Her fingers and palms, all the way to her wrists and beneath the edges of her tunic sleeves, were lit from within by a pale glow ... like that of the woman pointing at her. She choked, unable to breathe, and then turned and fled.
Was she to die for having come here? Was that what all of this meant?
She was in an open grassland and running as fast as she could, but another forest loomed ahead, smaller and sparser than the great one. She broke through, and there was the woman, watching and pointing, among the trees. Beyond and ahead was that other glow in the forest’s depths, so like that of the ghost.
Trying to catch her breath, Leanâlhâm swerved away at a run ... and found herself in a different forest of red and orange leaves ... then down a stony shore ... and through a world of white ice ... and then a place of nothing but sun and burning sand ... and then another foreign forest.
She tried to find anything familiar—her homeland, the dark silhouettes of the burial ground oaks, the draped moss beyond that ... anything.
In terror, she coughed out, “Grandfather! Sgäilsheilleache! Help me!”
There was no answer, not even the voice of the ghostly woman.
Everything blurred and darkened before her eyes.
Leanâlhâm’s next footfall landed on something that turned under her weight. As she fell, she called out the only name left that she could remember.
“Cuirin’nên’a!”
The world went black and silent ... for who knew how long.
A glimmer of dull flickering light, which danced in umbers and oranges as if seen through something in its way, grew as Leanâlhâm struggled to open her eyelids.
The whole world was dark—and sideways—but for a small fire upon the forest floor. Beyond that crouched a slender figure in a travel-stained cloak of forest gray.
Cuirin’nên’a raised her head, and her beautiful, cold eyes widened as Leanâlhâm struggled to sit up. Only then did Leanâlhâm see that she was somewhere else, no longer within sight of the burial ground. All around her were the dank, mossy trees of the forest along the way to that place.
She breathed in and out through her mouth. What she had seen there had felt so real.
“And what do I now call you?” Cuirin’nên’a asked.
Leanâlhâm was struck mute at such a question. Did Cuirin’nên’a not wish to know what had happened? Obviously she had come when Leanâlhâm called out for her, so she must have seen something while carrying away a collapsed unconscious girl.
Leanâlhâm did not want to think about a name and began, “I saw—”
“No,” Cuirin’nên’a commanded. “We do not speak of such things. That is only for you to know ... and to choose a name, as you see fit, by what you learned.”
Leanâlhâm shrank upon herself. At her touch, Roise Chârmune had turned into a common leafy tree, as if it had lost all that it had once been. She had found herself in an endless stretch of foreign lands, one after another, as she tried to find her way home ... and could not.
The truth of that much almost broke her.
She did not belong among the people.
No matter how much Sgäilsheilleache and Grandfather had tried to make a life for her here, it was not what should be. She began to weep. Had Sgäilsheilleache seen anything such as she had? Had he seen his death upon facing the ancestors? Had he seen his flesh glow like the ghosts of the dead long gone from this world?
All she knew was that he had not seen what she had.
She had seen a world without her home, and the ancestors wanted her gone.
“I cannot ... not ...” Leanâlhâm stuttered out. “Not choose ... from what she said ... to me.”
Pulling up her knees and burying her head, she broke into sobs.
“What?” Cuirin’nên’a whispered too sharply.
Leanâlhâm weakly lifted her head. Through tear-blurred sight, she found Cuirin’nên’a watching her intently. Fear, more than anything else, quelled her sobs.
“She ... one of them?” Cuirin’nên’a struggled to get out. “You saw ... heard the ancestors? That does not happen!”
Leanâlhâm grew still, for this was not exactly true. She had heard hints that the ancestors had spoken to Léshil. Cuirin’nên’a had to know this much and more.
Did the ancestors not speak to all who came for their true names? How much the worse for her, if they did not? Grandfather had once mentioned that Léshil refused to accept his true name.
Leshiârelaohk ... Champion of Leshiâra ... Champion of Sorrow-Tear, one of the ancestors.
She suddenly knew who that ghost of a woman had been. Only the one who had given Léshil a name he rejected could have cursed her in this way.
“What did she ...” Cuirin’nên’a began and then pulled back. “No, do not tell me. But you must take a name.”
“No!” Leanâlhâm shouted.
If Léshil could deny his, so could she choose ... not to choose.
Cuirin’nên’a was on her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“This does not happen without cause,” she snarled, but then she began to falter. “Not to anyone but ...”
She did not need to finish, for Leanâlhâm knew how those words would end—not to anyone but my son.
Leanâlhâm wondered at the given name of Léshil, which was a very old one meaning “colored by rain,” or, by the symbol of rain, “tinted by the world’s tears.” Why would a mother do that to her son?
Léshil—Leshiârelaohk—and Leshiâra ... the one of the world’s tears to champion one of sorrowful tears.
What of that mother’s own taken name, Cuirin’nên’a, the Water Lily’s Heart? What had she seen in the burial grounds to take such a name, so much better than the one she gave her son at birth?
“Listen to me,” Cuirin’nên’a began again with restraint. “The ancestors do not interfere in our lives, our choices, without great need. For such an effort, at such a cost, when they speak to you ...” She stalled, shaking her head. “You must listen, you must hear them, and you must choose.”
Leanâlhâm had already borne the cruelty of her birth name—Child of Sorrow, given by a mother who had run off in the madness of grief.
“What is your name?” Cuirin’nên’a asked.
Dwelling in sorrow ... remembering what the ghost had said to her, she finally whispered, “Sheli’câlhad.”
Any few words or a phrase, once turned into name, could require a moment to unravel their meaning. It was such a moment before Cuirin’nên’a leaned away a little and exhaled a slow breath, the closest to a sigh that Leanâlhâm had ever heard uttered by this woman.
“Lie down and rest,” Cuirin’nên’a said.
Léshil’s mother remained at Leanâlhâm’s side and was always there in any moment when she awoke in fright amid the dark. She awoke the last time well before dawn, though she did not open her eyes. Still, as if knowing, Cuirin’nên’a spoke.
“I will take you to Urhkarasiférin’s clan, where you will be safe.”
Leanâlhâm did not miss that Cuirin’nên’a never used her true name, and she did not argue. Where she was taken, led, or left in a land in which she no longer belonged did not matter.
The trek was not as long or grim as the one to the ancestors’ burial grounds. They were intercepted and guided by a team of warrior-hunters from Urhkarasiférin’s clan. It took much explaining by Cuirin’nên’a as to why they had come, for word of what had happened at Leanâlhâm’s home had already spread. Why it had happened did not seem to be known by anyone as yet.