Genesis Lost - Books 1 - 6, page 80
He pressed his arms against his chest and placed his forehead into his palm as if he was weary of having a head.
“We haven’t had a doctor in two years,” he said in a tired voice, “so I’d say it’s worth the wait. But I hope you also came to make good on the rest of our deal because, if you don’t, there’s no way I could swing them to agree to it.”
“What other agreement?” I asked.
Rowan’s shoulders tensed. He gave Xavier a firm stare, trying to shake his head ever so slightly, hoping it would go unnoticed by no one but me. But I noticed, and the awareness that there was more to it all drove the chill of the mountains deep into my bones. Whatever else Xavier had requested of Rowan, it was enough to trigger lies.
“Riiight,” Xavier said in a long, drawn-out tone.
He clapped his hand two times, making a figure appear from a small door behind his throne. A scheme dressed in wide linen walked into the room, the shoulders and chest wrapped in a gray and white-speckled shawl of hide. Dainty feet poking out from underneath the hem gave her away as a woman, though nothing else would have.
She wore a veil of sticks and spindly bones, strung like dozens of chains around her head. They clanked and jangled with each of her steps, softly whipping her chin and riding against her shoulders. She had no hair, and the veil hid her face.
Xavier paid no attention to how we all stared at her and only pointed at the boy who had returned to practicing his first steps. “Take him.”
The woman gave a clanking nod and hurried toward the boy with no word spoken. She picked up the child, pressed him against her, and hurried to stand beside me, her eyes planted to the ground.
“Nefja here will take you and your daughter to the hut we prepared you.” He walked over to me and took my hands into his, holding them gently but with a certain persuasive strength to them. “You have nothing to fear while you are here. Nefja will bring you the meals the women have prepared for you, and I will join you once your husband and I have discussed the boring matters that come with chieftainhood.”
“But…”
Rowan plopped Rose onto my arms and gave me a stern nod. “Take her with you so she can move around. I will come to you once this is done.”
Nineteen
Darya
Powdered in knee-high snow, it was a quick guess this Clan didn’t receive too many visitors. After Nefja had given the boy to an old woman, she led me along the trail, picking up her dainty feet only to let them come down again in a stomp a few inches closer to our destination: the guest hut.
She had slipped a fur-lined hood over her head, hiding the strawberry-blonde stubbles which emerged from her otherwise bald scalp. I walked right behind her, stepping into her tracks and growing them by at least three sizes.
A closer look at her would have likely revealed a girl, perhaps at the edge of her bloom. But the way she moved about the village in tiny yet certain steps made me fear she, too, had to grow up quicker than was good for the salvation of her soul. A burden all girls carried from birth.
“Chieftain Xavier will join us soon,” she said in such a soft voice, her steamy breath rising into the evening was almost the only proof to me that she had said anything at all. After that: silence. Silence and the sound of cold, spindly bones clanking against each other. Then against her face.
Once at the hut, Nefja slipped her shoulder through the heavy leather curtain and led me inside. Built of bricks, field stones, and smaller rocks, the hut stood somewhat unlevel but roomy. It didn’t take me long to figure out why.
“No fireplace?” I asked, letting my eyes wander about the neatly arranged furniture. A simple table with benches and chairs stood in the middle, well provided with painted plates, wine-filled carafes and clay pots with still simmering meals inside.
“No, ma’am,” she said and placed her flat palm against one of the red bricks. “Most huts have double-layered walls with a hollow core between. Underground pipes go inside those gaps and fill them with the hot steam from the springs.”
I took a step toward the wall and placed my hand next to hers, letting my cold-brittle skin soak in the burning heat. “Hot springs? Is that the steam I saw all around the village?”
“Yes, ma’am. We reserve fire for the dead. Trees are holy to us, and it would be a sin to cut them down for heat.”
Rose wiggled on my hip, the only thing keeping her from leaping away from me the arm I kept tight around her waist. Nefja, without looking, pointed at a bear hide in front of an old, saggy couch. I walked over and placed Rose down, who immediately grabbed a handful of the shaggy mane and let out an excited coo.
“Your daughter seems happy to be able to move around,” came from the direction of the leather curtain. Xavier’s voice startled me. Not so much because it came unexpected, but because it came from him. Manly but not rough, his choice of words always seemed articulate and smooth-spoken. A rare combination nowadays, with a certain degree of danger dangling at the edge of each remark.
I didn’t turn but gave a stiff shrug. “It took us two days to get here, and I can tell you she wasn’t too happy about being wrapped up in a bunch of blankets.”
“That’ll be all Nefja.”
The girl lowered her head even more and bowed her legs in some sort of old-fashioned curtsy, shuffling her feet around us and out into what had turned to night. Breath burst in and out of me more rapidly, a jarring voice inside my head pointing out the obvious: I was alone with him now.
“It’s an odd thing he brought you here,” he said, the heels of his boots clanking on the stone floor. “Most men would leave their wife and child back home. Where they are safe.”
“There’s no place safer than with Rowan,” I blurted, fixating my eyes on Rose so I wouldn’t have to turn and face him.
A chair or a bench screeched across the rock and gave a humph when he sat down. Pottery lids opened and closed, filling the room with scents of rosemary and garlic.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
I spun around and pushed the lie across my lips. “Never!”
“That makes you either a fool…” He grabbed a small, silver ladle, dived it into one of the steaming clay pots and let a load of stew dribble onto a plate. Then he picked up the spoon beside it and pointed the handle right at me. “Or a liar. But I don’t think you’re a fool, considering you made it to this age. Not to mention how you got inside the Districts. And out again.”
I looked at him for a long moment, my eyes flicking back and forth between the spoon in his hand and the subtle smile on his face. After a while, I walked up to him, pulled it out of his hands, and sat down on the bench across.
“There are many dangerous men here,” he said and carefully pushed the loaded plate over to me, stopping and waiting each time the stew threatened to spill. “But you’re safe with me. Forcing myself on women is… not my style.”
“The girl…”
“Nefja?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, pushing the peas of the stew to the edge of the plate. “She’s got her head shaved.”
He sucked in his upper lip and gave a quick nod, well knowing there was a question hidden in my observation. “We require girls to shave off their hair from the age of twelve until we marry them. Makes them… less appealing to men. Less feminine. That’s the idea, at least. Granted it failed terribly because someone with balls so loaded they might burst at any moment, well, they care little about hair. But it’s a tradition now.”
He glanced at me as if to see what I thought, rubbing a fingernail across his thumb. Weird how potholed highways and difficult terrains had turned miles of land into oceans of cultural differences.
“Where is my husband?” I asked, dipping the tip of the spoon into the dark, brown gravy and making it disappear inside my mouth. The rich flavors of winter herbs made my tongue curl up against my gums, and I let the spoon dart for a mouthful.
“Your husband is standing by his word as anyone would expect him to. I helped him to get you out of the Districts unharmed, and he will help me to secure my position as chieftain here.”
The thought of this guy claiming a part in my rescue turned the potato chunks inside my mouth too hot, and the meat too chewy. I swallowed whatever knot had formed underneath my tongue.
“You didn’t help him,” I said, the sour taste of my words torturing my buds as if they understood very well what Xavier said was true.
“Isn’t this adorable,” he said in a school-girl tone. “To you, Rowan is the biggest, baddest motherfucker on earth, isn’t he? But I got news for you: even the alpha male needs a helping hand from time to time.”
I took another spoonful of shredded meat in gravy and swallowed it along with my pride. And Rowan’s pride. Two years ago we put a bullet in every mountain scum that made it down into our territory. Now, I owed their new chieftain a debt I could never repay — because Rowan was paying it for me.
“What did you ask him to do for you?”
Narrow-eyed and with a cocked head, a hint of confusion quickly spread across his five-days-old stubbles. Not sure what exactly drove nausea up my esophagus: the fact that I had no idea, or Xavier’s surprise over it.
He shook the confusion off his face and straightened up. “I admire his bravery,” came out his voice, loud and confident as if he meant it, but with a cunning aftertaste to it. “It takes guts to go against the people of his Clan and bring a traitor back. The runaway wife. Who caused so much despair among her own people. Tell me, how are you settling in, now that you’re back?”
“I’m not a traitor,” I hissed, the words scratching my lips like fresh shards.
“Yeah, I get that. Everyone with common sense will know the video and voice recordings are nothing but propaganda, used by the Districts to weaken us from the inside,” he said, making my limbs go bloodless within the fraction of a second.
Panic trembled my knees.
What video?
“But then again,” he continued, “common sense is not always common.”
“What video?” I asked, pushing the question out with as much grit as I could muster, trying not to show how small this made me feel. There was only one video that fit the context.
“I see…” His gaze crawled over me, the repulsiveness of it leaving me covered in disgust. “Rowan never told you. I guess he wanted to protect you from it but… I’m sure all this time you wondered why your Clan hates you that much. It’s on all old broadcast channels.”
I stared at Xavier, the outlines of his face turning blurry. The truth of his words woke me like a bucket of iced water poured over my face. Ripping me out of a dream. No. Not a dream. A god damn illusion.
If Rowan stayed with me, the traitor, many would see him as weak. Weakness, or even the appearance of it, was what got chieftains killed — along with his family. Along with his heirs.
I hurried over and reached out for her, keeping my nerves steady. “I said what I had to say to survive. To get my daughter back.”
He said nothing but pointed at one of the bedroom doors where I found a crib, neatly arranged against the side of the bed. She gave a sleepy sigh when I placed her on the green polka-dotted sheet, and I hoped she would fall to sleep without a fuss.
Xavier’s eyes immediately locked with mine when I came back, the wrinkles on his forehead tense and unmoving. “Without Rowan remaining chieftain, I won’t be able to steer my Clan onto a better path. He might not know it yet, but he and I both need this alliance to stay alive.”
His cold stare chipped away on my confidence. There would be contenders. There would be bloodshed. And nobody could tell whose blood would seep into the leafy soil.
“And I am getting in the way of that?” I asked, knowing full well Xavier was too well-spoken to have voiced it.
All slyness washed off his face, leaving his stare full with pain and jaw-clenching agony. “I lost too much to risk failure.”
I slowly sat back down as not to interrupt the obvious grief clutching on his curled shoulders. “Why on earth did you help us get me out of the Districts then? This makes no sense.”
“Sympathy, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his palms across his face, ripping off his shroud of agony. “And I didn’t think you guys would make up, to be honest.”
Inside I was shaking my head vigorously. I wouldn’t let this drive a wedge between us. Not again. But on the outside? My head sat stiffly on my shoulders, and I had to force my voice over my lips. “Do you know that —”
“That she isn’t his?” He scoffed. “Doesn’t take more than third-grade math to figure that out. Third-grade math and some common sense, but we already talked about what’s the deal with that.”
The wet smell of steam penetrating the stone walls crept into my nose, making me feel as if I’d drown. For a moment, I was tempted to tell him Rose would be safe if everyone knew she wasn’t an heir. Not a true one, anyway.
But my lips were too shaky, too weak to push yet another lie through their narrow gap. My hands should have been shaking, but they lay lifeless to the left and right of the cold stew.
Absolutely and terribly powerless. Maternal instinct made fear spread through guts. If Rowan failed, they’d come for us next.
“I want to say this much about it,” Xavier whispered and ripped me out of my thoughts. “I have great respect for how Rowan is like a father to her, no matter where she came from. I’m not sure I would be man enough to do it. Fuck. The gods know I’m not even man enough to take care of my own…” His voice trailed off, making room for the agony from earlier to move back onto his face.
He released a sharp breath and continued, “In any case, I want you to understand that you would always be welcome at my Clan. People here know little about the quarrels between your Clan and the Districts. And the only one who knows more is… well… he shouldn’t be a problem anymore at this point.”
“Rowan is strong, and he did great things for our Clan,” I said, the grip of terror leaving a slur behind in my voice. “They won’t put him aside over something like this. They wouldn’t. And even if they did, I can guarantee you my husband doesn’t die easily. Things will calm down soon enough.”
He leaned forward on his chair, folded his hands, and rested his elbows on his thighs. For a moment, I thought he might nod. Give me the reassurance I needed to make up for the certainty I lacked. Xavier lowered his head and stared up at me, more concern in his shadowed eyes than I could ever carry in my heart. He wasn’t going to nod.
“I can’t leave him,” I said, a constant and rhythmic shake on my head. “Someone once convinced me it was for the better. For political reasons. I won’t ever let that come between us again. You said it yourself, he is more father to Rose than anyone ever could. Taking her away from him —”
“Might save your husband’s life, and hers as well.”
He paused for a long moment, letting the truth of his words settle down on me like a dead weight, forcing my eyes shut.
“You don’t have to decide now,” he continued. “I just want you to know there’s a place for you once the situation escalates.”
A suffocating wave of guilt came crashing down on me, making me gasp for air in a room full of oxygen. I had broken Rowan’s heart one time, two times, three times. I was the runaway wife and the heartbreaker and the soul crusher. What would be left of him if I broke it a fourth time?
“I won’t leave him,” I said in my never-ever-again voice, “and he won’t let me.”
Twenty
Rowan
“I don’t know, Rowan.” Oriel screwed the suppressor onto his gun, held out his arm, and checked the alignment. “When you asked me to come I figured I’d take care of one while you take care of the other. Now only one is left. You’re greedy, don’t you think?”
I scratched my nail across the knife handle, letting my fingertips press deep into the furrows. “This is personal, and I don’t want you to have their blood on your hands.”
“You’re making it sound like I never had to kill anyone before.”
“This is different.”
“Where’s the difference?” He checked the magazine and pushed it back in with a click. “They all bleed the same and shit themselves once it’s over.”
I grabbed my gun from the holster, pointed it down, and handed it to him. “How many men have you killed to defend yourself? Your family? Someone innocent?”
He stared at the barrel. If it wouldn’t have been so fucking dark already, chances were I would have seen the reflection of his eyes losing themselves in the shiny metal. No matter how high the number grew, we always kept on counting. If a man told me he didn’t, I’d call him a liar.
He cleared his throat and blinked back into the here and now. “Enough to know that this is an easy task.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Except that it isn’t. You killed men to protect yourself and the ones you love. That’s what a husband does. A brother. A son. But going in there and killing an old, helpless man who did nothing to you? That’s what a killer does.” I took a deep breath and pushed myself up from the snow, listening to the stray sounds of laughs and dog barks in this otherwise silent village. “It’s too late for me but I sure as hell won’t let that happen to you.”
He took my gun. Wordless.
I leaned against the cold rock face and gazed down at Elder Lael’s hut, waiting for the flickers in the window to die.
“I want you to keep watching Xavier.” I picked up another handful of snow, rubbing down my palms and fingers. The blood of the other guy was long gone, but the disgusting feeling on my skin remained. Like a sticky tar that wouldn’t come off. Not even something as white and pure as freshly fallen snow could wipe your hands clean from this sin.
