Лори Девоти - Amazon Queen

"Makis is a son," she countered. "And I trust him." She didn't, I noticed, mention Peter.

"You may. I don't." In fact, I trusted Makis least of all.

He was higher ranking and older than the other men. He was also Harmony's, Mel's daughter, grandfather-just another of the little surprises we'd discovered last fall. Based on his handicap alone, Makis had more reason than anyone to hate us.

Makis, however, wasn't in town. He was with Harmony and Peter in Michigan. When Mel returned, she had returned alone.

"You let her stay with just them?" Mel was the definition of protective. I was shocked she would trust anyone, much less two sons, alone with her child.

At my question Bubbe, rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen, grunted.

Mel placed a heavy stare on her grandmother, then answered. "Makis is her grandfather." Despite the strong look she'd shot Bubbe, I could see uncertainty in her eyes. She glanced to the side. "She has relatives."

"Relatives? Sons?" Amazons didn't recognize family outside their direct line. We didn't keep track of things like cousins or aunts. They had no more importance in our lives than any other member of our family clan. I knew there were Amazons in the lion clan who shared a grandmother with me, but I didn't give them any thought. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to visit them.

"Harmony's father had other children-two, both boys. They live in Michigan with an uncle."

"And you let her stay there with them." My mind was reeling. "What if they don't bring her back?"

Bubbe jerked a phone book out of the drawer and slammed it down onto the countertop.

Mel's eyes flashed. "They will." Then she relaxed a bit. "She called last night. They went to Mackinac and rented horses. She's having fun."

A snort from Bubbe interrupted my response. As Mel narrowed her eyes and glared at her grandmother, I stepped away from the conversation. Harmony was out of the picture, which was good. One less child of a son to worry about.

As much as I didn't understand Mel's reasoning for letting her go off with the men, at least we didn't have to worry about the Amazons deciding Harmony was a threat.

A tiny snort of my own escaped. How things had changed. I was actually glad an Amazon teen was with the sons and afraid my tribe might decide she was a threat that needed to be destroyed.

While I waited for the tension between Mel and her grandmother to settle, I approached the members of my camp, or the few who had thrown their loyalty to me over Thea and the high council.

Lao and Tess sat next to Dana, who was cooing and stroking tiny Pisto's back. She hadn't put him down since she and Lao had returned and she'd learned the birders had tried to steal not only my mother's baby, but her own. Even now Dana's voice cracked and her eyes when they met mine appeared manic, reconfirming my suspicion that a hearth-keeper could be just as determined and dangerous as a warrior.

Bern stood to one side, not far from my half brother who was asleep in his seat. The warrior was as silent as always. She hadn't said a word to me since I'd asked her to leave earlier, but she watched all of us with the patience and intensity of a guard dog awaiting an order to attack.

I appreciated her coiled aggression. I felt the same. I couldn't wait to get on with facing the high council, and after that, my mother's killers.

Bubbe moved toward the stairs, a disposable wand-type lighter in her hand. "I build the fire to find the council," she murmured. She scowled at Mel as she passed.

Mel shook her head and stared at the wall.

Content their disagreement wasn't going to get in the way of finding the council, I pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. Tess poured a cup of coffee and slid it toward me.

I sipped and I waited, as did everyone else. Silence fell around us; even Dana quit her cooing; only the sound of her son sucking on a pacifier offered any disturbance.

In an hour Bubbe was back. And I could tell by the expression on her face, what she had to say wasn't going to be good.

"The high council is no more." Bubbe punctuated her words by slamming the end of a short staff onto the wood floor. Then she turned and stalked from the room.

Not knowing what else to do, the rest of us followed her, babies in tow. No one felt safe leaving them behind.

She walked down the front stairs and down the hill that led to Mel's front lawn.

The schoolhouse was set on an acre of land, most of it in the front of the building. While the area around the school was crowded with the main building, the old gym/cafeteria, and a number of large trees, this area was flat and open with a clear view of Monroe Street.

At four in the morning the street was quiet, but Bubbe went about setting a ward to hide us anyway. Once we had sat in the traditional crescent-moon shape, she circled us, chanting. Back at the moon's tip, she stopped and took a seat herself.

I glanced around the group, realizing this was most likely the first Amazon circle a male had ever attended. Yes, they were infants and didn't understand a word that was being said, but it was still huge.

Bubbe held her staff to the side, one hand wrapped around it. "I reached out to the council, felt for their energy." She dug the end of the staff into the earth. "It was broken. . fractured."

I frowned. "Perhaps because my mother-"

"No." She slammed the staff down. "It is more than that. Their power. It is broken." She held the staff in front of her. There was a crack, and the thing split into two pieces.

Mel's eyes found mine. Resolve was there. She'd already known this.

I curled my fingers into the grass beneath my thighs and repeated what my mother had told me, how the council had been divided on what to do about the sons, how the other group had managed to pull those in the middle to their side for the vote.

Still holding the two halves of the staff, Bubbe nodded. "It is more than that. I sensed. . " She looked up at the moon and murmured something low that I couldn't hear.

We waited for her to finish her murmuring and go on.

Finally she looked back. "Another goddess. It is not just the sons over which they argue. It is the goddess herself."

The goddess? "But. . " But the goddess was Artemis. I looked up too. The moon was still in the sky and only five days past being full.

"Some have deserted Artemis." Bubbe dropped the pieces of the staff. They rolled across the ground.

The others stared at them, afraid and uncertain.

While I wouldn't admit it out loud, I was afraid and uncertain too.

I'd never imagined any of this could happen. The sons, my mother's death, the council taking my position as queen, but to learn some had left Artemis?

Artemis was everything to us. Our safe camps were built on her places of power. Our ceremonies were held at night under the moon. I bore her crescent on the back of my neck. Everything we held dear, everything that made us Amazons, involved Artemis in some way. How could any desert her?

But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't doubt Bubbe. I trusted her, as a person and a priestess. She had no reason to lie, and she wouldn't, couldn't, make a mistake like this.

But what did it mean-to the tribe and me?

I scrambled for a question that would make the answer clear.

"What goddess?" Maybe if I knew this I would understand, but I doubted it. There were many goddesses, but none I could think of who matched the essence of the Amazons like Artemis.

Bubbe pressed her lips together, making her look, despite the difference in years, like her granddaughter Mel. "I don't know. My tie is to Artemis. I cannot see the other."

"How. . " I struggled, trying to think how this would affect us. "Our talents, they come from the goddess. . Artemis." It was a statement, one I thought was true, but I'd thought so many other things were true too. Now I couldn't take anything for granted.