I used to love vanishing into the forest or the plains, becoming one with nature for a while and not thinking about the future or responsibilities. That had been especially true when Kusha was alive. Once, when we were young, she had been my very best friend. That’s why, when we got a little older, we decided to perpetuate a lie that would ensure I’d never lose my place in the village. Once, that had been what Kusha feared most—losing her strongest protector and staunchest ally.
Reshar was waiting for an answer, but he was a patient male. His sleek, azure body was propped against the side of my wood-and-clay home, draped casually. As a concession against the cold, he’d pulled on a long-sleeved tunic lined with fur and a hat that covered his ears and brow. He’d still made sure to leave his long, pale-blue hair free about his shoulders, and the open collar at his throat exposed the glint of azure scales. In every way, Reshar was the ideal standard of what a Thunder Rock male should look like. I was not that.
The truth was, Kusha had been right all those years ago. Without her, without pledging my full loyalty to her life, I would have been without a home, without a Clan, and without my sweet, beautiful children. The Queen then, Reshar’s mother, would have seen me cast out far sooner thanany other male because of my deviating appearance. Kusha’s plan had worked; she’d kept me safe, and in return, I’d endeavored all this time to do the same for her—and I had failed.
The black cloud of grief—but mostly guilt—threatened to swallow me then. I touched the scars that weren’t there but should have been along my chest. Artek the Shaman had done too good a job healing me. Then I fingered the strap of leather across my face, which covered my damaged right eye. The orb had been saved, but not the vision, and scarring had turned it milky white. Not only had I failed to protect Kusha from death; my failure had deprived my children of their mother. The guilt of that was ready to eat me alive.
“Hey,” Reshar said, but it wasn’t because he’d run out of patience. The younger male had a hint of command to his voice that most of his peers—even the older hunters—responded to with alacrity. He reined that in now, though not to anything particularly soft or full of pity, which I appreciated. He’d straightened, and now he said firmly, “It is not your fault. Females take the biggest risks in their lives when a Queen position is up. They were the ones who chose to travel through Bitter Storm territory to find and fight Sazzie. They were the ones who could not wait or accept her vow that she was stepping down.”
Sazzie was Reshar’s sister, but as far as I knew, the two had never been close. Not the way Zathar and Sazzie had been when they were little. The former crown prince and now leader of Haven had received several stern lectures from his father—when he was alive—and from other older hunters, urging him to stop protecting his sister. It was not doing her any favors. Having a young daughter myself now, I wondered, though…
Kusha had changed after Nisha was born; I’d seen it with my own eyes. She’d nursed sweetly and doted on both our boys, but Nisha had barely received enough milk to thrive. I had been forced to supplement on many occasions with milkfrom nursing Vakarsa or Arazal. After Nisha, Kusha had withdrawn from parenting entirely, almost rejecting her children, even the boys. She had become more ambitious and cruel too, threatening on more than one occasion to expose our secret if I did not do as she wished.
“Tell that to my sons,” I said firmly to Reshar. “I will take whatever mission the new Queen gives me, as is my duty.” I did not bow to him or dip my horns to my throat in respect, as I might have in the past. The former princeling’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing. With him, you could not be sure if that was because he was annoyed by the slight, the reminder of his change in status, or if something else was running through his too-clever brain.
“So you will, and so you should,” Reshar agreed with me. He straightened away from the wall of my home and slithered closer to where I’d halted at the sound of his first words. He paused at my side and looked out over the village, turning his head left and right to observe the many empty homes. Often, females had their own place, and almost a dozen had died or vanished after the fights for succession had started. Now we had a Queen, one who’d risen suddenly from the groups of lower-ranking females. A weak Queen, everyone thought, because our strongest, fittest, most suited females had all perished thanks to Bitter Storm’s interference.
This Queen had already made changes all over the village to leave her mark and cement her power. She’d suspended all boys from learning our ancient script to start with, and made it clear there was no treaty with Haven now that Zathar’s mother was dead. It was open season on humans. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Reshar did not agree with that. He was fascinated by the choice his brother and sister had made, and, the truth was, he was not the only hunter who felt that way.
I didn’t know where I stood on the matter, but I wasn’t one to kill or shun others just because they were different. I was different, my younglings were different, and they werealready struggling to make friends because of it. Daois had my purple eyes, Rasho had begun to lose the luster on his scales, going as muted as mine were. And Nisha? She was most strikingly mine, and it got her bullied by her peers, turning her fragile confidence to dust.
I eyed the male next to me and realized he’d dropped his gaze from the village to glance over his shoulder at the door to my home, his thoughts pensive. “When you are away, I will watch out for them. But don’t stay gone too long, Khawla. I have a bad feeling.” Then he darted away, moving smoothly over the wooden walkway above the mud and snow to wind back to one of the bachelor campfires. His words left me with a sense of horrible unease in my gut, a disquiet I could not shake. I wanted to leave even less now, and forget about a break for some quiet time. I needed to stay here and keep Nisha and her brothers safe.
The sound of voices rising inside my home forced me to turn back and go inside so I could break up the fight. Of course, Daois and Rasho had gotten into it again, but from the sound of it, Nisha was the one caught in the middle this time. My hand was on the door just as my brother, Arosha, showed up.
His expression was harried, his dark hair a little messy and tangled, and at least three stains decorated the front of his tunic. That was probably not his fault; he just had a household full of younglings. His place, by default, the daycare epicenter for all hunters to bring their children when they went out to hunt that day. Arosha was a bit clumsy and a terrible hunter, but we all valued him for what hedidbring to the village, his role was vital.
For him to show up meant he had to have found someone to watch the brood currently in his home. Whatever he had to say was important, very important. He’d probably overheard that I was about to be summoned by the new Queen. Kind heart that he had, he was here to take charge of my younglings so I would be free to go.
Nisha slammed open the door just as Arosha clasped my shoulder. I caught the wooden panel with one hand to keep it from slamming into him, then frowned down at my ill-dressed daughter. She had the grace to look a little embarrassed for nearly hitting her uncle, but that sheepish expression quickly morphed into dismay. “No, Daddy!” she hissed in the cutest, high pitch. Then tears sprang into her eyes, prompting me to rush down and pick her up. She was only four cycles old, still young enough for mature females to accept that kind of behavior. It wouldn’t be long, though, before they’d start telling her to toughen up, to not show weakness.
So I tucked her against my chest, wrapping my arms and a coil around her to keep her warm and sheltered. She dug her fists beneath my own fur tunic, claws digging into my scales but not strong enough to pierce them, not yet. “I don’t want to go with Rosh,” she sobbed. Her cries had made both her brothers rush to the door too, fight forgotten. They stared at me with wide eyes, and I knew they were thinking the same thing. I couldn’t disobey a queen, though; our survival depended on staying in her good graces. Now more than ever.
I said nothing, just held my little girl until she’d spent her tears. My boys didn’t need to be told what to do, either; they had already gone to grab their bags. I tugged the tail warmer over Nisha’s tail when Rosh handed it to me, and for once, she did not protest. She didn’t protest, either, when I pulled her into her coat, and that hurt most of all. They were so used to this, to their father leaving for long periods of time. I hated it.
By the time my brother was guiding the three of them over the walkways to his home, a young hunter had shown up to fetch me. I held up a finger to him, urging him to wait, ducked into my home to nudge sand over the fire with a coil, and grabbed my always-ready pack of supplies. My fingers tightened around my spear when I picked that up, too.Missing an eye had severely hampered my ability to use it, and I’d trained hard all winter to compensate for the loss.
By the time we reached the Pagode at the center of our village, my mask of the obedient hunter was in place. To protect my younglings, I’d do anything. After the loss of their mother, I couldn’t rip them from the only home they’d ever known. So I had to obey; I had to please this new Queen, so she’d let us stay.
For winter, the normally open structure had been shuttered with movable, carved wooden panels. The interior would have been dark if not for the dangling oil lamps. The wicks, dipped in animal fat, gave off a strong smell, and a thin haze of smoke hung inside the building. Adding to the confusing darkness, long swatches of fabric hung from the rafters and draped throughout the space—like the trailing tails of fog, or the long vines of an overgrown forest. I was certain the new Queen had done it on purpose, obscuring so much to hide her less-than-stellar credentials for the role.
Not that any of us males truly cared who was queen, as long as day-to-day life could continue and our younglings were safe. Mated hunters also cared about the safety of their mates, and after the loss of nearly a dozen females, I was not the only one grieving.
In the darkness, the young hunter left me alone, but I didn’t need him at my back anyway. A dozen eyes blinked at me from beneath veils of smoke and fabric. The court the Queen had established around herself lazed on the pillows, wrapped in warm furs against the last gasp of winter cold. The Queen herself was on the raised platform, draped on her throne and wrapped in glittering gold. She had helped herself to everything the previous Queen had left behind, and to whatever could be found in Sazzie’s home on top of that.
My stomach still twisted with anger when I recalled that the female had even gone so far as to take everything gold and precious from the fallen females. That included whatever jewelry Kusha had left behind—precious pieces I’d bled toacquire—pieces that should have gone to Nisha, now that her mother was dead.
It was rage that won out by the time the Queen raised herself and fanned a lamp to brightness beside her. That light glittered on all her stolen gold, but it was the piece that glinted with amethysts around her wrist that caught my attention. That one was definitely Nisha’s; it was the very first piece I’d slaved over, to trade for and gift to Kusha—when she’d told me she was pregnant with Rasho, my oldest son.
“My master scout,” the Queen drawled. I forced in a deep breath and kept the scales along my back from shivering. More anger, more rage. She insisted on calling everything hers, another means to cover her insecurities, to solidify her power base. It rankled in ways I couldn’t explain. The previous Queen had done the same. What did it matter? So I held my tongue and dipped into the deepest, most respectful bow I could muster. She was all that stood between my children and banishment from the village. I had to stay on her good side, no matter what.
She did not expect a reply, but once I rose again, she launched into her orders for me, outlining in far too many words that she wanted me to appraise the situation near the crashed and sealed ship. Hunters had brought her word of lights flickering and ghostly apparitions in the dead of night—of red lightning in the woods, and missing supplies or stolen kills.
I had heard some of these rumors myself, but I did not hold much stock in them. Until Zathar created Haven at Ahoshago Peak, my hunters had believed that place was haunted too, but that was not true. Not if Zathar and his outcasts could live there without consequence, and they were. I’d scouted their growing village several times over the past year, ever since they settled there. They were thriving, even if they were outcasts and misfits. Hunters from far too many Clans working together with humans and beasts. It was… bizarre and unnatural.
“Yes, my Queen,” was all I said when she was finished giving her orders. I dipped once again into a deep bow and swore I would see it done. I thought that would be it, that she would dismiss me from her thoughts and I’d be free to leave. I was wrong. Her tail lashed out, the narrow tip shooting like a whip through the air and straight for my throat. It was reflex to catch it with my hand and slap it away, and I knew as soon as I did it that I’d failed her test: to see how loyal I was, how willing to demean myself for her, all so my brood of deviant children, and I, could stay.
She hissed, teeth bared, azure eyes flashing at me in fury, but her tail dropped and retreated. It was a mistake I could not fix, and part of me was maybe too proud. If she expected me to drop at her feet and grovel… I should, for my younglings. I really should. At best, I managed a bow at the hip, barely deep enough to appease anyone. Then I slipped from the Pagode, heart racing, fear shivering down my spine.
