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I could sense their blood pumping, their veins flowing with mortal lifeforce.
It would be so easy.
Too easy.
And my mouth watered for the power I suddenly had at my fingertips. At the heady, fatal potential that only seemed to grow stronger every hour.
“Darro.” Tral’s voice ripped me back into the present. My name in his deep baritone made my hands fist.
“I respectfully ask you to stop.” He puffed up his chest, all while keeping his fingers wrapped tight around his staff. “We are not your enemies.”
“Tell that to your people who are watching me as if I’m theirs.”
His nostrils flared with impatience. “When Runa wakes, everything will be explained, and I hope, for your sake, that you accept what must happen. But for now...” Waving his hand, he stepped back inline with his woman. “Be patient like the rest of us. You have my word that by the time the first star appears, she and our Fire Reader will be back with us.”
My stomach churned.
Zetas growled.
The way he spoke made my shadows twist and twine with unease. “Let me see her. You have my word I won’t touch or try to wake her. Just let me be near her. To watch over her while she wakes.”
“I’m sorry, but no one is allowed to see her. Not even me or Tiptu. They must stay alone. It’s an unbreakable rule set by the fire itself.” He sighed with understanding that ultimatums wouldn’t work on me. “When the fire envelops its chosen, their spirits are free from their mortal forms. While they are in the fire, they have no need for those forms, but when it’s time to return, they require a clear path in order to come home. If others surround their spiritless forms, muddying the road back to their mortal flesh, then their spirits might slip into another’s, or worse, snuff out the spirit residing in that form and steal it for themselves.”
I stilled. “Yet another reason not to step into the fire’s control in the first place.”
The woman stepped forward, her face smooth and regal. “I agree with you. When Solin mentioned he wanted to share a trance with Runa, I was terrified.” She pulled her shoulders back, her head turning slightly as a babe’s cry sounded in the lupic. Ignoring her youngling’s summoning, she finished, “But I’m no longer afraid. Unlike the last time Solin attempted a shared trance, Runa has proven able to retain her individual awareness and somehow slipped free of the trance on her own. She found you. She returned to her rightful form and now understands the journey it takes. She must help Solin do the same.”
She stepped closer, resting her hand on my arm even though Zetas snarled.
“Tiptu...” the chief warned. “I suggest you don’t—”
“Accept our welcome, Darro,” Tiptu said. “Don’t give us a reason to hurt you when Runa wants you well. Like my husband said, you are safe here amongst us. Put away your shadows. Don’t go looking for trouble because we will respond in kind. Runa wouldn’t want war or bloodshed, so please...allow our clan the same courtesy of being safe around you and your wolf.”
Dropping her touch, she turned and squeezed Tral’s hand. Whispering something into her mate’s ear, she slipped back into the lupic and the sound of the wailing youngling ceased.
Tral inhaled, his nostrils flaring as his eyes continued to stare at my shadows.
I didn’t call them back, despite Tiptu’s request.
“How are you controlling them?” the chief asked quietly.
I stroked Zetas as she crushed closer. “Do you ask your lungs how they breathe or understand how your heart beats?”
He scowled. “If you must bleed shadows, then do it without scaring my people. And if you cannot wait patiently like the rest of us, then you may stand outside the Fire Reader’s lupic.” He pointed across the clearing toward a modest lupic that held no decoration or status. Two males stood outside the entrance, stiff and unyielding.
“Runa is in there.” He held up his hand as I shifted to go. “You have my permission to wait outside, Darro, but mark my words, step any closer and you will be stopped by a hundred spears. That is a promise.” His chin lowered. “It’s not just Runa you put at risk with your impatience but my kin too.”
With a stern stare, he retreated back into his lupic, and I’d stalked across the camp to take up my place where I hadn’t moved ever since.
My stomach growled, sending a shooting pain through my middle, wrenching me from the past and into the present. Hunger grew ever more painful. Zetas licked her muzzle, no doubt feeling the same discomfort.
Behind me, around the blazing fire, bone and wood platters were being dressed with smoked meats, roasted vegetables, charred roots, and a whole host of other foods I’d never come across.
