Sweet juice spritzes the air as silence bears on. A waiting silence, like the deep breath between Siharna’s screams. A silence that itches. My gaze nips past Kaan on the seater to the window too often, across the courtyard to that pacing silhouette beyond the fluttering curtain.
I clear my throat and hack the fruit again, making the pieces smaller. “Does Rygun not like the local prey?” I ask, attempting to fill the void.
Kaan frowns, his eyes shadowed with dark smudges that weren’t there earlier. Perhaps a tribute to his sleeplessness. “He’s far from picky. Why do you ask?”
“I noticed he flew north for a stint while Líri and I were scouting the village. Figured he’d gone to hunt. Seemed strange, since the mountains are so bountiful.”
“You won’t catch him hunting these mountains with the Mists so far north,” Kaan says, rolling the sleeves on his loose brown tunic. “He barely tolerated diving between the peaks to retrieve me earlier.”
My lips thin.
I hack the fruit again and pile the chunks in a small bowl, resheathe my blade, then move around the bench and settle on the seater beside Kaan. Passing him the offering, I curl my legs beneath me and press my shoulder into the upholstered backrest. “Did something happen?”
His jaw tightens as he plucks a piece of fruit from the bowl. “Long ago, yes.” Silence slips by while he peels the lumpy purple skin free, revealing more of the crisp golden flesh. “I was hunting my first gruuc pelt so I could claim Ruháth with the Johkull Clan.”
“Ruháth?”
“The right to begin constructing a tent within the clan’s hollow,” he confirms. “Until a young warrior claims Ruháth, they must slumber without shelter.”
“Ah.”
“At the time, Rygun spent the majority of his daes hunting near the border here. His mah was felled on the plains during a great battle andnever made it to the sky. He was in deep mourning and liked to be close.”
The words are rough, like he hasn’t practiced them. Perhaps the first time he’s spoken them toanyone.
“The mists had drifted unnaturally north. Rygun got caught in them while hunting a faunycaw and lost his way, grounding in some sinking sand.” Kaan sets the chunk of fruit in the bowl and begins peeling another. “I heard his panic and went to investigate. Found him almost entirely under, gasping sand.”
A chill moves through me as I grasp where this is going. What he’s about to share with me.
His bonding story. Something most fae keep close to their chests.
Sacred.
I’m not ignorant of the fact that being given such a gift is the greatest honor. Like placing your unguarded heart in the hands of another, trusting them to treasure it.
Shouldering the realization, I reach back, hooking a tendril of hair from just behind my nape.
“I called on Bulder to push him out, but he must’ve been struggling for a while. Once free, he lacked the energy to lift his head, let alone—” Kaan’s voice cracks as he watches me loosen my leather bind from around my wrist and wrap it around the tendril, all the way up near my roots. “Let alonefly,” he continues, setting another naked piece of fruit in the bowl. He gets to work on the third while I tie off the bind. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who’d heard his cries.”
“Others came?”
“Many.”
Silently waiting for him to continue, I divide my tendril three ways, then begin weaving them together to form my uhloo—tightly. All while Kaan’s gaze hungers over each precise shift of my hands, the air between us becoming so charged with something warm and hopeful that it feels like nothing else exists beyond this home.
This seater.
Us.
When he starts to speak again, his voice is gravel.
“For two daes, the site was swarmed with warriors from different clans wielding weapons, fists, and songs, believing Rygun was beyond hope. I fought them off.”
Feeling the cool rush of all the blood leaving my face, I somehow manage to keep my hands busy, striking the tendrils over and under, over and under. “They wanted to claim his carcass?”
“Correct.” He clears his throat and sets the bowl on the seater beside himself—appetite seemingly forgotten. “Such a claim would provide for any of the largest clans on the plains for many phases. Not a single scale would’ve gone to waste.”
I cast my mind back to the Johkull Clan, thinking of the hollowedSabersythe corpse they live in, every bit of its body utilized to help the clan function. I imagine that beast as Rygun, dead in the ground for the world to pick at—to scavenge—feeling restless to the core.
