“Wee jar’wren,” Dala stressed.
“Ya, jar’wren.”
Nyx struggled, looking between the two women. “Is something wrong?”
The elder smiled. “No, the opposite. Dala is honored to meet someone who the jar’wren bridled themselves to. The gods who inhabit them never listen to us, never sing to us.”
“What are the jar’wren?”
The elder’s expression turned pensive, maybe worried, then she answered, “Jar’wren are what the Hálendii call M?r bats. But they are so much more. They were touched by the old gods long ago and—”
Xan was cut off by a shout from nearby. Nyx turned, recognizing Frell’s voice. One of the tribeswomen posted at the bushes waved to Xan and spoke rapidly.
The elder patted Nyx’s arm. “Maybe it’s best if we leave this for now. I see how pale you grow from it all.”
Nyx wanted to object. She had a thousand more questions, but she let the Kethra’kai women walk her back toward the others. As she did, her thoughts remained on Xan’s words, on the possibility that she carried some aspect of bridle-song in her heart. She tried to fit this knowledge into the hollow spaces of her past. She pictured the naked squalling babe in the swamps. Had the large bat who had rescued her known about this ability? Had some nascent version of bridle-song already been in her cries, drawing the bat and maybe later even Gramblebuck? Was that why the bullocks seemed to always follow her about, why Gramblebuck loved her so—and she him?
Was it song that bound our hearts?
She remembered Frell’s attempt to explain her ability to meld with the M?r bats. You lived your first six moons under their tutelage, when your mind was soft clay, still pliable, far from fully formed. Your brain grew while under a constant barrage of their silent cries. Under such persistent exposure, your mind may have been forever altered by their keening, as a tree is gnarled by winds.
She now wondered if that was only part of the answer. Not only was her brain unformed back then, but so was her ability. Had the keening of the bats somehow tangled her with them, binding one to another, creating something unique and new?
She shook her head at these speculations. She could not know, could never truly know. Especially with Bashaliia gone.
As Nyx passed through a break in the bushes, she watched Frell grab at one of the Kethra’kai.
“That is mine,” the alchymist warned sternly.
The tribesman ignored Frell, fascinated by the trophy in his palm. It was the alchymist’s wayglass, the tool he had used to guide their party through the woods.
“I need that to help us reach Havensfayre,” Frell demanded.
Kanthe pulled the alchymist back. “It’s their way, Frell. The Kethra’kai share everything. What is yours is everyone’s.”
“Well, then it’s still equally mine,” Frell argued.
“Only once the other relinquishes it. If he sets it down, you can reclaim it. But only then.” Kanthe grinned at his friend’s frustration. “Considering how that guy is ogling it, like some big diamond, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
Jace offered a compromise. “Why not wait until morning? We have to be deep into Eventoll by now. Maybe by dawn, the hunter will have grown bored with his prize.”
Nyx realized how exhausted she was, especially as more campfires were lit. The growing spread of bright flames circled their camp. Plainly the Kethra’kai were bedding down for the night.
By now, Nyx had come up behind the others in her group.
Jace was the first to note her return. He swung around with his mouth open, ready to greet her or maybe to seek her support. Then his eyes widened, and he quickly faced back around, looking down at his toes.
Kanthe and Frell turned to her with similar shocked reactions.
The prince’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed with appreciation. His lips quirked crookedly with amusement. “I see the Kethra’kai adjusted your clothing, or at least lessened it. I have to say I approve. Though as your possible older brother, might I suggest a nice cloak to go with it?”
Nyx scowled at him and started to cross her arms over her bare belly—then dropped her limbs. She had nothing to feel shame about.
She motioned to the spread of fires. “Jace is right. We should start fresh in the morning.”
Xan joined her and spoke to Frell. “Fear not, we will take you to Havensfayre. We were going that direction anyway. Until we heard the child’s song. It drew us over to your path, one that we will share from here.”
Frell glanced at Nyx for an explanation, but she shook her head. The alchymist squinted at her for a breath, then returned his attention to Xan. “So, you’re all traveling to Havensfayre, too?”
“No,” she corrected. “We head only north. To where another calls to us. We will pass Havensfayre and leave you there.”
Frell nodded, plainly mollified and satisfied with this plan. He waved to Kanthe and Jace to set up their own little camp.
Nyx stayed with Xan, who remained leaning on her cane, staring forward but not leaving. It was as if she were waiting for Nyx to speak, expecting her to, maybe testing her. Nyx knew what the elder wanted her to address.
“Xan … you said someone else calls to you from the north.”
The elder nodded.
“Who?” Nyx pressed.
“I do not know.” Xan turned away with a thump of her cane and spoke as she left. “But someone sings darkly, in the voice of the old gods, a song of danger and ruin.”
Nyx started to follow her, but the other Kethra’kai women closed behind Xan without a word being spoken.
Nyx stopped and stared after them.
Xan reached the break in the bushes and glanced back. As she turned away a final time, her thin fingers traced down her cane, along the row of moon-sculpted shells, as if polishing them. But that was not the purpose of that last gesture. Nyx knew it was a confirmation of her worst fears.
Xan’s last words stayed with Nyx long after the elder had vanished.
A song of danger and ruin.
While Nyx still doubted she had been gifted with bridle-song, she remained certain of one thing. She knew this particular refrain all too well. Especially its last, resounding note.
Moonfall …
38
EXHAUSTED AND BONE sore, Kanthe stood atop a small wooded rise that afforded a view across the blue expanse of the Heilsa. The forest lake shone under the late latterday sun. After so long buried under the clouds and mists of the Reach, he was stung by the brightness of the open sky. He squinted at the brilliant mirror of the flat waters. A handful of sails scudded across the surface, marking the path of fisherfolk from Havensfayre, a town that lay hidden in fog on the far side of the lake.
He understood why the nomadic Kethra’kai had constructed their only town beside this lake. Rather than merely reflecting the blue sky, the Heilsa’s water seemed to take that hue and concentrate it into darker shades of cobalt and indigo. The Kethra’kai called this lake Meyr’l Twy, which meant tears of the gods. The Heilsa was even shaped like a teardrop that had fallen from the skies.
Yet, that was not the only reason for this lake’s name.
Jace groaned. He sat on a log so fuzzed with moss that not a speck of bark could be seen. He had taken off his boots and rubbed his ankles.