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“I’m glad you’re back.” Giving Runa a compassionate smile, he said quietly, “I hope you two were able to clear the air, and life can be smoother from now on.” Not waiting for us to tell him exactly how uncomfortable life would be, he added, “You need to eat, Runa. You’re still healing and need sustenance.” Holding out his free hand, he smiled. “Come. The feast in Kivva’s name is almost prepared. Let’s get something before the platters are passed around.”
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry—”
“You should go with him,” I said.
Her gaze snapped to me. “You need to eat too. When was the last time you had anything?”
I ignored her question and backed away from the two Nhil girls and the female I would always love, always want, always protect. “Go with him, Runa.”
Her face darkened with pain, and Solin looked surprised at my coldness, but the moth’s warning echoed in my ears.
“She will die, and you will be the cause. You will feel her spirit pass through you and go where you cannot follow.”
Catching Runa’s pained stare once more, I opened my mouth to apologise, to beg for forgiveness, to tell her I couldn’t breathe with the distance forming between us, but I swallowed everything down, sank my fingers into Zetas’s ruff, and turned my back on her.
I stalked into the grasslands with a horned wolf at my side, leaving the stench of Kivva’s pyre and the agony of my self-inflicted heartbreak behind.
Chapter Forty-One
. Runa .
FOUR DAYS PASSED.
Four nights of sleepless tossing and four mornings of forcing myself to eat while my stomach remained knotted with thorns.
And Darro didn’t return.
Kivva’s pyre burned until only ashes remained. Those ashes were gathered, blessed, and scattered over the grasslands as a herd of bison wandered on the horizon. Lida sought me out to apologise for hurling a stone at Darro’s temple, and I went through the motions of smiling, mingling, and doing my best to be part of the Nhil, now that I’d officially been adopted.
Niya and Hyath stayed close by, cuddling Natim and keeping Syn out of mischief, but they didn’t speak much. They allowed me to find silence when I wasn’t approached by the clan, accepting their kind words and welcome as Solin’s successor.
I heard my name being murmured around the camp as everyone spoke about the blood bind with Akor and studied my bee spirit guardian scribed into my palm.
Everywhere I went, I drew attention.
And it chafed me.
I couldn’t tell them that I hadn’t wanted this.
That the price for their respect and welcome had come at too high a cost.
“Pallen is waiting for you,” Solin said as he swept into the lupic. His long black hair draped down his back, still wet from bathing in the river. He’d asked if I wanted to go with him this morning, but I’d chosen to stay and feed Natim.
The thought of returning to the river where the water had sung its permission for us to touch and speak, only to yank me out of Darro’s embrace the moment we’d grown close, stifled my chest with frustration.
What had we done to be at the mercy of so many mercurial elements? Why had we captured their attention and become forever stuck with their whims of keeping us apart? Was Darro right that it was us who’d decreed such a thing?
Natim stopped grazing on the bowl of soaked grain I’d prepared for him, shaking out his coat and prancing over my leg where I sat by the fire on my sleeping furs. Niya had taught me what they’d been feeding him, and his growth was impressive.
Already, he was losing his youngling spots. His coat had become more cream than dappled, and the knobs on his head had sprouted with the first hint of antlers. I didn’t know how long a fawn usually took to grow, but his height and weight seemed accelerated somehow.
“Did you hear me, Runa?” Solin asked gently, moving toward his shelves and the carefully stacked rows of boxes full of Spirit Master things. “Pallen and her apprentices have agreed to begin your lessons today.”
Shaking away the melancholy that’d settled over me, thanks to Darro’s continued absence, I stood and forced a smile. “Where should I go?”
“To the small glade by the river, farther downstream than where your ritual for the trance was held.” Grabbing a stack of boxes, he headed for the exit. “I have a few trances to perform on behalf of my clan.” He grinned as if everything was right in his world.
Which it was.
The other hunters who’d been bitten by the wolves the night Tral came for me had healed enough to no longer be in danger of passing. The finality of Kivva’s farewell had left a strange kind of renewal in the camp.
“In a week or so, I’ll share the tasks of what you’ll be expected to do as Spirit Master.” Solin stepped into the sunlight streaming into the lupic. “The trances you must summon to answer worried clan members. The divination of where the next hunt should take place. The forecasting of weather and foreseeing of any future visitors.” He glanced at the woven boxes in his arms. “You will commune with the fire often, so I suggest you work through your anger toward it so you may—”
