Outside, waves crashed endlessly onto the beach, beating it down and stealing its sand with every new blow. The ocean refused to silence at my command, so I decided to put its insolence to good use. The sobs that racked my lungs slowed until my deep exhalations matched the sound of the waves on the shore. With each breath, warmth pulsed around me, and beads of sweat continued to form and fall. I ignored them until they ran along my hairline and toward my ear, forcing me to sit up and shake off the sweat before it made the world sound wet.
The clouds shifted, and the sheen of moonlight laid claim to my room, creating a silky white glow and casting shadows that ebbed and flowed with the cloud cover. For a moment, the moon was completely uncovered, creating an illuminated path from my window to my bed. I flung the annoying blanket off me, leaving it in an unceremonious pile on the floor. My feet followed the line of light without thought until I stood in front of my window.
Wind slipped around my fingertips and face, pricking me with its cold. For a moment I considered going back to get the cursed blanket but then decided it belonged on the ground.
Infernal thing. A dozen of our country’s best weavers had probably spent a fortune in thread?—and time?—to create the complex embroidery in stunning colors. No detail was overlooked; no corners cut.
But it was useless. Perfectly pretty and completely impractical. Too cold, too itchy, and too... tasseled to be of any comfort. So many people had spent so much time trying to care for me, but in the end, it had been useless.
I was here. Alone.
More alone than I had ever been before. Spirits?—
No. Curse the Spirits. They had taken everyone from me. They’d left me, the last leaf on my family’s tree, clinging desperately to my branch as the leaves around me withered and fell.
I sank to the cold floor, my back against the window as I stared into the room. There was a flutter behind me, followed by a haunting, low whistle, and I ducked instinctively before I remembered that I’d heard that sound before. There was another flutter, and the clouds shifted again, covering the moon and draping my room in its shadows. But there was a faint light emanating from near the window. It came from a single glowing green feather.
An adaiman feather! I lifted it with awe, stroking its soft vane as I stared in wonder at the Spirits’ messenger. But why hadn’t it stayed?
Once more, the clouds shifted, and the moon could show her face. Another item lay near the window; I must have missed it when it was darker. But there was no denying that it was there, sitting where I’d found the feather. It was the adaiman’s delivery?—a message from the Spirits themselves and the light I should use to guide my journey forward.
I picked up the fingerlike, knobbed root. Orange flashed from within wherever the thin brown skin had been damaged.
Turmeric.
The little girlwith big brown eyes stared up into the heavens.
The obsidian cloak of night shimmered with twinkling stars, and the hilltop’s long grasses waved with each breath of wind, tickling the girl’s cheeks as she lay on her back. She brushed an errant ringlet off her face and settled back again, resting her head on her hands.
“The stars are brighter tonight,” she said.
Her voice was small in the vast expanse, and it was made even smaller by the giant winged lion lying beside her. His wings sprawled to either side, illuminating the ground around him and creating a halo of green light. The adaiman hopped nearby, dotting the hilltop with their glowing feathers.
“They are as they ever were.” Matanta’s deep voice rumbled with solemnity.
“But they look brighter tonight,” the little girl insisted. “The moon has taken her rest, so the stars can shine more without her there.”
“The stars have not changed, little one.” Matanta reached a paw up and swept it across the sky. “It is only your perception of them that has changed. I have lived long enough to see stars come and go, to watch them disappear after they flash with light, but for you, child, the stars will hardly change at all between the dawn of your birth and the dusk of your death. These stars were always there, and they shone just as brightly a few nights ago as they do now.”
The girl tutted, but a low grumble from her large friend made her pause before she spoke again.
“I can just see them better,” she said. “When the moon shines so bright, the other stars look dimmer.”
“And when the moon is gone, you see how brightly they’ve shone all along.” Matanta wiggled side to side, scratching his back on the ground and making the nearby adaiman sputter in protest.
Abbakka giggled as the tiny birds chirped angrily at their enormous friend. “It is the same with the adaiman.”
“Hm?” Matanta asked. He struggled to hear her over the squawking birds. “Shh!”
His admonishment silenced the little adaiman. A few gave one last chirp of resentment and then settled back down.
“Look at the ones over there.” Abbakka pointed farther down the slope of the hill, where the birds cast their glowing light and gave the slope green freckles. “They look so bright compared to the ones sitting next to you.”
The little bird closest to Matanta puffed its feathers, making itself as big as it possibly could; then it turned to face the giant lion. It had to crane its head up just to meet Matanta’s golden eye, and it deflated as soon as it found the mighty lion’s gaze.
“Yes, there are those who cast shadows upon those around them,” Matanta said.
He used his massive paw to lift the crestfallen adaiman onto his chest. The little bird chirped happily and nudged the lion’s puffy fur until it formed a little nest for itself and settled down. Matanta continued. “But sometimes we find those whose light brings out our own. And we are far stronger and brighter together than we ever could be alone.”
