Chapter 23
Kestrel woke with a scream in her throat. Her eyes searched the shadows in the wagon, frantic as she balanced in that moment between dreamworld and the perceived. Dreams she sensed were more vision than imagination churned through her mind.
What little rest she got was fraught with a feeling of desperation and she woke with her muscles tense and her emotions jumbled. Tears welled up in her eyes, but her heart calmed when she saw her great-mother sitting on a step-seat behind the curtained-off buckboard. Before she could speak, the older clanswoman was at her side.
“Thank Alhwone’s mercy you are awake.” Caussara kissed her on her forehead and helped Kestrel sit up.
The worried look in her great-mother’s eyes confused her. She reached out, grasping her hands. “Has something happened? I sense great worry gnawing at you like a wolf at a bone.”
Caussara nodded. “Indeed, child, you collapsed in my arms this morning as we hugged.”
Kestrel bit down on her lower lip, trying to remember what happened. And as her memory of the morning returned, the feeling of desperation slowly faded. But why she fainted and what the visions might mean she had no idea.
The visions, now nothing more than a tangle of images and half-formed thoughts, were not something she was ready to share. She needed time to sort things out. Even if she had the words, she thought, her greatparents needed time to come to terms with her mother, Moira’s death, before dropping more on their shoulders.
She stretched, trying to loosen her sore muscles, but with the next wagon bump, she sat back on the bed. Her great-mother’s eyes twinkled as she sat next to her.
“You haven’t lost your wagon legs, so quickly have you, Hawkling?” Caussara gently teased.
Her great-mother took Kestrel by the shoulders and turned her gently away. Then, with experienced hands, she kneaded her greatdaughter’s shoulders. “You’re as tight as a strung bow, child.”
Kestrel knew most of it came from riding the Yanzul through the night. That first night she learned just how different it was to ride Sirrsi compared to a Theracan bred horse. It was better now as she learned to trust her companion and her strength improved.
She almost laughed when she thought of telling her great-mother how she flew through the night sky on her companion. Instead, she shrugged in reply. In the course of a bare double handful of days, life had changed. Her life, she was not the same girl anymore and she was unsure of who she was or her place in the clan.
After being closed up through the day, the air in the wagon felt stuffy and hot. Kestrel could tell they were headed northwest by the dappled fall of half-light on the clan leaders’ possessions. She smiled and squeezed her great-mother’s hands to let her know she was fine.
“I am sorry I worried you. I guess my weariness and the stress of the journey caught up with me all at once. How long have I… slept.” She grimaced at her last word, unsure her great-mother would believe that was what it was.
But Caussara did not push her. Instead, she chuckled, her voice light and reassuring. “A while. Close your eyes so the light doesn’t blind, Hawkling.” She rose and pulled open the curtain between the wagon seat and the covered bed.
The golden tones of late afternoon streamed into the back, revealing her great-mother’s face, tear washed but at peace. Kestrel stood, swaying for a moment to catch her balance, then completed the hug they started that morning.
Her great-mother patted her back and said, “Why don’t you ride upfront with your great-father for a bit. He will be glad to see you.”
She heard her great-father’s voice drift to the back. “Indeed I would.”
Ignoring the step-seat, Kestrel boosted her way up and wiggled around to sit next to her great-father. He wrapped the reins about his leg and turned to embrace her. She reveled for just a moment in the hug from this bear of a man and felt once more there was someplace safe in what had become a perilous, confusing landscape.
After a time, he gently pulled away and took back up the reins. “Now tell me, greatdaughter, when will we meet the exotic creature you now ride?” He glanced sideways at her and when she protested, he patted the air like calming a colt and said, “Our scout said you‘re riding it is a sight to see, though your landing… not so much.”
Kestrel well knew the look his eyes held and chuckled. “So, we were seen. I should have known with all the sharp eyes in our clan.”
“Indeed.” His nod encouraged her to continue.
“She is a Yanzul.”
“And that is?” Dondorian quietly asked.
Kestrel took a deep breath, glad her great-father’s patience allowed her time to compose an answer, but when she opened her mouth what came out was simply, “She is my companion.”
Although Dondorian covered his surprised grunt with a clicking of the tongue and a jiggling of the reins, Kestrel felt his disapproval. She had never held back from him, not for as long as she could remember. She glanced at him, unsure how to tell him all that had befallen since last they talked.
Her great-mother moved forward from where she sat in the back mending clothing. Her hand softly upon her lifemate’s arm, she gave Kestrel an encouraging smile, although the smile followed a deep furrow of worry between her brows.
“She sought me out the night mah was killed by the Academy Tavir-weaver called Mason. Sirrsi saved my life twice over before the night was through. After, although I wasn’t ready to hear it, she mind-spoke with me and told me she was sent with a message.”
Kestrel felt Dondorian stiffen as she spoke her mother’s name. His deep blue eyes pierced her with unasked questions. “And?”
She saw his patience neared its end, but she didn’t want to begin the tale she would have to tell again when the moon rose and the Thorn-Wolf Clan gathered. As Kestrel considered what to tell them, she wondered if her coming-of-age vision quest would still happen.
Fielding the multitude of questions in his single word, she asked. “Great-father, because I have bonded with the yanzul, will I still go upon my vision quest? Is Sirrsi my vision animal?”
“If, as you say, you have bonded with her,” the older man paused. His gaze threatened to burrow into her head. “Then you communicate with her somehow.”
Kestrel gave a quick nod.
“Well then, what does she say?”
“That I am a child of the Tree, whatever that means. And that my spirit called to her from the first moment I sensed the essence of things.”
He nodded slowly, but before he could say anything, her great-mother spoke up.
“The Enkeli-Al’far do indeed serve the element of life and are often called the children of the Tree, the Wista-Nem. My mother was Enkeli-Al’far, a cousin to the head of the High Council, Urilith. She was a warrior with the Espiare First Guard before she joined the resistance.”
“Urilith? The message Sirrsi carried was from him!”
“How in the name of Alhwone’s staff does Urilith know about you?”
“Sirrsi said, when she sensed my presence, she sensed I was an Al’far and went to him to get any advice or information she could.” Kestrel turned to her great-mother, intent on turning the conversation away from her story, before she ended up knee-deep in the telling of her past handful of days.
“I imagine it was an exciting life when you were young,” Kestrel said, truly delighted that her great-mother shared anything of her past. She hoped to encourage Caussara to continue instead of spending the time speaking around her mah, Moira, and what happened.
“Perhaps, but enough about that. I fear I am not the one to tell you about the Enkeli-Al’far cultural rituals. The Al-far, during that time… why I guess it could be said of all Espiare… were different.” Caussara shrugged. “My coming of age ritual involved the entire village and centered on the grove of Wista trees we cared for. Only those chosen by the mark of Alhwone to be Wista-warriors bonded with an animal companion.”
Her great-mother smiled, pointing to a narrow trail that branched off the one they were on. “We will stop for the night shortly. I promise we will again talk of this and many other things, by and by.”
The idea of talking to her great-mother about a past she thirsted after and didn’t truly know from where to drink lifted Kestrel’s heart. As the horses left the merchant’s road for the trail, she decided since the clan traveled north just as she and Sirrsi, she would continue with them, until she could not. Tonight she would tell Sirrsi of her decision.
She stretched her back, glad to stop, before her discomfort bit harder. Since early morning, she had not eaten, drank, or been able to relieve herself. Her body grumbled about all three.
Kestrel realized as she helped her great-father scoop grain for the horses how much she missed her mother’s horse, Plainstrider. With a sigh, she looked up to find her great-father watched her.
“Well,” Dondorian said, giving his horse a pat as well as the grain. “Where are the mare and Plainstrider?”
Amazed that he knew her so well, her eyes met his. She saw his patience still held, but the question in his eyes was emphasized by his single arched brow. She blinked, raised her hands in a shrug and a horse nuzzled her fingers.
Kestrel couldn’t help but smile and turn to stroke her nose. She looked back at her great-father. “She is with foal.”
Dondorian snorted. “Indeed, she is. That randy stallion of Oreander One-Eye got with her at the Kalayani Festival. Good thing his stock is sound and fair to look upon.” He said with a wink, but his expression quickly turned sober as he waited for Kestrel to answer his question.
“Plainstrider was desolate after… after mah died. I think he felt responsible for not being able to get to her. But she posted him and the mare away from the camp. I… I don’t know what her visions warned her about but she didn’t want Plainstrider, or me, close when it unfolded.”
She took a shuddering breath as tears welled up in her eyes. “Before I left on Sirrsi, I saddled them and set them free to find their course. I know Plainstrider was set to go to the Grieving Cliffs, but I hoped sending the mare with him might alter his course. She is young and the two had grown close. I told him it would ease many hearts with the letter he carried if he showed up at the Mid-Tinandra gathering at Northpoint Station.”
Dondorian said nothing, but replaced the broken wooden bowl he used for a scoop in the barrel of grain and shaking his head said, “Isn’t it just like your great-mother to find a use for the broken castoff things?”
Kestrel knew no answer was expected and welcomed the embrace as his arm dropped around her shoulder in an oh so familiar way and with a squeeze to her arm, they walked back between the wagons to the place her great-mother picked out for the fire pit.
They made quick work of the camp and dinner before darkness overtook the camp and the clan gathered to pay their respects to Dondorian and Caussara and Kestrel. She gave her story to her clan then, and the release in the telling seemed to lighten the burden of grief she carried. When she finished speaking, stories and memories of her mother echoed through the camp.
She knew the talk would last far into the night, and Sirrsi would soon wait outside the circle of wagons. Kestrel glanced over at her great-father, catching his eye. She had told her greatparents she would need to see her companion in the evening and now, with a couple of head gestures, she let him know it was that time. Then, on silent feet, she rose and slipped away from the fire and the clan and out between the wagons.