“Not in words. Horses communicate in feelings. They are passionate, loyal beings with hearts big enough to hold the world.”
“I’ve always thought so, too,” I said softly, kissing Persephone’s forehead.
“Zoey, Kalona must be killed.”
The abruptness of her statement shocked me to my core, and I quickly looked around, worried that Raven Mockers were lurking close by, as they had been in all of my other classes.
Lenobia shook her head and waved away my fears. “Horses despise Raven Mockers as much as cats do, only earning a horse’s hatred is more dangerous than a cat’s. None of the abominable bird creatures will dare to enter my stables.”
“What about the other fledglings?” I asked softly.
“They are entirely too busy exercising horses who have been cooped up for days because of this storm to eavesdrop on us. So I repeat, Kalona must be killed.”
“He can’t be killed. He’s immortal.” My frustration at this unfortunate fact showed clearly in my voice.
Lenobia shook back her long, thick hair and began to pace from one side of the stall to another. “But we must defeat him. He lures our people away from Nyx.”
“I know. I haven’t even been back one whole day and already I can see how bad things are. Neferet is in on all of this, too.” I held my breath, waiting to see if Lenobia would remain blindly loyal to her High Priestess or if she would see the truth.
“Neferet is worse than any of them,” she said bitterly. “She who should be most faithful to Nyx has betrayed her utterly.”
“She’s not what she used to be,” I said. “She’s become something that’s focused on evil.”
Lenobia nodded her head. “Yes, a few of us have been afraid of that. I’m ashamed to say we looked the other way instead of confronting Neferet when she first began to behave strangely. I no longer consider her in Nyx’s service. I plan on pledging my allegiance to a new High Priestess,” she finished, giving me a knowing look.
“Not me!” I practically squeaked. “I haven’t even Changed yet.”
“You’ve been Marked and Chosen by our Goddess. That is enough for me. It is also enough for Dragon and Anastasia.”
“How about the other professors? Are any of them with us, too?”
A terrible sadness crossed her face. “No. All of the others are blinded by Kalona.”
“Why aren’t you?”
She took her time answering me. “I am not sure why he didn’t blind me, as he has most of the others. Dragon and Anastasia and I have spoken of it, if only briefly. We do feel his allure, but a part of us was able to stay untouched by him enough that we were able to see him—really see him—and recognize him as the destructive creature he is. There is no doubt in our minds that you must find a way to defeat him, Zoey.”
I felt terrible and helpless and breathless and too darn young. I wanted to flail my arms around and scream, I’m seventeen! I can’t save the world—I can’t even parallel park!
And then a sweet, meadow-filled breeze caressed my face. It was warmed by the summer sun and moist as dew at dawn, and my spirit lifted in response.
“You aren’t simply a fledgling. Listen within, child, and know that where that still, small voice leads you, we will follow,” Lenobia said in a voice that reminded me of my Goddess.
Her words mixed with the elements soothed me, and suddenly my eyes widened. How could I have forgotten?
“The poem!” I blurted, hurrying over to where I’d hung my purse by the door of Persephone’s stall. “One of the red fledglings has been writing prophetic poetry. She gave me one that had to do with Kalona right before I came here.”
Lenobia watched me curiously as I searched through my purse.
“Here it is!” It was wadded up with the poem that must have been about Stark. I grabbed the other poem and focused on it.
“Okay…okay…This is it. This tells me how to make Kalona flee. It’s just…just written in poetic code or something.”
“Let me read it, too. Perhaps I can help shed light on it.”
I held the poem out so she could see it, and she read it aloud as I followed the words.
What once bound him
Will make him flee
Place of power—joining of five
Night
Spirit
Blood
Humanity
Earth
Joined not to conquer
Instead to overcome
Night leads to Spirit
Blood binds Humanity
And Earth completes.
“When Kalona rose from the earth, he wasn’t being reborn, as Neferet tried to get us to believe, was he?” Lenobia said, still studying the poem.
“No. He’d been trapped there for more than a thousand years,” I said.
“By whom?”
“My grandmother’s Cherokee ancestors.”
“This seems to imply that whatever it was that your grandmother’s people did to bind him won’t work the same way again. This time it’ll make him run away. And that’s good enough for me. We must rid ourselves of him before he completely erodes the ties that bind us to Nyx.” She looked from the poem to me. “How did the Cherokee people bind him in the earth?”
I blew out a long gust of air, wishing with all my heart that Grandma was here and could lead me through this. “I just—I don’t know as much as I should about it!” I cried.
“Ssh,” Lenobia soothed, touching my arm as she would a nervous filly. “Wait, I have an idea.”
She hurried from the stall and returned shortly with a thick, soft, curry brush, which she handed to me. Then she left the stall again and came back carrying a bale of straw. Putting it in against the inside wall, she sat on it. Leaning comfortably back, she pulled out a long piece of golden straw and stuck it in her mouth.
“Now, brush your mare and think aloud. We will find the answer between the three of us.”
“Well,” I began as I stroked the brush down Persephone’s sorrel neck. “Grandma told me that Ghigua women, uh, those are Wise Women, from several tribes got together and created a maiden out of the earth, made especially to lure Kalona into a cave where they trapped him.”
“Wait, you said women came together to create a maiden?”
“Yeah, I know it sounds kinda crazy, but I promise that’s what happened.”
“No, I do not doubt the truth of what your grandmother reported. I’m only wondering how many women came together.”
“I don’t know. All Grandma told me was that A-ya was basically their tool, and each of them gave her a special gift.”
“A-ya? That was the maiden’s name?”
I nodded and then looked over the mare’s shoulder at her. “Kalona calls me A-ya.”
Lenobia sucked in a shocked breath. “Then you are the instrument through which he will be defeated again.”
“Yes, but not defeated, just chased away,” I said automatically, and then my instinct caught up with my mouth and I knew what I’d said was true. “It is me. This time he can’t be trapped because he’s expecting that. But I can make him run away.” I spoke more to Persephone than to Lenobia or even to myself.
“But you’re not just a tool this time. You’ve been given free will by our Goddess. You choose good, and good is what will make Kalona flee.” Lenobia spoke with a confidence that was infectious.
“Wait, what was that part about ‘five’?”
Lenobia retrieved the poem from where I’d laid it on the floor of the stall. “It says ‘place of power—joining of five.’ And then it lists the five: Night, Spirit, Blood, Humanity, Earth.”
“They are people,” I said, feeling a rush of excitement. “Like Damien said, that’s why they’re capitalized, because the poem is talking about people who symbolize those five things. And…and I’ll bet if Grandma was here, she’d tell me that there were five Ghigua women who got together and created A-ya.”