Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

Osha might have Wynn to himself under the sun.

She’d told him that, once they landed, they would travel by night, but for now they traveled by sea. With a little time he might regain some of what they had lost when last together. No one had ever spoken—or listened—to him in the way she once had.

But now Osha looked at her almost with suspicion. He had not expected her to respond so quickly. Was she inviting him to sit with her and share as they once had?

Slowly he walked over and settled beside her.

“Not all of that journey was so pleasant,” she said, pushing a mass of her wispy light brown hair from her face. “The Pock Peaks were difficult.”

He had not even had to prod her in this, and he nodded carefully, saying nothing.

“Afterward was even worse.” She whispered this time. “The journey through the Everfen and ... Sgäile’s death ...”

Osha did not want to speak of Sgäilsheilleache’s death and looked away.

“But then Magiere and Leesil’s wedding ... and that was a good day,” Wynn went on.

Osha turned his head back to find her looking up; even sitting on the deck she was still much shorter than he was. And, yes, that day—and that evening with her—was one of his best memories, no matter the sorrows he had carried then.

“... And then you and I said good-bye on the docks of Bela.”

There—she finally spoke of it, admitted that it had happened. But now that those words were out in the open, he grew lost for what to say.

Wynn shifted a little, turning more toward him with her eyes still on his.

“What happened then?” she asked almost fiercely. “I know you had to go home and tell Leanâlhâm and Gleann about Sgäile, as well as deliver the journal I prepared to Brot’an. Something happened after that, and you were pulled away from them. What happened to you?”

Every muscle in Osha’s body tightened as he stared at her. How did she know he had been pulled away? Had Leanâlhâm spoken of things she should not have?

“Tell me,” Wynn whispered.

Was that what it would take? He wanted to close the gap between them, one that had begun in their short time together in Miiska and had seemingly widened to a chasm now that he had found her again. Part of him longed to tell her everything, but he feared how she might react to certain things.

Some secrets should never be told to others. There were torments—falls and failures—to be borne in silence, especially with those who mattered most. Least of those secrets, but most of all to others, was her journal.

Wynn still expectantly watched him, and Osha lowered his eyes.

So little within the journal had mattered much to those who did not know her as he did. But the mentions in those pages of an “artifact”—an orb, to those who knew better—had been used by Most Aged Father and Brot’ân’duivé to start an open war among the people. If Osha had known then what he knew now, he might have burned that journal before he ever reached home.

Even so, he could not have done that. The journal—and its too-simple account of their journey together—was all that he had had of her.

Osha studied Wynn’s oval face: she was a human he had come to know as so different from all he had been taught in his youth. And she was even more than just different. She was unique to him.

“It began with another journey,” he whispered, and ...

After Osha was forced away from the Coilehkrotall’s main enclave, he had followed Brot’ân’duivé through their people’s forests for three days. He could not stop thinking of how he had left Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm in mourning and was not there to share their grief or to comfort them.

This was also a way to avoid thinking on the reason for this sudden, rushed journey.

The smooth stone that bore his name etched by small claws.

Three days into the forest, as the sun glimmered through the canopy overhead, Brot’ân’duivé halted suddenly and looked back along their path.

“Continue on,” he whispered. “I will catch up.”

With a puzzled glance back the way they had come, Osha obeyed and jogged onward, wondering what had given the greimasg’äh such pause. He did not have long to wait.

Soon after, Brot’ân’duivé came dashing from the forest, not bothering to be silent. Without stopping, he signaled to Osha to run.

Osha did, but Brot’ân’duivé caught up and took the lead, changing directions many times. The greimasg’äh finally stopped and crouched down beneath the bright leaves of a squat maple. Osha, utterly confused, dropped beside him.

“We are followed,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered. “I can no longer come with you, and we must act quickly now.”

Osha rocked backward on his haunches and braced against the maple to keep from toppling. Who would follow them? More important, it was impossible for him to continue alone.

“But, Greimasg’äh ...” he whispered, “only caste elders know the exact way to the Burning Ones.”

Young initiates were blindfolded for part of their journey. Even those given assent by their jeóin did not learn those last steps until many years—if ever—into their lives of service. Osha would require a guide.

Brot’ân’duivé snatched Osha by the front of his forest gray vestment.

“Listen,” he hissed. “You will travel like the wind to the coastline where the Branch Mountains, what the humans call the Crown Range, meet the eastern coast at the far corner of our territory....”

“Greimasg’äh!” Osha whispered loudly. “Do not break the covenant!”

Telling Osha these things would breach a most sacred oath between the Chein’âs and the Anmaglâhk.

“Quiet!” Brot’ân’duivé ordered.

The greimasg’äh poured out secrets into the forest air, and Osha was powerless to stop him.

Brot’ân’duivé told him how to reach the cave of the Burning Ones on his own. No one should know these things until proven fit to do so. By the time the greimasg’äh finished, Osha had gone numb in disbelief that any of this was happening.

It was not over, for there was worse to come.

Rising, Brot’ân’duivé looked all around, and then walked off toward a patch of bright light in a break among the trees.

“What are you doing?” Osha asked, barely trusting himself to speak.

“Be silent and follow. Do not speak again until instructed to do so.”

When the greimasg’äh reached the clearing’s edge, he halted and gestured for Osha to stay back. Only then did the master anmaglâhk step to the clearing’s center and close his eyes.

Cold grew in the pit of Osha’s stomach, though he was lost as to what was happening. Moments slipped by ... until a heavy footfall made his gaze shift instantly.

Out among the trees beyond the clearing’s far side, two branches among a cluster of cedars moved. Then the limbs separated from the others and drifted out around the tree into view. Below them came a long equine head with two crystalline blue eyes larger than those of a majay-hì.

Any deer would be small next to this great sacred being, as large as an elk or any human’s horse. Its long silver-gray coat ran shaggily over its shoulders and across its wide chest. What had at first appeared to be branches were the horns rising high over its head in two smooth curves without tines.

Osha’s voice choked in his throat until he whispered one word. “Clhuassas!”

The “listeners” were among the oldest sacred beings, like the majay-hì, who guarded the an’Cróan lands from all interlopers. He had seen one of them only three times in his life, and always from afar. That it stood so close to the greimasg’äh was somehow disturbing.

“My thanks,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered.