Anger rose again.
Leanâlhâm had no one left to trust, had been intentionally sheltered, kept ignorant of ... things she should have been allowed to know and understand. She looked about the darkened forest. Still afraid, she rose, bracing against the great redwood.
The last time she had seen Sgäilsheilleache, he had promised that he would finally take her to the ancestral burial grounds. All young an’Cróan undertook that journey before reaching adulthood. Sgäilsheilleache and Grandfather had always advised her to wait.
They did not have to say why. She knew it was because of her ... tainted blood. But Léshil had gone there, guided by Sgäilsheilleache. And Léshil had come back.
He had more human blood in him than she did, but, even so, Sgäilsheilleache had guided him.
Leanâlhâm looked about the forest. She knew only that the burial grounds were far north, and then east of Crijheäiche. If that was all she knew, how could she find it on her own? For the first time she almost wished she found majay-hì eyes watching her from the forest—anything not to feel so alone and lost.
Leanâlhâm heaved a gasp as she flattened against the tree in terror.
There were eyes watching her—but not those of a majay-hì.
They peered around thickened ivy crawling up the trunk of a gnarled and twisted oak ... but they were green like hers, and not pure crystal-blue. And more, the face around those strange eyes was too pale beneath the leaves.
The eyes shifted, as it began to move.
Leanâlhâm looked about, trying to see which way to run in the night.
Something light in color stepped out around the ivy-shadowed oak ... on long legs that ended in paws. Leanâlhâm stared, her whole mind empty.
There stood a female majay-hì.
Delicate and small boned, it had a coat so pale it looked cream white in the scant moonlight. After a long pause, it padded slowly forward, and Leanâlhâm looked frantically about again.
There was nowhere to run that it could not easily catch her.
The female stopped where the redwood’s huge, long roots sank into the forest’s floor.
Leanâlhâm simply stood there, watching. The longer she looked into this sacred one’s eyes, the more she saw that their color was not truly green. Nearer now, they were more the crystal sky blue that she knew, but with irises that sparkled with hints of yellow.
The female lowered its head slightly, as if it was looking down Leanâlhâm’s body. Its gaze stopped midway. Leanâlhâm had no idea at what it was looking at as she closed her arms around herself, feeling exposed under the scrutiny.
The bottle of her uncle’s ashes pressed firmly against her stomach.
The white majay-hì turned and walked off through the trees to the north. Without knowing why, Leanâlhâm took a step, and the female halted.
The majay-hì looked back at her, then took two more steps and paused again.
Leanâlhâm did not know what to think of all this. Majay-hì always moved in packs, and there were no other eyes out in the forest. She took another step ... and then another for every one the white female took.
At least she was heading the way she thought she needed to go.
Inside Leanâlhâm’s room at the annex, Chap lay upon the bed. He no longer watched the girl, as in the memories she had seen something—someone—he too often had to push from his thoughts.
His own mate, Lily, had come for the girl.
How was that possible? Why had it been Lily? Where was she now? And what of their daughter, Shade, or any of their other children? Chap was so lost in more guilt that he could barely think on anything else he had learned through Leanâlhâm.
Brot’an had taken Osha somewhere. The Anmaglâhk had murdered Gleann, though Nein’a had done all she could to stop them and was likely hiding away among the dissidents. Leanâlhâm had lost everyone who cared for her.
All because of Wynn’s cursed journal, the one she should never have written in the first place.
If only it had never reached the blood-soaked old assassin, let alone Most Aged Father.
“What are you doing?”
That frightened hiss of a whisper roused Chap.
Leanâlhâm, with her legs curled up and clutched to her chest, had scooted back against the bed’s headboard. He had not noticed her move, and at first he didn’t understand her question. But she kept staring at him ... in the same manner she had when he’d peeked in on her in the annex’s little library.
“What were you doing?” she whispered.
Chap stiffened.
No, this was not possible. She could not know he’d touched her rising memories, but it was clear he had pushed her too far. In truth he was uncertain he could handle any more himself.
—Come and—look at—this book—with me— ... —I will help you—read—more—
She hesitated, lost either in the past or some other unexplained fright—perhaps both. Finally she scooted across the bed but still watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled the pillow holding the book closer to her.
Chap remembered that she liked learning about the sages.
—If—there is more—about—sages—we can—start there—
Soon she was distracted from the past in reading onward. He clarified what words he could, for the dialect was not the one he knew. When she yawned too many times, he pawed the book closed, and he slept there with her upon the bed. He looked up only once in the night, when Leesil cracked the door to check on them.
The next morning they all headed back to the Cloud Queen and set sail. Captain Bassett declared their next stop was a port called Drist. Even as the ship sailed out of Chathburh, Chap couldn’t stop thinking of Leanâlhâm’s memories from the night before.
He believed Cuirin’nên’a had taken a blade from the anmaglâhk inside the tree dwelling and killed the man with it. What had been the ramifications of that? She had also abandoned Leanâlhâm in the forest and given precedence to recovering the stolen journal.
Gleann died with an arrow in his chest. Had the council of clan elders learned of an anmaglâhk murdering one of them, a healer and onetime Shaper, in cold blood?
For the first time since seeking the truth of what had happened among the an’Cróan, Chap was uncertain of how much to share with Leesil and Magiere—especially Leesil.
And what had become of Chap’s mate, Lily, mother of their daughter, Shade?
Chapter Sixteen
Midafternoon, as the Bashair approached Chathburh, Én’nish was on deck with the rest of her companions. All six anmaglâhk stayed out of the crew’s way and scanned the approaching port for any large ship bearing painted Numanese letters for the Cloud Queen. Dänvârfij had led all of them to believe their prey would still be in this port and unknowingly waiting to be captured.
Hungry for any hint of the quarry that had eluded them much too long, Én’nish leaned far over the rail. She anticipated pulling her blades for such a purpose and was equally eager to watch Rhysís put one arrow and another into Brot’ân’duivé’s chest. There was only one thing she wanted more—the blood of Léshil on her blade for the loved one he had taken from her.
Disguised in human clothing, she was not likely to be spotted from a distance. Yet as the ship made port and docked, she stepped back from the rail and peered around in dismay.
“It is large,” Tavithê said, voicing Én’nish’s thoughts, as they both took in the sprawling harbor.
Numerous piers had clearly been built over many years, and not with much planning other than to fit in one more. Én’nish began counting ships but soon gave up.