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“Good.” Taking the bowl, Pallen sniffed it, closed her eyes, and dipped her fingers into the reddish-black paste. For the longest heartbeat, she stayed stiff and alert, almost as if she could decipher if the recipe her student had done was correct by touch alone.
Was that the gift she mentioned?
Did she feel the lifeforce of those around her, too?
A low hum vibrated from her chest, ebbing and cresting as she swayed forward and back, her fingers stirring the oily, ashy mess. Her lips parted with words I couldn’t decipher, chanting deep and methodical, her heels pounding the ground with a subtle drum.
Her two students closed their eyes and joined in the primal song, all while I stood there and shared a worried look with Hyath and Niya.
I’d always known the trance was dangerous but watching an elderly Nhil medicine woman bless a bowl of ash sent my skin prickling with fresh fear.
The chant suddenly ended on a tortured note, and Pallen stepped forward. “Fill your mind of home. Picture this place and these people in your mind’s eye while I draw the map of belonging on your skin.” Her eyebrows came down. “No speaking, no questions, no disobedience. To do so would risk the binds not working.”
Not waiting for me to respond, she smeared two fingers along my right collarbone, making me flinch with the surprising heat still held by the ash. “These markings will protect you from the shadows. Shadows that will try to claim you from the fire’s light.”
“Shadows—?”
“No speaking.”
My mind sprang with images of the shades that’d poured from the stranger. Sinister shadows that’d granted him power to defy his fevers and weakness. He’d fought swiftly, ferociously, almost as if he’d wrapped himself up in darkness itself.
Pallen coated my left collarbone. “Shadows can only exist if the fire is snuffed out. In the flames of light, they die. They will do their best to tug you out of its light while you walk in the flame’s embrace.” She drifted closer, her eyes narrowing with warning. “You must not let them.”
I swallowed hard.
How would I know what shadows to trust and fear?
Were all shadows the enemy of fire?
Is the stranger my enemy, even though we speak the same language and share the same lost memories?
I kept my teeth locked so those questions didn’t escape.
My spine tensed as Pallen moved behind me, sweeping my long hair over my shoulder and running her ash-covered fingers down my spine, spreading the oily heat. “These symbols will make those shadows blind. You will walk amongst them and not be seen.”
I shivered as she drew on my back. Swirls and circles, lines and dots.
Finally, she barked, “Jilaa, the rim leaf paste. Coat her feet so she may walk unburned through the embers and leave no trace of herself behind.”
The red-headed student dropped to her knees on the furs and gathered the other bowl of brown paste. Without a word, she scooped some into her hand and smeared it over the top of my left foot.
I jerked, my skin sensitive and heart pounding.
Once the top of my feet were covered, Jilaa tapped my ankle and looked up the length of my naked body. “Lift. So I may cover your soles.”
I obeyed, balancing on one leg while she coated beneath my toes and heel. Only once both feet were covered did she collect the mostly empty bowl and move away. “It’s done, Pallen.”
Pallen hummed under her breath as she finished drawing symbols down the back of my legs before coming to my front again. Her hum continued as she shifted my hair back over my shoulder then covered my belly, the top of my thighs, my hips, and breasts with ashy markings.
With oily fingers, she drew circles around my nipples before painting a thick line up the centre of my chest, over my cut and bruised throat, to my chin. She stopped at the base of my bottom lip.
Dipping her fingers back into the bowl, she gathered more ashy oil and drew designs on my shoulders, down my arms, and over the back of my hands, before placing a dot of ash on each knuckle and looking up.
Her eyes met mine. They seemed darker than before. Deeper. Older. Walking in this world and another. “Place your hands in the bowl, Girl.”
An icy breeze gusted down my spine as I did as she said. Heat still remained in the ash, fighting against the coolness of the air.
“Coat your palms,” Pallen instructed.
I squished my hands into the paste; black-red soot oozed between my fingers.
“Now drag your hands over your eyes and down your cheeks, so you will wear the mask of the unseen. The shroud of fire will protect you, so you may be recognised by the flames, all while remaining invisible to the shadows that hunt within them.”
