Voice of Crow (12 page)

“Horses were a way to get around, a way to gain advantage. A way to kill the enemy.” He wiped his sleeve over his brow. “Now horses expect me to be their friend, to care about what they want.”

“And do you care?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to.”

“What
do
you want, Filip?”

“I don’t know!” He lowered his voice and kept brushing the pony’s flank. “I don’t know.”

“Your Spirit can help you figure that out.”

“If I get Bestowed.” His lips twisted the word into something distasteful. “But then I’m trapped forever.”

“You might not have a choice of gifts, but you can choose how to use them. Even after the Bestowing.” She went back to her pony and removed the riding blanket. “When Crow gave me my full powers, I thought my trials were over. Then I found out I had to die.”

He stopped brushing. “Die? As in, dead?”

“To lose my fear of death, I had to experience it. Or so my mentor, Coranna, claimed.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran away.” She picked up the currycomb he’d tossed aside, then stood and met his gaze. “But I didn’t get far.”

He nodded. “They tracked you down.”

“No, I came back. It was my choice. I froze to death on Mount Beros, then Coranna brought me back to life. Third-phase Crows can do that, though there’s always a price.”

“Weren’t you afraid you might not come back?”

“Of course. I had to trust in Coranna and trust in Crow.” She saw him stare at her with new respect, as if she’d aged twenty years before his eyes. “But I’d spent my whole life believing that the Spirits want what’s best for us. You don’t have that faith.”

He shook his head. “My magic has brought me nothing but lost sleep. The thought of spending the rest of my life like this…” He stretched back his shoulders, sighing, and stared up at the rafters. “Does it get easier?”

The lie sat in her throat, waiting to soothe his fears. “It gets harder.”

“I figured.” His mouth tightened, then relaxed as he looked at her. “Thank you for being honest. You’re the first.”

“I don’t like secrets. And you need the truth to make your decision about the Bestowing.”

“I’ve already decided not to do it.” He turned back to the piebald mare and resumed his vigorous brushing. “For now.”

Most nights when it wasn’t snowing, he would smoke his pipe on the bridge between her house and Coranna’s. At first the pungent scent had assaulted Alanka’s sensitive nose, but over the past month she had come to welcome the rich aroma of burning leaves.

Usually she left him alone in these moments, for his gaze seemed to wander to some distant internal realm. Perhaps he was thinking of the family he’d left behind, which she knew little about, only that he had parents and a sister in Velekos, and that the mother of his child wasn’t even his mate, much less his wife. Though Alanka often shared meals with Damen and Coranna, she hadn’t had a moment alone with him since his arrival. The dinner conversations could have veered toward the personal, but despite his amiable nature, something about Damen told her those parts of him were off-limits.

Tonight Alanka would cross that boundary, even if it burned her. It had been too long since she’d felt anything for a man but indifference. If she could connect with Damen, maybe she’d feel normal again. She undid her braid and drew a brush through the soft waves.

Damen stepped onto the porch. He shook the heavy snow off a pine branch hanging over the rope bridge, then moved to the center of the bridge, pulling the muskrat-skin coat tighter around his chest. His pipe was already lit, and he leaned against the railing to smoke.

The moonlight, nearly obscured by the trees but reflected by the fallen snow, lit Damen with a soft blue glow. As he drew the first inhale of the pipe, his sharp brown eyes closed in relief, and the tension flowed off his face like water over a rock.

Alanka hesitated. She should probably leave him alone, and leave herself alone while she was at it.

She shut the window and opened the door.

Damen jumped when he heard the latch click, then gave her a genuine, though distracted, smile. “Alanka, hello. I didn’t hear you at first.”

“Wolf stealth. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I was in another world.” Head cocked, he examined her appearance. “Aren’t you cold wearing that?”

“I’m used to the weather here.” She drifted toward him, trying not to let her teeth chatter from the wind that cut through her knee-length, sleeveless shift.

He brushed a dusting of snow off the railing. “It only snows in Velekos maybe once every two or three years.”

“Summers must be hot, though.”

“But a breeze always blows off the sea, so it’s tolerable. Tiros is the worst. Blistering hot in summer, freezing in winter. Nothing to see but dust and cattle. Don’t know why anyone lives there.”

His voice verged on the more clipped speech of Kalindos, and she wondered if he did it on purpose. Crows were adaptable, if nothing else. “I’ve never been to Tiros or Velekos. I never left home until the battle in Asermos.”

He took a puff of his pipe and examined her face. “You fought, didn’t you?”

She nodded and blinked away the wind that made her eyes tear up.

“How was that?” he asked, in his typical understated manner.

“Bad.” She stared at the distant ground.

Damen shifted his feet. “Coranna told me what happened to your brother.”

She tried to shrug. “It’s what he would have wanted. He was a warrior. A Wolverine, born to fight and kill. Born to die, I guess.”

“Born to protect the people he loves, you mean. Protect his home.”

“That’s what they say, but I could tell they enjoyed it. When my brothers killed, it made them stronger, not weaker.”

“What do you mean, weaker?”

“Taking another person’s life didn’t carve out a hole inside them and make them wish—” She cut herself off, unable to voice the secret desire, even to a Crow. “At least, it didn’t seem to.”

Damen let out a sigh, and the sound reminded her why she was here—not to discuss the battle and the dead feeling it had left within her, but to find a way to make that feeling go away.

“May I try?” she said, pointing to his pipe.

“It’s rather strong.”

“So am I.”

He handed her the pipe, a bemused expression on his face. “Be careful.”

“Careful is one thing I never am.”
At least, it used to be.
She smiled as she slid the stem between her lips. Her gaze fixed on his. She inhaled.

And choked. The pipe nearly flew from her hand as she heaved a violent, hacking cough. Damen took it back without so much as a chuckle.

“It’s all right.” He patted her back. “Happens to everyone their first time. Sometimes I still cough if I inhale too hard.”

She tried to reply but couldn’t get her voice past her tight throat, which spasmed like a dying snake. Damen led her to her house, and she needed his guidance, for the gagging had blinded her with tears.

Once inside, he poured her a mug of water. She grabbed it from him and took a long gulp.

A moment later, she spewed it out again. It was meloxa. Unsweetened meloxa.

“That wasn’t water, was it?” he said.

She cracked open her eyes to see that she had spit the sour concoction all over his coat. “Sorry,” she croaked.

“My fault.” He sniffed another container. “Ah, water.”

She grasped the flask and downed half its contents. Soon she was able to take a shallow breath without coughing. Damen pushed a clean towel into her hands, and she used it to wipe her eyes and nose.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded, too embarrassed to speak.

“I’ll go, then,” he said.

“Why?”

He held up his pipe. “Don’t want to stink up your house.”

“No, I like it.” She sniffled, not at all seductively. “Please stay. It’s cold out.”

Damen shrugged, then took off his coat, shaking out the drops of meloxa. “Thank you.” He sat at the table while Alanka crossed the room to her bed. She scooted over the blankets to rest her back against the wall.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said.

He motioned to her with his pipe.

“You hear the voices of the dead, right?”

“Of course.”

“All the time, in the background, like Rhia does?”

He tilted his head. “At first, but then I learned to suppress it.”

“She can’t always stop it.”

“Coranna said it’s because her pregnancy makes everything fluctuate. It’s easier for a man, because our bodies aren’t changing at the same time as our Aspect. It’ll straighten out for her soon.”

Alanka paused, realizing the similarity between Coranna’s and Damen’s matter-of-fact outlooks. Their powers didn’t play havoc with their emotions, because age or experience had taught them to shut their feelings away. She hoped Rhia never developed that skill.

“What do they say?” she asked him.

“Who?”

“The dead.”

“I can’t tell you that.” His mouth tried a smirk, but even in the dim stove light Alanka could see through it to something that troubled him deeply.

She drew her knees to her chest and rested her head on them, though her seduction attempt felt as if she was going through the motions. “What
can
you tell me about what goes on in there?”

His gaze flicked to the edge of her shift, which had risen midthigh, but his concentration didn’t waver. “In where?”

“In your mind. You never talk about yourself. I see you every day, but I feel like I barely know you. I want to know you better.” Her mouth curled into a half smile.

Damen glanced at the door. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Or, if you prefer—” she stretched out one bare leg “—we don’t have to talk.”

He stood slowly, and she leaned her head back, anticipating his approach.

“I need to leave now,” he said.

She cursed inside but kept smiling. “Why?”

“Because I think you want something I can’t give you.”

“Why not? You don’t find me attractive?”

He sighed and set his pipe on the table. She waited for him to prove her wrong, first with words, then actions. Instead he crossed his arms over his chest. “No, Alanka, I don’t.”

She gaped at him, her face heating.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “I like you. I think you’re a wonderful person. But I have a mate waiting for me in Velekos.”

“Oh.” She straightened her legs and drew her shift down to cover as much skin as possible. “I’m sorry. You said the mother of your child wasn’t your mate—”

“She’s not.”

“—so I thought there was no one else.”

“There is.”

“And you’ve never spoken of her—”

“Him.”

“—so I assumed that—” She stopped and heard what he said, moments after he said it. “Him?”

“His name is Nathas. Do you understand now why I’m not attracted to you?”

She hesitated. “Only men?”

“Yes. And since you’re a woman—”

“But nearly half the men in Kalindos will lie with men or women, especially when they’re young.”

“I know.” He grinned. “Why do you think I have such fond memories of this place?”

“What about you?”

“Strictly men. Sorry.”

She covered her face with her hands. “No, I’m sorry. I feel so stupid.”

“Don’t.” He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m flattered. You’re a beautiful young woman. Most men would give anything to trade places with me at this moment.”

She tried to smile, but his words only made it worse. Suddenly curiosity stifled her humiliation. “You’re second phase.”

He looked at the floor and nodded. “It wasn’t easy.”

“But how did you—”

“I said it wasn’t easy. In Velekos, people’s views aren’t as open as they are in Kalindos. With me having a rare Aspect, it was even more important to have children.” The tips of his fingers rubbed together, as if they already missed the pipe. “Imagine my parents’ reaction when I told them why I’d never be a father. Thus began the project.”

“The project?”

“First, finding me a woman who’d be patient enough to conceive under exceptional circumstances, not to mention a woman who wanted children but not a permanent emotional commitment from a man.” He shifted his weight. “Then came the obvious part. I had a lot of help from my mate with that.”

“I see,” was the only reaction Alanka could come up with.

“Reni lives in the home I share with Nathas. He’s taking care of her while I’m here, and I’ll return for the birth. If everything goes well, and Reni is willing, someday she’ll have his child, too.”

Alanka’s mind spun at the odd arrangement. The thought of sharing a mate, even for such practical purposes, made her feel cold inside.

“I’ll go now,” he said.

Relieved, Alanka nodded. “Good night.”

He gave her shoulder an awkward pat. She didn’t watch him leave.

When Damen was gone, Alanka pulled on a pair of soft sleeping trousers and crawled under a pile of blankets.

Maybe men were more trouble than they were worth.