Blood Indigo Read online

  Anahli smiled, resumed the song. Aylaniś joined in, and even Madoc hummed along.

  A rustle interrupted, alerted them. After a brief cock of head, Aylaniś nodded.

  “That will be Kuli with the horses.”

  SO STILL. So quiet.

  The space behind his ears wasn’t all crowded with thick heat and not-sound; his eyes weren’t filming over with sparks and indigo-ebon; his heart didn’t try to spend itself in fiendish labour or slow to an alarming, bass lump.

  He was not filled to bursting with wilding things.

  Tokela leaned upon Overlook’s railing, watching the clouds drift, roiling from silver to dark pewter. From them Rain fell soft as breathing, lying like fuzz upon his hair and skin. Even sound was held captive; faraway voices echoed clear, whilst near ones muted. A low growl of industry hummed in the Bowl behind him; the midSun meal. River had her own stillness as well; what voices carried from wyrhling craft were hushed, as well as any activity from Her westmost thighs where the yakhling caravans sat hunched against the wet, their draught animals tethered close. So quiet, Tokela thought he could hear the rip-click of their teeth as they grazed the grassy banks.

  So. Quiet. Ever since lastdark.

  Tokela smiled and traced one finger against the stones next to him. Sketched a proud, broad nose and chin, full lower lip, bistre hair blowing in Wind. Looking to the horizon.

  Našobok had been better than anything he could have imagined.

  Unfortunately, play was over.

  Sarinak had sent for Tokela earlier—private talk, before the arbitration—and had listened, stolid and patient, as Tokela had explained what happened with Mordeleg. Sarinak had even agreed that Našobok should attend, and speak. Anahli had been sent for, but she was off hunting with Madoc, Kuli, and her dam. Tokela was glad the ahlóssa were well away from any of this, but Anahli would be another voice on his side...

  Another muted sound: booted feet upon the stair. Tokela flattened his hand upon the sketch, smeared it back into mere dust.

  “Inhya was waiting when we returned.” Clad in hunting leathers, the blood-pardon stripes were still vivid against Anahli’s lower lip and chin. “I’ll be there, tell them I threw the rock. That Mordeleg didn’t have your consent.” She looked about, then resorted to hand-talk. I won’t say anything else.

  A breeze tickled at Tokela’s damp forelock then died back, sullen beneath Rain. With a hard swallow, he turned his eyes to the caravans across River. “Anything else?”

  Silence; Anahli must be trying to sign her answer. With a huff of frustration, she murmured, “You know what I mean.”

  “N’da. I don’t.”

  Her hand shot out to grasp his. “This.”

  The contact tingled before Tokela could pull away, like heat and ice all at once, like…

  Like the t’rešalt.

  Tokela couldn’t help a brief glance at his fingers, saw Anahli was rubbing her own together.

  “Well enough. You don’t trust me, and—”

  “It isn’t—”

  “—and in your place, I wouldn’t trust me, either.” Anahli kept considering her fingers, as if she’d never seen them. “But… You gave me an… an ache. Behind my eyes.”

  “I seem to do that with all my kin.”

  Anahli let out a short laugh, looked away. “Tokela, if you hear nothing else I say, hear this much: don’t trust Alekšu.”

  This was… strange. “Don’t trust your sire?”

  “And take care with the wyrhling.”

  Enough was enough. “Look, I don’t know what you have against Našobok, but—”

  “I know he’s your playmate. Did you know that he once lived a’Šaákfo, one of our family?”

  Tokela tipped his chin, puzzled negation.

  “He has been with my sire since they were oških. They have secrets, long-held. But even that didn’t stop him from leaving. He’ll leave you, too. It’s what he does.”

  “I know what he does.” Tokela finally rounded on her, eye for eye. “Better than you, it seems.”

  Anahli sighed, leaned against the railing. “Just don’t forget what I’ve told you. Please. But if they do find out—”

  “I have nothing more to say to this.”

  “—don’t let them take you a’Šaákfo. No matter what.”

  AS HEARTHCHIEFTAIN, Inhya had ultimate charge over the children either fostered or made Clan a’Naišwyrh. If they were involved in any dispute in which the elders were required to arbitrate, she was always present, seated beside Sarinak upon the small rise of stone. Rarely, however, did she speak in such cases, preferring to remain a silent, vigilant witness to her charges’ welfare.

  In this case, silence was not easy.

  “I didn’t fully ken the rules of Spear Dance. You must believe me. I meant no offence.” Mordeleg certainly told his tale with all due courtesy. He had relinquished his one eating knife peaceably enough; he kept a respectful seat, rump resting on heels, before the small group of elders.

  Nechtoun and Galenu and several from Galenu’s tribe sat with Inhya and Sarinak. Anahli stood—compliant for once, Inyha approved—behind Palatan in Alekšu’s place. Both of them stood behind Tokela who, hands upon knees, knelt at the opposite side of the hearth, following the unspoken maxim: always good to have cleansing Fire between antagonists.

  Mordeleg didn’t meet Sarinak’s eyes as he spoke; while such rudeness could be excused as midLands custom, Inhya believed Mordeleg’s downcast gaze little more than insolence and deceit. “We’d an understanding between us, Tokela and I.”

  As Mordeleg had been asked to speak, Tokela had turned his face aside, the recent ahlóssa braid now a forelock that curtained his eyes. One would almost think he wasn’t paying attention to Mordeleg; he stared, unblinking, into nothing.

  Inhya had fully intended to stand beside Tokela, but someone had taken that place.

  The wyrhling had been allowed, after some deliberation and at Tokela’s request. He didn’t merely stand beside Tokela, either; he lounged against a wooden pillar bearing the honour of several ancient spears and atlatls. An insolent pose. But to do the wyrhling credit, the insolence was clearly inspired by anger.

  He wasn’t half as angry as Inhya.

  Nor as Tokela. His sparse-freckled cheeks were dark. An occasional reflection of Fire, distinctly unsettling, limned his half-lidded eyes.

  Mordeleg was still protesting an unlikely innocence. “It’s not the first time he’s refused with his mouth even though his bodytalk said otherwise.”

  “Interesting,” drawled Našobok, “when his indigo is new-laid—”

  “Silence,” Sarinak warned.

  “Is it my fault if ahlóssa tease?” Mordeleg protested. “Is it wrong to expect him to follow up on his promises when he is able?”

  Inhya wanted to lean forwards and slap the broad, earnest face.

  “He gave me every sign he was willing. He didn’t push me away.”

  The wyrhling shoved up from the pillar. “When you’re pinned with your arm twisted behind, even someone your size would have difficulty pushing!”

  “By your own account, you weren’t there when this transpired,” Nechtoun censured. “Be silent.”

  “How long do we have to hear this one spew his shi—?”

  “Enough!” Sarinak rose from the bench, hammering his chieftain’s stave against the floor. “You will be silent, outlier, until you are given leave!”

  And indeed the wyrhling subsided, mumbling several choice epithets—just soft enough for none to take notice, but there, nonetheless.

  For the first in a long time, Inhya found pleasure in that one’s antics. Even more in Tokela’s satisfied half smile.

  Sarinak would hear it all out—and it was right he should—but as for herself, Inhya had heard enough between the talk to stake Mordeleg out on a stinging-ant hill.

  Mordeleg gave a supercilious sneer down his handsome nose at Našobok. “Why is that one even here? And for him to bind me hand
and foot… he’s no right to so much as touch me! He’s nothing!”

  “He’s more than you!” Tokela’s snarl came sudden. “You are less than nothing! Yuškammanukfila ikšo! Coward!”

  Mordeleg lurched upwards. Galenu’s hand went to his shoulder, clenched. The old khatak’s sense had always been in question, Inhya mused, but a firm grip he still possessed. The lined knuckles whitened. Mordeleg’s face slackened in surprise and he sank back to the blanket.

  “Tokela.” Sarinak’s reprimand was quieter. “Your own time for talk will come, and none shall interrupt you.”

  Mordeleg started to open his mouth, Galenu’s hand tightened and he bent down, murmured something. Mordeleg scowled. Galenu did not move, but whatever he said next had more weight. Mordeleg’s scowl deepened, eyes narrowing at Tokela.

  “I’ve more,” he muttered then, louder, “I’ve more. But I’ll wait.”

  Sarinak peered at him, then at Galenu, who shrugged acknowledgement. Sarinak repeated the shrug and turned to the one who had been his brother.

  “Wyrhling. Tell the elders your part in this.”

  The wyrhling stepped forwards, clasped both hands and brought them to his breast. Respectful now, at least. Again, Inhya did have to give him this much—he’d always known how to work a crowd. “Tokela told me what transpired. I do have to apologise to one I wrongfully accused.” His eyes went to Anahli’s and held. “I am sorry, ehši.”

  And of course, he had to emphasise what relationships he had been allowed to claim in Council, brash and bare. Inyha sniffed as Anahli’s expression warmed.

  “As to that one, a’io, I came after he’d already been taken down. I did tie him up and dump him in Galenu’s den. My apologies, Nechtoun a’Naišwyrh, that it was also your place. But considering everything, the little owl pellet is lucky I didn’t leave him staked on River’s thighs for wolfKin.”

  “Then let us hear from another who was there and saw everything. Anahli a’Šaâkfo?”

  Inhya watched closely as Anahli rose from her place beside Palatan. Her chin was lifted, her eyes sharp, her dress and demeanor respectful. She exchanged a long glance with Tokela. He was the one who looked away. Inhya frowned.

  “She wasn’t there!” Mordeleg protested. “I didn’t see her!”

  “Of course you didn’t. No one sees my arrows coming.” Anahli smiled, honey over salt and sharp-toothed. “Or my rocks.”

  Several chuckles expressed the elders’ appreciation. Nechtoun laughed out loud.

  “She was banished from Dance, and you’ll take her word?”

  “You were banished from Dance, and we have to listen to yours,” the wyrhling growled.

  More laughter—quickly suppressed for, after all, the outlier had inspired it. Inhya couldn’t help the grin that blossomed behind a quick hand.

  “Be silent, outlier,” Nechtoun snapped. “By all accounts, Anahli a’Šaákfo, you were there. Tell us what you were doing in such a place and why.”

  “More,” another elder added, “tell us what you saw.”

  Another odd and sticky glance between Anahli and Tokela. Inhya’s eyes narrowed; they were hiding something. Had it to do with that wretched place?

  If only they could dismantle the thing, tear it down, burn it!

  “I wandered in amidst Forest, considering my… errors.” Anahli’s gaze slid towards Inhya this time and lowered, an apology by any means. Sincere? Ai, but anyone’s guess, that. “I wasn’t paying attention, truly. Once I saw the outLand thing, I gave it a wide berth, and settled in a copse across from it.”

  “Why did you stay there if you knew it was forbidden?”

  Anahli considered the question. “I didn’t know it was forbidden, exactly. I was curious, I guess. As I said, I gave it a wide berth. Anyway, it seems to me what’s more important is what happened, not where it happened.”

  Nechtoun started a protest; one of the elders leaned over and whispered something.

  “I don’t know why the other two were there, but I saw them come into the clearing. First Tokela and then the midLander. There was a tussle. I ignored it at first. I mean, oških males will wrestle over anything, a’io?” Anahli’s smile charmed the elders, invited them to join in—and many did. Palatan, however, was looking at her as if she’d sprouted a full rack of antlers.

  “I’d thought to leave them to it, but then it started to have a vicious sound. I watched as that one”—Anahli jerked her chin at Mordeleg—“pinned Tokela and started to force him to play. It was force, no question. Tokela was unwilling. I’d throw the stone again. Harder, this time.”

  Mordeleg was fuming. Tokela, on the other hand, peered sideways at Anahli. His bodytalk seemed anxious. Another small glance passed between the two.

  A’io. Something had happened with them.

  Anahli tilted her head, slight, at Tokela; it seemed reassuring. “As to whether Mordeleg tells truth about Tokela wanting to be pinned down and poked against his will, I think that would be obvious. For me, I have nothing more to say.”

  One of the elders turned to Tokela. “Is it as Anahli says?”

  “It is, indeed, as she says.” Dark indigo eyes levelled against his accuser—Inhya had seen softer gazes aiming one of the hanging atlatls—then softened, turning to the elder. “I did not give Mordeleg leave to so much as touch me. Perhaps he thought it a game.” The allowance was wooden. “I did not.”

  “What about the rest, then?” Mordeleg burst out. “If she saw so much, then she also saw what happened after!”

  “If you keep interrupting, I will see you removed with no further—”

  “Witchery! He led me to that place, then used its witchery upon me!”

  The midLands word—witchery—fell into the Council den like stones in a still, deep pool, echoing into sudden silence. Inhya’s heart lurched in her breast. Visceral, immediate—perhaps wrong, perhaps accurate—but always, always there.

  It didn’t mean she watched her wards any less carefully. Anahli stiffened, eyes narrowing. Tokela’s shoulders quivered, hunched; his eyes remained straight ahead, fixed on the floor.

  Palatan broke the silence, leaning forwards. “That,” he spun the word out with a small click of tongue, “is a highly serious accusation, oških.”

  “And why bring up such a thing now? Why not before?” The wyrhling spoke to Palatan—well, and he would—but also just loud enough to be noticed. “Desperation, I should think.” He’d moved closer to Tokela, touched his hair in open comfort. Tokela jerked as if surprised, yet didn’t pull away. His fingers twitched against the floor.

  Inhya could only hope he wasn’t foolish enough to start sketching.

  “Who are you, outlier, to question me?” Mordeleg demanded.

  “Yet the outlier has a point,” Sarinak allowed. “Such an accusation shouldn’t be attached to a dog’s wagging tail.”

  “I mentioned it before!” Mordeleg turned to Galenu. “Tell them. I said I’d more!”

  Galenu started, resigned, to agree. He refrained, lips thinning as Mordeleg continued:

  “Everyone knows Tokela’s dam was a witch who consorted with Chepiś! Is it so hard to believe—” Mordeleg winced and broke off with a yip. Galenu’s hand had once again slid to his neck tendons.

  “That has nothing to do with thisNow,” Inhya stated, flat. “You’ve no rights to invoke the dead so.”

  The elders were murmuring agreement to this. Tokela still gave no defence, body or voice, head bowed and forelock fallen to cover his eyes.

  But then, Inhya told herself, her eldest preferred the protections of turtleKin: sinking inwards, lashing out only when cornered.

  “Even outliers can speak from their heart,” Palatan ventured, soft. “If you claim the Elementals were used, Mordeleg a’Hassun, then what face did the possession display?”

  “What… face?” This clearly had Mordeleg confused.

  Palatan leaned forwards, hands propped on thighs. “What Elemental answered? And if ša was no Elemental, but Šilo
mbiš’okpulo that responded, then surely you saw…” As he trailed away, Mordeleg opened his mouth—eagerly it would seem—but Palatan held up a hand and continued, “I charge you, oških, to think before you make such talk, because it would merely prove that you tried to force Tokela. Why else would Tokela be desperate enough to openly call upon an Elemental? Not to mention”—Palatan’s lip curled—“that were you in duskLands, the penalty for such violation is harsh. And appropriate.”

  “We aren’t in duskLands!” Mordeleg’s voice went a little squeaky, all the same. “I saw what I saw. His eyes… changed! They began to gleam! The Riverling overflowed Her bank! And there were sparks upon the stone!”

  “River has surges,” the wyrhling snorted with a roll of eyes, “even this far upwards, rolling in from the estuaries. I saw no sparks.”

  “You will be silent, outlier, or be excused!” Sarinak growled.

  “Wyrhlings know River.” Palatan slid a glance the wyrhling’s way. Inhya saw the frown quirking there, puzzled. “They understand Her more than most.”

  The elders murmured amongst themselves, shock and consternation; the suggestion played at affront even if true—and proper, as Inhya’s frown reminded them. It remained Alekšu’s right—his duty, in fact—to suggest such things.

  Even as Inhya’s own thoughts circled: It can’t be true. Can’t be…

  “The Riverling started to flood!” Mordeleg’s tone crawled into desperation. “And I saw what I saw, blue-white, almost like Thunder’s arrows! She had to see, if she saw so much!”

  “Anahli?” Sarinak prompted.

  At this Tokela’s head did shift, albeit slight, sending some sort of quick appeal to Anahli. Unlike him, she was aware of Inhya’s notice. Lowering her chin, she raised her gaze to Inhya’s, her voice ringing through the den clear as a thin-stretched drumhide. “Everything coming from that one’s mouth is made of venom. Lies.”

  “You’re the liar!” Mordeleg shot back.

  Anahli didn’t bother to so much as turn. Instead she slid her eyes sideways, giving Mordeleg the same interest she might give a nit she’d picked from Kuli’s scalp.