Chap listened with rapt attention to every word Brot’an spoke. He almost didn’t believe Most Aged Father had given orders that allowed the deaths of his own people—all for the sake of a small journal. Yet when Brot’an spoke, Chap believed him.
He knew there were missing details—which Brot’an either didn’t know or had left out. Such as all that had truly happened with ...
One tiny glint caught the corner of Chap’s eye, and he turned his head slightly. There in the shadows inside the doorway below the aftcastle was a glimmer in a verdant green eye.
Leanâlhâm crouched upon those inner stairs with her head barely high enough to peek out. She was flattened close to one sidewall, listening and watching. She had never gone below as instructed.
Chap was careful not to let her know he had spotted her. He pretended to eye Leesil and Magiere while keeping the angle of his head where he could see the girl.
“What happened to my mother?” Leesil demanded.
Brot’an’s hesitation almost made Chap look back at him.
“It was not until later that I rejoined Cuirin’nên’a.”
Leanâlhâm flinched and cowered at the mention of Leesil’s mother, and Chap became warier.
He casually turned, stalking up the deck to stand off behind Brot’an. That would unnerve the old assassin, though it was not Chap’s reason for doing so. From there he could see Leanâlhâm without looking directly at her.
Cautiously Chap reached for whatever memories rose in Leanâlhâm’s mind at the mention of Cuirin’nên’a.
The girl everyone called Leanâlhâm crouched on the steep steps below the aftcastle and listened to Brot’ân’duivé, who so coldly and flatly related the events. How could he speak of burning her home—her grandfather’s home—so calmly, as if it had been only one more task to complete? When he had finished, at the mention of Léshil’s mother, Leanâlhâm could not help but picture Cuirin’nên’a in her mind.
Leanâlhâm had been moved when she heard how quickly Léshil’s mother agreed to come after her. She had not known this before and, at that time, had not wanted that woman anywhere near her. For Leanâlhâm had already found another guide....
The white majay-hì remained barely within Leanâlhâm’s sight. The more she tried to catch up, the quicker the female pressed on, though it never abandoned her. Its very actions confused her after all the times she had feared finding those eyes watching her from out of the forest. But Leanâlhâm blindly followed the female through the night, into day, and then through another night.
By the following dusk, she was aching in exhaustion when the white majay-hì suddenly veered and vanished.
Leanâlhâm grew frantic. She stumbled to the last place she had seen the female. No matter how she thrashed through the surrounding brush, she found nothing. She was crying and did not even know it until she stopped and stood helpless, ready to drop on her knees.
“Leanâlhâm!”
Her head whipped around at the shout.
Favoring her right leg, Cuirin’nên’a weaved closer through the trees.
“I had thought to catch you before now,” she said, and then demanded, “Where are you going?”
Cuirin’nên’a was disheveled, still covered in shredded cloth wraps stained with soil and mulch, though most of that on her face had dried off or been wiped away. And now she wore an anmaglâhk’s cloak. Spots in her bound-up silky hair were crusted with dried blood. The sight of her was unsettling compared to the woman who had come to live in Leanâlhâm’s home ... so perfect and beautiful.
All Leanâlhâm saw now was a living reminder of loss, blood, and death. She spun, looking again for the white majay-hì, but the female was still gone.
“You ... you frightened it off,” she whispered.
“Frightened what off?” Cuirin’nên’a asked.
Leanâlhâm turned back and then retreated, swallowing hard in her dry throat. A majay-hì had run from this woman.
“Go away and leave me alone!” she shouted. “You care nothing for me, nothing for those I loved. All you care about are your whispers and schemes with the greimasg’äh!”
“I am to take you to safety. At least you were heading in the correct direction.”
Leanâlhâm had no idea what this meant. Who besides her grandfather or Sgäilsheilleache—or Osha—would willingly take in a mixed-blood girl without even a true name? All of them had left her, and any other place would be empty, devoid of love and loved ones.
She had followed the white majay-hì only because it appeared that the sacred one had wanted to lead her somewhere. Had it known where she wanted to go? Because of Léshil’s mother, even that had been taken from her.
“Go away,” Leanâlhâm warned.
“That is not going to happen,” Cuirin’nên’a replied quietly, and took two more steps.
Leanâlhâm backed up and almost tripped.
“This is your fault, yours and the greimasg’äh’s!” she shouted. “Because of you two, Grandfather is dead. What did you do? What did you drag him into?”
At that, Cuirin’nên’a froze.
“I will go nowhere with you!” Leanâlhâm ranted on. “Find another way to ease your conscience ... or go on suffering, if you even can. I am going to the ancestors to deliver Sgäilsheilleache, even if I cannot bring Grandfather to them. I am taking my true name. Now get away from me and do not—”
Cuirin’nên’a was suddenly right in front of her.
Leanâlhâm struck out without even thinking. She felt no more than the touch of fingertips on her wrist, and her fist struck nothing. In an instant, she was pinned facedown, and an angry whisper rose near her ear.
“Unless Sgäilsheilleache or Gleannéohkân’thva told you more than they should, you will never find the way. They had reasons for keeping you from that place, and I will honor their wishes. There has been enough loss in losing them ... and I will not see you lost as well!”
Before Leanâlhâm uttered another word, she was heaved to her feet and pushed onward in a silent walk into the trees, until Cuirin’nên’a found an open space. All Leanâlhâm could do was sit against a cedar’s trunk and watch while the cold-blooded woman made a fire.
“In the morning we go to the Hâjh River,” Cuirin’nên’a said, adding more twigs to the small flames. “I may be able to influence a river barge master to carry us partway. I am taking you to the clan of Urhkarasiférin, where you will be safe.”
Leanâlhâm sank in upon herself, hanging her head. She was to be imprisoned among the people of yet another greimasg’äh. The weary night dragged on.
She touched little of the travel rations Cuirin’nên’a laid out on a fresh maple leaf. Thirst made her drink too much water, and her stomach began to ache. She gave in to exhaustion and squirmed around to rest her head against the cedar. But ... she lifted her head and peered off into the forest.
The campfire’s soft yellow-orange light glinted upon blue eyes that pulsed to green, like her own.
The white majay-hì watched Leanâlhâm between the bush’s leaves. Suddenly its head turned as it looked more toward the fire. Leanâlhâm did not wish to do anything to alert Cuirin’nên’a to the female’s return.
That did not matter, as Cuirin’nên’a stood up and stared at a guardian of their forest.
“Is this the one you followed?” she asked.
Leanâlhâm hesitated to say anything. The white guardian pushed her head out of the leaves and studied Léshil’s mother, and then turned back to Leanâlhâm.
“Yes,” she finally answered. “She wanted me to follow.” It was a half truth, for she knew no such thing, but she wished it to be true. “I did not remember ... that I had seen her before,” Leanâlhâm went on. “Not until daylight came and I saw her clearly.”