When a Moth loved a Bee, page 19
Meko brought the bowl to Pallen. “The fire has been burning for three hours. The ash has infused with the heart, mind, and spirit, ready to bind and guide.”
“Good.” Pallen took the carved wooden bowl with its sticky brown contents and placed it by her knee. “You and Jilaa may gather the ash we require. Ensure you use two parts ash to one part acorn oil.”
“We will.” Meko bowed, arched her chin at Jilaa, who brushed aside a flame-coloured curl, and followed her fellow student to the small fire that smoked along the river’s edge.
“Acorn oil?” I asked, unable to prevent my fascination from showing.
Pallen’s midnight gaze narrowed on me. “Acorns protect the heart and aid the blood with struggles and upsets. The oil is naturally the colour of fire and holds the properties of ritual protection.”
I nodded eagerly. Too eagerly. Desperate to know more.
She tilted her head, studying me. “I see you’re interested in learning, so I’ll warn you that acorns are not to be trifled with. They are toxic if eaten raw. That’s why they allow us to commune with the fire, because fire is what helps leech the poison out and in return keeps our poison from leeching into the flames as we walk through them.”
“Our poison?” My eyebrows rose. “How are we—”
“We do not belong in the fire, yet we carry a spark of it within us.” Snapping her fingers, she summoned a flame in her palm. “We are permitted to tread in their heart, all while we must protect it from our contamination.”
Questions crowded in my head.
How could a mortal carry an ember within them?
How could the elements that made up life pick certain kingdoms to bestow water, earth, fire, and air as gifts?
Out of all the Nhil people I’d met, Pallen was the most riveting.
Her gifts, her knowledge…I wanted it all.
Closing her hand and extinguishing the small fire, she pursed her lips at the ugly sun-dried mushroom in my hands. The mushroom I’d been doing my best to forget about.
Her teacherly tone turned sharp. “Finish eating that. You’ve been nursing it for too long and getting distracted by my apprentices. Eat. Not a bite left, you hear?” She sat cross-legged before me on the furs that protected us from the decaying willow leaves on the ground. Her black eyes saw everything, criticised everything, and her stern mouth with tight wrinkles above her upper lip had guided me through the many steps of the ritual since this morning.
She’d watched me bathe with a special foamy root that smelled tart and acidic. She’d schooled me on how to score my white hair with river sand and brush out the endless tangles with the fire-hardened prongs of a handmade bone comb. The comb had been carved with symbols that were said to layer protection onto those about to commune with the flames.
Pallen’s own hair glittered in the sun, silver strands streaking the black, creating an interesting pattern of light and dark. Her skin wasn’t like her students but similar to other Nhil with reddish-brown tones, pink fingernails, and lips as red as roses. Wrinkles also etched her eyes, making me guess she was older than Tral and even Solin, aging her with wisdom and history.
Wrinkling my nose, I ripped off another mouthful of dried, chewy mushroom. The same tingle I’d felt when Meko first placed it into my hands hit my tongue, sending the strangest sensation of earthy awareness down my throat.
Forcing my last swallow, I cringed and licked my lips clean. “Why did I have to eat that?”
Pallen scowled. “You ask a lot of questions. All day you’ve been nosy. How did I carve the symbols so delicately on the comb? How do my bowls withstand the heat of the fire while melting tallow? How many others have undergone this ritual?” Rolling her eyes, she smiled to soothe her tone. “You have a curious mind, Girl, which I like. But it’s not up to you to know these things. You merely have to trust that I do.”
“Oh! I’m not afraid you don’t know what you’re doing,” I rushed, horrified to have come across that way. “I-I just find it fascinating.” Waving my hand at the weeds growing thick, the moss, the willows, even the river grass swaying in the water-shallows, I added, “You know what each plant can do. You know how to prepare it to eat or use in healing. You can even turn toxic acorns into something safe. After watching you morph plants into medicine, the world is suddenly full of wonders.”
Pallen’s cheeks pinked with pleasure. “You know how to stroke the pride of an old woman, and a curious mind is always one that will live the longest, because an open mind will evolve and always find a way forward, even when no way forward seems to exist, but today, you need to put aside your questions. You belong to the fire, and the sun is falling quickly.”
I sighed and nodded. “I’m sorry, Medicine Woman.” If I was honest with myself, my curiosity toward Pallen and her students came partly from feeling a new awareness within me—a calling to know everything I could, but also as a defence mechanism so my mind wouldn’t have to think about tonight.
So I didn’t shiver as the afternoon wore on.
So I didn’t panic as dusk crept ever closer.
“I’ll tell you what.” Pallen lowered her voice, reaching across the furs to pat my knee. “If you wake tomorrow. If our Chief Tral names you Nhil and you choose to stay, then…you may learn with me, if that is what you wish. I am getting old. Meko and Jilaa were meant to be my last apprentices, but if you are eager to learn, then you cannot ignore your calling. Who knows, you might turn out to be a healer or even end up as a medicine woman like me one day.” She studied my hands with a quick glance. “After all, you do seem to have a gift.”
“A gift?” My eyes swooped to hers. “What gift?”
She smiled softly. “The gift of sensing life.”
I froze.
“I’ve been watching you, Girl.” Pallen shifted her position, moving onto her creaky knees. “When you first touched the mushroom, you flinched. Why?”
“Did I?” I fought the urge to fidget, shooting a look at Niya, who sat attentively but quietly next to Hyath. “I don’t remember.”
I did.
I’d flinched because the mushroom had pulsed with something. Something so powerful, it linked me for a single heartbeat to a web of knowledge buried deep within the earth.
“You also refused meat at lunch and seem to be able to tell that lynx cub to stay away from our furs when she was overly eager to join us. She hasn’t moved from the spot you told her to lie in all day. Almost as if your will became hers.”
I swallowed my sudden panic. “Is it wrong to prefer certain foods or share a kinship with a wild beast?”
She trod too close to my secret.
“No. It isn’t wrong.” Pallen shook her head, sending silver-and-black hair dancing. “But a few incidents sometimes aren’t coincidences. They are clues.” She glanced at my hands again, her elderly face tight with her own curiosity. “You sense life, Girl. You might not be fully aware of it yet—sometimes gifts such as yours take years to fully manifest—but you show signs of being highly sensitive to not just your existence but also the existence of everything around you.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t know how to confess that she was right. That my sensitivity seemed like a curse that ought to be hidden, but if I could be trained by her and shown that it wasn’t a curse after all…I wanted that. Very much.
“Enough of this,” Pallen suddenly said, pushing off the ground and unfolding stiffly to her feet. “You are almost out of time. You are bathed, dressed, fed, and have eaten the zirki mushroom.” She smiled. “And before you ask, the zirki mushroom has its own gifts. It grows alone but remains connected to every other mushroom in the ground, sharing messages and knowledge through magic we cannot begin to understand. That gift has now been shared with you and, even now, is opening your mind to hear a different world, see a different realm, and bind you to the mortals you will leave behind as you step into the fire’s flames. You are now like that mushroom, alone but linked, so we might find you and bring you back if you get lost.”
Clapping her hands, she said in a deeper, sterner voice, “Now stand and remove your clothing.”
Hyath and Niya stood too, waiting for me to do the same. Without a word, Hyath stepped behind me, unknotting the two ties behind my back before tugging the binding on my hip.
My pulse skittered as horror-filled fragments of Aktor ripping off my furs and wedging his thighs against mine filled my head. I shivered as my legs stiffened, reliving the pain and helplessness as he spread them and—
“Girl?” Hyath stroked my shoulder. “You okay?”
I gulped and nodded, forcing myself to stay in today and not revisit last night. “Yes. Yes, I’m okay.”
Her touch came again just before the soft skin loosened. I didn’t want to be bare, but she unwrapped them from my river-scrubbed body and held them close.
“Has our Spirit Master told you how the trance will occur? What you must do and not do?” Pallen studied me, her shrewd gaze falling on my loose colourless hair, swaying a little in the breeze. The rain hadn’t found us yet, staying on the edge of the horizon, but its damp breeze had sneaked ever closer. My nipples pebbled beneath its caress.
Balling my hands, I answered, “Solin hasn’t told me much.” Fighting the urge to rub away another wash of prickles, I added, “I know he will be there. I’ve watched him fall into a daze before the fire many times while sharing his lupic. He sits upright but is deeper than a dream.”
“Does he seem at peace or at war when he walks in the spirit world of flame?”
I frowned, recalling the nights I’d sat and watched Solin. He never made a sound, but sometimes his body twitched as if he was in pain. As if something hurt him. I didn’t know how to answer without revealing my own fear of such a thing.
“The flames are not something to be trifled with,” Pallen said, walking around me, her feet disappearing into the thick furs. “Our Fire Reader knows this. As long as you follow his guidance, listen to all he tells you, and stay by his side, you will be safe.”
Snapping her fingers at Jilaa, she held out her hand. “The ash and oil, Jilaa. Is it ready?”
“Yes, Pallen.” The pale-skinned apprentice collected the bowl she’d been stirring by the fire, presenting it to Pallen with both hands. “Two parts ash, one part oil, blended with safe intentions and whispered over with chants of homecoming.”
“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.”
I trembled as I turned my hands over, studying the mess covering my palms. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and placed my hands over my eyelids. The soft thud of the bowl hitting the furs by my paste-painted feet sounded, just before Pallen’s own touch landed on the back of mine.
Pressing harder than I had, coating my eyelashes in oil, she dragged my touch down, covering my cheeks, drawing a veil over my face that clung sticky and full of char.
Keeping her hands on mine, she murmured, “Repeat after me, Girl.”
I nodded beneath her hold.
“Flames I belong, Quelis I be.”
Licking my lips, tasting the bitter bite of acorn mixed with ash, I whispered, “Flames I belong, Quelis I be.”
“I request safe passage for your messages to see.”
“I request safe passage for your messages to see.”
“Keep me in your light for all of the night.”
“Keep me in your light for all of the night.”
“But release me the moment day breaks.”
“But release me the moment day breaks.”
Her fingers tightened over mine. “Do not try to trick me to be yours forevermore.”
I trembled. “Do not try to trick me to be yours forevermore.”
“I am merely a visitor, mortal at my core.”
“I am merely a visitor, mortal at my core.”
Dropping her touch, she waited for me to lower my arms and open my eyes. My lashes were heavy and thick with ashes.
“You are as protected as I can make you.” Looking at my painted form, she ordered, “Do not dress. Do not touch or smear the markings on your skin.”
I have to walk through the camp bare?
What if Aktor found me, naked and unprotected?
I shuddered as yet more memories of him forcing my legs open and choking me came swift and sick. I couldn’t remember my past, yet that…that I couldn’t stop remembering.
Pallen clucked her tongue. “No one will dare touch you while you wear the markings of fire.” She shifted closer so the others couldn’t hear. “And besides, it is not this life you need to be afraid of, child.” Stepping back, she raised her voice. “Now, be gone. Return to our Fire Reader. It’s almost dusk. He and the flames are waiting.”
* * * * *
The sun teased the horizon as I stepped through the Nhil camp.
Niya and Hyath flanked me with Syn prowling lithe and swift at my heels. Hyath carried my new clothing while Niya kept shooting me watery glances full of apprehension and tears.
I wanted to clasp her hand and promise I’d be okay. I wanted to soothe her worries, but with ash soaking into my skin, heating my bones with its ever-present warmth, and bleeding into my blood with its swirls and dots and designs, I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
A rock lodged in my throat full of fear.
I just want this finished.
As we stepped from the long grass and padded our way to the central fire, Tral and Tiptu appeared from their lupic, their eyes following me, their lips tight. Aktor and Kivva were nowhere to be seen, but the rest of the clan slowly gathered, drifting closer as I held my head high and fought every instinct to run.
