Eli might have relaxed a hair. “Good to know. Maybe I’ll text him and ask for a sitrep.”
Leo had said to let my people do their jobs. “I’m micromanaging everything, aren’t I?”
“Yep. Trying to.”
Eli was on the job. Alex was ahead of the job. Bruiser was always on the job and tended to plan in advance like a vamp. I wasn’t alone anymore, but I was still acting as if I was. I’d been flying by the seat of my pants so long I was surprised my undies didn’t have wings. We made the rest of the trip to Aggie’s, the quiet settling between us like a lazy cat, and tiny, misty raindrops settling onto the windshield. It would have been pleasant except that I was always aware of the headlights behind us, the car driven by Ayatas FireWind. Who might truly be my brother.
• • •
I knocked on Aggie’s door as the sun grayed the sky and the stars began to vanish. The front porch light was on and the windows were lit with a pale glow. I smelled cedarwood smoke and coffee. Aggie and her mother were up and moving around, which might have been part of the younger Younger brother’s call or part of Aggie’s early-to-rise lifestyle. Eli pulled out of the drive and headed back up the road. Ayatas parked on what was technically a cul-de-sac and dimmed his headlights. The car door opened and closed.
Aggie opened the door.
“Egini Agayvlge i,” I said, speaking her name inTsalagi, “Elder of The People. I seek your counsel.”
“Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” Aggie said. Then she looked at the man walking up the steps behind me. “You must beAyatas Nvgitsvle, the one who claims kinship with Jane, according to the Elders of the EasternTsalagiand the brothers who have adopted her as sister, brothers who stand at her side in battle.”
I sorta thought that put Ayatas in his place and I felt a little of the stiffness in my shoulders ease. Ayatas didn’t answer.
Aggie went on, “Do you seek counsel as well, One Who Dreams of Fire Wind?”
“I do,Uni Lisi.”
“Lisiwill do. Are you both fasting?”
I nodded. I assumed Ayatas did too.
“Go. Wash. Dress. Wait for me in the sweat house.”
I started to ask for separate waiting areas, but Aggie closed the door in my face, pretty much the way I had done to Ayatas but with less ire in it.Great. I didn’t want to be alone with Ayatas, which was probably why Aggie made it happen. Elders were sneaky.
I looked back at Ayatas and jutted my chin to the sweat house. “Hope you like cold showers.”
Ayatas sighed. “I’d rather have the coffee I smell.”
“I’m a tea kinda gal, but yeah. Coffee would work.”
Coffee. Common grounds? Ha-ha?
Side by side, our weapons left behind, we trudged to the sweat house, a wood hut with a metal roof, located at the back of the property, in the winter-bare limbs of trees. In the rear of the building, I pointed to the spigots and Ayatas dipped his head in a half bow. He said, “You first, my sister. I’ll wait until you’re inside.” He stepped back to the front of the building. His words were careful, as was his body language. There was something there in his manner and words if I could only figure out what. I stripped, hung my clothes on the empty hook, and turned the water on. And managed not to curse as the icy water drenched me.
Not bothering to dry off, I pulled on the undyed cotton shift hanging on the nail, braiding my hair out of the way. The shifts were better than the undyed lengths of cloth tied above my boobs I had used on other sweats, especially with a man in the room. I stopped. I had never been to sweat with anyone other than Aggie and her mother. I wasn’t sure how this was supposed to work. I didn’t like not knowing what to expect. I tied off the tip of my braid with a bit of string pulled from the inside seam of the shift, my fingers suddenly and unexpectedly clumsy.
I opened the low door and stepped inside. The sweat house was already warm and I shivered at the change in temperature, though the winter air outside was warmer than anything I had been accustomed to in the Appalachian Mountains.
So maybe it wasn’t the cold that made me quiver.
I heard the water come on and Ayatas’s inhale, shocked at the cold.
I sat in my usual place on the clay floor, crossed my knees, adjusted the shift to cover everything important, and leaned back against the split log seat behind me. The seat was hand-carved for the Elders or the injured to use when floor seating wasn’t practical.
The coals in the pit before me threw back heat, glowing red and cracking apart, and the rocks lining it in a circle were hot to the touch. I had been here often enough that I slipped easily into a meditative state. A memory came back to me, warm and soothing, of Aggie’s soft voice speaking about circles. At some point in a previous ceremony, when I was relaxed on one of her concoctions and in a deeply meditative state, Aggie had told me the purpose of the rock and fire. In my memory, I heard her say,“Rocks in a circle are ceremonial, part of the Four Directions, the Cords of Life, and the Universal Circle. The fire center leads Tsalagi into accord with the Great One, into harmony with Nature, and into harmony of relationships with each other. It also leads to healing of self, mentally, physically, and spiritually.”
I didn’t understand what any of that meant, but this fire had burned a long time. I figured Aggie had taken someone to sweat during the night. I didn’t like it when she took two sessions back-to-back, especially since some sessions—unlike my own—lasted days. Aggie looked and acted young, but deadly dehydration was a real possibility in a woman her age. If I said that, she’d likely thunk me over the head with something.
Ayatas opened the low sweat house door and, like me, he had to duck his head to enter. He moved like a cat in the dark of the windowless space. Ayatas wasn’t wearing a shift. He was wearing a loincloth, one that was clearly his own.
Memories hit me fast.
