“When our males were taken away, we learned to defend ourselves,” Indira says before she spins to her small army and orders them, “Sentries, back to your posts! Everyone else, back to your duties.”
The females disappear into the darkness as silently as they arrived. It’s hard to believe that it’s actually daylight on the other side of this shadowy mountain. This village is doused in perpetual night.
Indira heaves a sigh and heads off along the street without waiting for us. “Come with me. I need a strong drink.”
* * *
Indira’s homesits above all the others right on the edge of a cliff, the building itself taking on the attitude of a gargoyle clinging to the precipice by nothing more than the tips of its claws. It suits her.
She pulls off her wing and chest armor and thumps a jug of beer onto the wooden table. Scooping a cup into it, she doesn’t drink it, but carries it over to the sink instead. She sucks in a sharp breath as she pours the alcohol over her wounded arm. “Erit, would you pass me the gum please? Unlike Lady Storm, I don’t have the power to heal my own wounds.”
He lifts the pot from the shelf she points at but dips his forefinger into it instead of passing it to her.
She scowls as he approaches. “I can do it myself.”
“I’m certain you can, Lady Indira.” He ignores her exasperated sigh, reaches for her arm, and wraps his whole hand gently around her elbow to keep it steady so he can apply the sticky gum safely. It will keep the wound sealed while it heals. She bites her lip but doesn’t pull away.
“You have another cut on your cheekbone,” he says, taking a cloth from the sink and soaking it in alcohol from her cup. He lightly dabs the cloth across her cheek. She blinks rapidly, but endures the sharp pain, holding still as he leans in to inspect the wound. Lightly smearing the gum across it, his face ends up close to hers.
Her gaze flickers for the briefest moment to his lips.
I hide a smile. There’s definitely history between these two.
When Erit returns to the table to pour three drinks, Indira joins us, choosing the seat closest to him and furthest from me. That’s fine with me.
I consider all the questions I have for her. “You hated Howl enough to want to kill him. I wish you had, but something must have stopped you.”
She peers into her cup. Despite announcing that she needed a drink, she doesn’t touch the liquor yet. “The practicalities got in the way. I couldn’t fly myself to him because of my wings and none of the females are strong enough to carry me. I had to wait for him to come to me.”
“Which he never did?”
She shakes her head. “Howl took all of the males with him ten years ago. Even the young boys. None of them returned.”
“Gone for ten years?”
“There hasn’t been a child born here the entire time.” She grimaces. “You kind of need males for that sort of thing.”
She taps her cup, her fingernails clinking an irregular rhythm against the side. “The consequences weren’t all bad. He took all the old brutes away. We were glad to see the back of them. After that, it didn’t take long for us to figure out that if we stuck to the old ways, our future would be even more precarious.”
Erit says, “You mean sending teenagers out to hunt shadow panthers.”
“Barbaric practice,” she spits. “I outlawed it.”
“Good.” Erit leans back in his chair. “But I couldn’t help but notice that you are all wearing panther skins. You must be killing them somehow.”
She meets his eyes, an edge to her voice and a muscle twitching in her jaw. “I kill them, along with a group of older females. We don’t send kids to do an adult’s job. Only cowards use children to keep the shadow panther population down.”
She draws a deep breath and swallows a mouthful of alcohol, grimacing as it obviously burns all the way down. She wrinkles her nose and shoves the cup away. “Disgusting stuff.”
Watching her, I make a decision. “Erit… I brought you here because I was going to ask you to lead the Grievous Clan.”
He gives me a smile and a nod, scratching his bristly jaw. “Your intentions were easy to read, Lady Storm. But I see that you’ve changed your mind. I think you’ve made the right decision.”
“Wait…” Indira interjects into the conversation. “You aren’t leading us yourself?”
I level my gaze with hers. “Grievous Indira, do you acknowledge my power to choose the next clan leader?”
A worried crease appears on her forehead. “I do. But if it’s not you, then I want to be involved in the decision. These females have fought to survive with everything they’ve got and I don’t want some arrogant male coming in and—”
