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I wanted to focus on the only thing that mattered: how to break the blood bind before it was too late.
Every night, I chewed on this problem.
And every night, I ended up with the same answers.
Take her away...she dies.
Kill Aktor...she dies.
Prevent them from mating...but how?
I curled up tighter, shivering as the air temperature lowered as summer lost its battle with autumn. Zetas sensed my anger and chill, snapping at the moth before lumbering to her large paws and coming to lie down beside me.
Her thick, warm pelt pressed against my icy back, and I tried to relax.
Sleep never came easy knowing Runa slept in Solin’s lupic, surrounded by mortals I refused to befriend, counting down the dawns as each one led her closer and closer to an end that would break us both.
I gritted my teeth as another wash of fury crashed through me, followed by bone-cracking grief.
If I can’t figure out how to free her before the mating ceremony—
Shadows lashed from my skin, slashing and snapping, thick with my pain. A grasshopper with turquoise feathers stupidly hopped onto my lower leg.
A pulse of power.
A ripple of horror as it seized, stiffened, and died.
Zetas whined.
No! Please, no...
Rolling over to face her, I pressed a trembling hand to her chest, searching for the thud of her alive and not dead heart.
“Zetas—”
Thud-thud.
She licked my cheek with a snuffle.
Oh, thank every element and star.
“You’re okay,” I gasped. “You’re okay.”
She yawned and licked her lips—utterly unaffected by my lapse of control over the death that lurked in my veins. Was the lapse too small to kill something as big as her? Was the grasshopper my only victim tonight or were there more?
I waited for the wash of silvery spirits to pass through me but only the pinprick of light from the poor grasshopper came.
I hung my head and drowned in regret.
Yet another life taken because I didn’t know how to control myself.
* * * * *
Another week.
Another week of watching Runa from my cape of shimmering air, eating meals that Zetas provided, and doing everything I could to learn how to control the lash of death that could strike at any moment.
I returned to the Nhil camp most evenings, hanging on the fringes where flames couldn’t reach, watching in silence as more and more Nhil wrapped themselves in warmer clothing.
Hyath had her own apprentices now, just like the medicine woman who taught Runa, and the two females and one male who’d requested to learn her trade all sat around her, studying how to poke holes into scraped furs with sharp awls and thread sinew so two pieces joined into one.
Her latest invention had been a skirt that split around the legs, encasing each limb with a row of neat knots down the thighs and calves. She’d called them trousers and almost every clan member had requested their own pair for winter.
On the nights when I watched but didn’t interact, Runa would seek me out and stand at my side. I tested my self-control by allowing her to discuss her lessons with me. Her eyes would warm, and she’d sound more and more like the Fire Reader as she told me how bark from a certain tree could colour the flames, so they’d glow blue and green instead of orange and yellow. How a certain moss from a certain river would make smoke dance with images for those not gifted by the fire’s visions.
She seemed to be settling into her vocation, and it killed me to hide my pain beneath pride of her achievements. The more she learned thanks to Solin, the further away she felt. And regardless of her wariness of the flames, she walked in them often on behalf of her clan and their requests.
I’d even caught her teaching the very small younglings how to nurse a tiny ember in her palm. They’d beamed and laughed as the fire enveloped her entire arm. The parents had gathered, taking turns to summon flames, frowning with effort to glow their skin like Runa did.
Everywhere she went, Nhil gravitated toward her.
And last night, when Solin announced that she would divine the next bountiful hunt, she’d stood at the front of the camp with her eyes dancing with fire, communing with an element that hated me, showing me just how far out of my grasp she had risen.
She’d announced the fire’s decree, speaking clearly about a successful bison hunt toward the northwest. Chills scattered down my spine as she listed how many cows and calves travelled with a big prideful bull, and only I saw the pain in her gaze as she relayed the flame’s messages, knowing that by passing on such things, she’d condemned some of that herd to die.
When she’d finished, the Nhil had toasted her with wine, drums had been played, and she was showered with tokens from hunters: beads, spearheads, a polished bone bowl, and even a stone knife.
