careworn with purple circles beneath her eyes, all I could think of was what would happen to Leila. Fear for her well-being tainted my dark days.

“The baby,” I said, gripping her cloak the moment she passed into the tapiat. “They will not kill the baby, will they?”

Nautien lifted her head. “The baby will not be harmed. They have agreed that the child must be allowed to be born.”

I exhaled a great sigh of relief. Nautien’s face looked a decade older than when I had last seen it. “But what?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“Ikselian wishes to sacrifice the baby after its birth.”

Nautien might as well have plunged me into the frigid winter sea and held me under. “What? No!” I screamed, shaking her.