Voice of Crow (24 page)

“You have Crow. Go with Him.” Her voice softened but stayed firm. “Find peace on the Other Side. I promise it’s waiting for you there.”

The sky darkened, as though a cloud had passed over the harsh sun. It wasn’t a cloud, Rhia knew, even before she saw Him.

Crow alighted on the valley floor, wings scattering the dust into a thin yellow cloud. He ruffled His feathers, then stood up straight, taller than a man. The fear faded in Razvin’s eyes.

“It is past time,” Crow said to the Fox in a gentle voice.

Razvin turned back to Rhia. He lifted his hands as if to touch the pup one more time, then lowered them slowly. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Stupid girl,” Skaris sang behind her. “You could have had this one instead.” A strangled caw came from the recaptured crow. Rhia clutched the pup tighter, refusing to turn to see.

“This one angers me.” Crow motioned to Skaris with His beak. “He mocks us, mocks the very idea of my realm. I have half a mind to annihilate him.”

“No,” she said. “Give me another chance. I couldn’t live knowing his soul had been destroyed for my sake.”

“Very well. Only say the word, and it would be my pleasure.” He turned to Razvin and enveloped him in His glistening black wings. The ground trembled, then they disappeared in a haze of violet light.

Rhia turned and ran, hearing Skaris’s long strides keep pace with her. Every step felt heavier and slower than the last, until she was staggering past the tree toward the fog.

“Rhia, wait.” A vulnerable undertone in Skaris’s voice made her stop, though she didn’t face him.

“Save my mate, Lidia,” he said. “Probably the only person who mourned my death.”

Rhia remembered that Lidia had been taken from Kalindos in the invasion.

“Bring her home safely,” Skaris said. “That’s all I ask.”

She opened her mouth to reply. Suddenly the pup twisted in her arms, scrabbling to get free. She grasped at the wolf and caught her back legs. The pup howled, yanking one foot free. Rhia leaped upon the creature, who snarled and snapped.

They rolled, wrestling, into the fog.

The sea.
She imagined its cold, dark peace.
The sea would end it all.

Alanka tried to rise, but something slammed her onto her back. She shoved at it—hair, hands, a pale face.

“Get her arms!” shouted the face. It was the source of the sorrow. It wanted to give her more.

Strong hands pinned her shoulders to the floor. Fingernails dug into the skin of her upper arms.

“Alanka,” the face-voice said. “It’s me, Rhia. Please hold still.”

Alanka snarled and tried to strike out with her feet. They met only air. A woman with hands to her own mouth bent over Alanka’s belly. Warm breath flowed through her shirt over her solar plexus.

Alanka stopped struggling. A feeling as familiar as a childhood scent flowed through her. She whispered her own name.

“That’s right,” Rhia said. “Welcome home.”

The hands at her shoulders—Koli’s, she remembered—let go. Alanka touched her stomach, then her face. They felt like herself.

She sat up and looked at Rhia. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“You almost got away from me at the end.” Rhia let out a gust of air, and even in the tent’s darkness Alanka could see the shadows under her eyes. “But, yes, it worked.”

“You saw him, then? My father?”

Rhia touched her shoulder. “He went with Crow.”

Alanka’s numbness cracked. She jammed her hands against her eyes, but nothing could stop the wail building inside her.

“No…” Tears flowed down her cheeks and dribbled in a stream off her chin. “Papa…”

Rhia drew her close, and Alanka clung to her, though she was afraid the sobs racking her body would break the exhausted Crow woman in two. Koli rubbed her back and murmured soothing words of sympathy.

Even as her sorrow poured forth, a warm glow flickered within Alanka. She would sleep tonight, alone and whole. At last she would sleep.

Alanka couldn’t sleep. Koli kicked and twisted the bedroll in her dreams, as though she were still riding a horse. Hard to believe she’s a stealth master when she’s awake, Alanka thought.

She crawled toward the tent door. A moment later, Koli rolled over into the space she’d left behind next to Rhia, whose extreme fatigue would no doubt keep them in camp another day. Alanka picked up her blanket and went outside.

At least the rain had stopped, and the light of the nearly full moon shone through a ragged layer of clouds. The ground near the doused campfire was damp but not soaked. She laid her blanket next to a scraggly tree and sat on it, leaning back against the trunk and facing the sea. Perhaps its distant waves would lull her to sleep.

No sooner had she closed her eyes than she heard a tent flap open. Her shoulders tightened.

Filip’s voice reached her ears. “May I join you?”

“Yes,” she said as neutrally as possible.

He laid down his own blanket and sat beside her, sighing. “Bolan snores.”

“I’m glad.”

Filip’s mouth relaxed into a smile. “This is better, I agree.”

She looked at his left leg. “Do you wear the prosthesis while you sleep?”

“No, I put it on to come see you.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“The ground is wet. My crutches might have slipped.”

She turned to face the sea so that the incessant breeze would blow her hair out of her eyes instead of into them.

“I heard you crying earlier,” he said.

“I think the people in Leukos heard me crying. I was rather loud.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Did I say I was ashamed?” He was one to talk of shame, she thought, putting on his prosthesis just to speak with her, as if she would turn away in disgust.

Filip cleared his throat. “Forgive my harsh words earlier. I wish I could unsay them.”

“I’ll forgive you, but only if you admit I could like you for yourself, not for whatever you think you stand for.”

“Perhaps.”

“Otherwise you insult me.”

“All right.”

“Say it. Say that I like you.”

He laughed softly. “You like me.”

“And why is that?”

“Apparently I possess qualities you find attractive.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

Filip grasped her shoulders and turned her to meet his formidable gaze. He cupped her jaw in both hands and said, “I’m good for you.”

“Prove it.”

He gave her a deep, slow kiss that turned her insides to liquid heat. She slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, wanting to yank him on top of her and feel his body press the breath from her lungs. But she held back, hoping the kiss would make him want as much as she was willing to give. Which was everything.

When they stopped to share a shaky breath, he looked her hard in the eye. “Proven?”

She nodded. “I forgive you.” She looked over his shoulder at the tents. “They can probably hear us, except for Rhia.”

They took their blankets down the hill toward the shore, until they were out of sight of the camp. Alanka’s heart thudded at the thought of being alone with him again.

They sat together on the sand. “How do you feel now?” he asked. “After the soul retrieval.”

“Happy. Sad. Not numb anymore. I want things again.” She cast him a sidelong glance. “Some things a lot. But I can’t sleep, and my powers haven’t returned. The thought of using a bow still makes my hands shake. I’ll need to hunt soon to provide us with meat, and when I can’t, everyone will know Wolf has left me.”

“We’re on the sea. We can fish.” He lowered his voice. “Besides, I hardly eat meat anymore, since the day you shot that rabbit.”

“Sorry.” She stared out at the water, wishing it full of food. “I’d hoped my father was the cause of all my problems, but I guess it’s more than that.”

“Maybe it’ll just take time.”

“Rhia said the rest of me needs to get to know the old part all over again.
Integrate
was the word she used.”

“Sounds sensible.”

Alanka sat quiet for a moment, deciding how to articulate the change within herself. “I’ve always belonged to someone else—my father or a mate or my Spirit, or all three at once. Now, for the first time, I could be my own.”

“Good.”

She heard his trepidation and turned to him. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”

“Good.” This time he sounded as if he meant it.

The warmth in his voice made Alanka want to demonstrate how much she wanted to be with him, but she held back. “You told me once that where you’re from, a man doesn’t, er, do things with a woman he respects.”

“Correct. In Leukos, we would have been married before our first kiss, maybe before we’d even seen each other, if we were from the best families.”

“How sad.” She stopped dancing around her real question. “Does that mean you’ve never had a lover?”

“I’m not a virgin,” he said, “though I might as well be.”

“I don’t understand.”

He looked out over the sea, but to the south, instead of straight ahead to the east. “When I turned seventeen, the night before I joined the army, my older brother took me to a brothel.”

Alanka’s eyes widened. She’d heard such places operated openly in Velekos and Tiros, and secretly in Asermos. Kalindos had largely eliminated the need.

“It was a festival night,” he continued, “so most of the prostitutes were occupied. The only two available were my brother’s favorite and a new girl, Palia. Palia was a virgin, and she hadn’t been hired yet that night because her price was so high.” Filip stopped.

“So what happened?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “My brother paid it for me, even though the brothel owner thought it foolish to put me with her. She said I should have someone more experienced. But my brother acted as though he were giving me a special gift.” Filip turned to her. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

Alanka gnawed her bottom lip. “If you want to tell me.”

He leaned forward, arms crossed on his knees. “I was nervous. She was frightened. I didn’t want a woman who was afraid of me, so I offered to just sit with her until the time was up. She refused. She said there had to be evidence I had taken her virginity, or they would beat her. I offered to cut myself so there’d be blood on the bedsheets, but she said no. The next man would know, and if he boasted to his friends about getting a virgin at no extra cost and the brothel owner found out, Palia would be beaten. And besides, she said, the next man might not be so kind.” He rubbed his knuckles over the faint stubble on his chin.

“So you did it, then.”

“She took off her clothes, and I took her. I tried to be gentle, but I could tell she was in pain. I could tell she wanted me to stop.” He put his head in his hands. “I enjoyed her, may the gods and Spirits forgive me. Afterward I was so ashamed I left without even looking at her.

“In the four years after that, there were countless times when I could have taken women in lands we conquered. But I kept seeing Palia in their faces—scared, helpless.” He dug his heel into the sand. “With the wars, I had no opportunity to find what your people call a mate, and after my injury I lost hope of ever finding such a person.”

She wanted to reassure him that she was that person, but something he’d said made her stomach quake. “If your army had won in Asermos, would the men under your command have raped me?”

He looked at her. “Possibly.”

“And you’d have let them?”

“The enlisted aren’t well paid. The spoils of war are the only way to motivate them to fight. Like I said, I never took part myself.”

“But you let them,” she said.

“If I hadn’t, they’d have killed me.”

“You were their commander.”

“I was a lieutenant. They respected me as much as they would a trained dog. Maybe less.”

She felt sick. “What about the women your people took from Kalindos? My neighbors, my friends. Their daughters. What happened to them?”

“I don’t know. It depends.”

“On what?”

“On their ages, on their—suitability for various roles.” He rubbed his knuckles together. “When I spoke of this in the hospital with your friend Adrek, he tried to kill me.”

She scoffed. “Maybe I should have let him.”

“Maybe you should have.”

“Filip, I was only—”

“It was what I wanted.”

“—joking.” She stared at him. “What did you say?”

“I did it on purpose, said things to anger him, cruel things about what might happen to his little girl. Hoping he would end my life.”

“He never told me what you said to set him off.”

“That’s to his credit.” Filip turned to her. “I hate what my people do during war. But without the power of fear, our lands would be overrun, and we’d be the ones enslaved.”

“
We?
They’re still your people, then? After all this?” She gestured to the space between them.

He shook his head and looked away. “I spent twenty-one years as an Ilion, and not yet a year as one of you. And in that year, only a handful of you have treated me as a friend. So I suppose I no longer
have
a people.”

“You’re with us now, trying to save Marek and Nilik. That means a lot.”

“I hope I can be of worth.” He joggled his left foot. “Even with this.”

She touched his arm. “Whatever happens in Leukos, please believe that you’re worth something to me.”

He turned to her, and in the nearly nonexistent moonlight she saw him search her eyes for the lie that wasn’t there. “I believe it,” he said. “I don’t understand it, but I believe it.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

Alanka shivered, and not only from the strengthening breeze that warned of more rain. As Filip’s warm fingers slid down her neck, she imagined lying underneath one of his men, fighting for her life in a field of dead warriors, or trapped in a Leukon brothel exchanging her body for the privilege of survival.

She broke away.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

She looked at the sky. “It’s about to pour again. I can smell it, even without my powers.”

He took his hands off her. “The rain’s not what bothers you, is it? It’s those things I told you.”

“I’m glad you told me. I want to be with you, but to do that, I need to see you clearly, the way I never seem to be able to see any man.” She looked away. “But it hurts sometimes, like staring at the sun.”

He sighed. “How do we make this work?”

“We can start by realizing we deserve each other. No more ‘I’m not worthy of you’ talk, all right? We’re a couple of busted-up misfits, but at least we’re equally busted up.”

He stood and helped her to her feet. “It’s a start.”

They made their way back to the campsite, hand in hand, as the rain broke over them.

Filip ran.

In his dream the trees and trails of Letus Park flashed by faster than ever, blurring in the corners of his eyes. His brother was gone, and he ran with no man.