Eyes of Crow (13 page)

She gaped at him. “You haven’t?”

“…in a very long time.”

“Oh.” She had no other response to this statement, though he seemed to expect one.

“Does that surprise you?” he said.

Rhia almost laughed. He had attacked her with such ferocity, such a naked need, she hardly thought it a routine occurrence for him. She composed a more diplomatic response. “I don’t even know you. How could you possibly surprise me?”

He looked at her with astonishment. “Not know me? After last night, of course you know me.”

“I know a little.” Rhia drew her knees close to her chest. “I know you’re a passionate, generous man who’s hiding something. That’s all.”

“That’s enough for now.”

“Is it? Maybe.” She rested her cheek on her knees and examined him. “Remember, I couldn’t even see you.”

“You can see me now.”

“Not really.”

His frown told her he understood her meaning. “You will.”

“I know. When you’re ready.” She let herself smile. “Until then…”

He hooked his little finger inside the bend of her thumb, not meeting her gaze. “Until then?”

She met his mouth with a kiss, not caring what it led to or even if it was their last. He returned it with more than a hint of the desire that had joined them the previous night. Then he broke off abruptly and turned away.

“I don’t blame you.” He got up and went to the fire. “But this is wrong.”

She quenched a spark of shame that flickered inside her. “I’m not in the habit of making love to every man who stumbles across me in the woods. In fact, before you I had only one lover.” She watched him poke at the fire, his back to her. “But I don’t think what we’ve done is wrong. Maybe by Kalindon standards—”

“Kalindon standards?” He barked a caustic laugh. “What few there are have nothing to do with it. It’s me. You can’t begin to understand, so like I said, I don’t blame you.”

“I do understand. You don’t want to make a child and move into the second phase until you’ve mastered your first-phase powers. Neither do I.”

He looked at her coldly for the first time. “You really don’t understand. Invisibility isn’t a first-phase power.”

A slow horror crept up Rhia’s spine. It should have been obvious, a power so strong in one so young. “You’re—you’re married?” she finally managed to say.

Marek shook his head as he unwrapped the fish.

“But—” She forced the words out. “You have a child.”

“I did,” he said quietly without looking at her. “We can eat this. It’s a little dry but not burned.”

“When?” she whispered.

“Now, before it gets cold.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He put the fish down and stared across the river. “Two years ago. He went to the Other Side just before he was born.”

“Marek, I’m so sorry. You must have—”

“He took his mother with him.”

Words abandoned Rhia’s throat, and she could only utter a pitiful mew of sympathy. A claw of guilt tugged at her, for her relief that he was no longer married.

She studied him, his body bent over the remains of the fire, and realized what gnawed at her.

“Did you lose someone else recently? A brother or sister?”

“No,” he said.

And his parents had died when he was ten. That meant he had been cutting his hair over and over for two years, rather than only once. Such a practice was unknown in Asermos; perhaps Kalindons were different. Regardless, it would mean that he mourned his wife and son as if they had just died.

Someday she would have the wisdom to help a person in Marek’s place, help them understand that death was only another step in one’s existence. Until then, she could only provide normal human comfort.

She moved to sit beside him, wrapping the blanket around both their shoulders. He pulled apart the fish and gave her the larger piece. She traded it with him for the smaller and pushed his hand toward his mouth.

“No,” he said. “Coranna told me to feed you well.”

“And you are. Now eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care.”

“I killed her.” Marek stared at the fish, as if he agonized over that death, too. “If we’d been more careful, she wouldn’t have had the baby, and she’d still be alive.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she would have died anyway.” The truth felt cruel but necessary. “Crow takes us in His time, not ours.”

“Crow knows nothing of human feelings.”

“I think He knows everything. I think He suffers with us when someone dies.”

“Then why does He keep taking people? Why not just put an end to death and then no one suffers, least of all Crow?” He shook his head. “I know, it’s stupid. People have to die, or there’d be no room for those being born. Death is part of life. I know all the arguments. But it’s not fair.”

“Of course it’s not fair.”

“And every night I’m reminded. Every night when I can’t see my hand in front of my face even by the light of the full moon, I remember why.”

Of course. She should have made the connection sooner. He hadn’t been ready to become a father when his mate became pregnant; Wolf had punished Marek by perverting his second-phase powers. Rhia had seen similar consequences visited upon young Asermons in the same situation, but never for as long as two years. Once a person accepted the responsibility of raising a child, his or her powers eventually returned to normal. But Crow had robbed Marek of that chance.

She waited a long moment to ask the obvious question: “Why, then, did you make love to me last night? When you’re so afraid of—”

“I don’t know. Part of me never wants to look at you again, wants to forget I have these feelings. The other part wants to know everything about you, so I can figure out why.”

“Why what?”

“Why I needed you—” his teeth gritted “—so much.”

Rhia slid her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close. His hands grasped the blanket, then moved to clutch at her back.

They held each other without speaking until Rhia’s stomach interrupted them with an indignant growl.

Marek let her go with a chuckle. “Priorities.”

Once again, his cooking impressed her. She wondered if she would continue to enjoy the privilege after their journey ended.

“Will I live with Coranna in Kalindos?” she asked Marek once she could breathe between bites.

“I believe so.”

“Do you still live with her?”

“No. I have my own home. It’s in the next tree, so if you ever want to visit…” He gave her a grin that did a poor job of faking coyness.

“I think I will.” She scraped the remains of the fish off the leaves in which it had been wrapped. “Will Coranna mind that you and I…” She didn’t yet know how to describe what existed between her and Marek.

“No. In fact, I think she’ll be relieved I’ve—” He broke off his sentence, brow furrowed.

“That you’ve found someone?” she offered.

“Yes.” The phrase seemed to please him. “I’ve found someone.” He brightened. “I want to show you something I think you’ll like.”

They doused the fire and packed the remaining two fish in ice. Soon they were on their way, keeping to the riverbank when the growth of shrubs and reeds would allow them, otherwise heading uphill to continue through the wooded area, always keeping the rushing water within earshot—Marek’s, if not hers.

“We’re getting close,” he said when the water quieted to the point where she barely heard it. “A calm part breaks off from the main flow. It creates a sort of pool.”

“It’s too cold to swim.”

“For humans, yes. Let’s be quiet, so we don’t disturb them.”

She wanted to ask “Disturb what?” but realized that would involve not being quiet. Marek pointed at his own feet, and she watched the way he walked to maintain silence, flexing his knees and first placing weight on the outside edge of his feet before rolling his arches in. She imitated his stride as best as she could, rustling a few leaves here and there, but on the whole much stealthier than before.

Rhia concentrated so hard on avoiding noise that she didn’t notice the sight in front of her until she bumped into Marek.

A large pool of water lay before them, surrounded on three sides by trees and on the fourth side by the influx of river water. A steep muddy bank dove into the pool from the left, its surface slick with water, which Rhia thought odd, since there were no other signs of recent rain.

A quiet splash caught her attention. A face blurped out of the water and examined them with sharp black eyes. Long whiskers twitched. The creature chirped and disappeared under the water again.

Suddenly a lithe brown animal shot out of the water, followed by three smaller ones and a larger one bringing up the rear. Their bodies bobbed and slinked like inchworms as they climbed the bank.

Rhia put a hand to her mouth. “Oh…”

“What’s wrong?” Marek whispered.

“My mother. My mother was Otter.”

He hissed in a breath. “Rhia, I’m sorry. We can leave if you want.”

“No.” She blinked hard. “I haven’t seen one since I was a child.”

One by one the otters descended the slick muddy bank into the water. Two of the kits collided on their way down and rolled over each other the rest of the trip, chattering and scrabbling.

“That was my family.” Rhia chuckled. “She made us play games, especially when we were fighting.”

“Teach me some,” he said.

“Later, I will.”

For now she wanted only to watch the otters and remember.

“Now this next one’s rather silly.”

Marek let out another great laugh that echoed through the forest. “Oh,
this
one will be silly. Because the last one was deadly serious.”

They sat next to the campfire in the evening’s waning light as the other two fish fried in a small pan. Rhia’s stomach and cheeks ached from laughter. She had demonstrated several of her favorite childhood games, all of which Marek lost with dignity.

“Shh,” she told him. “For this one you need to concentrate.”

“Wait.” He held up a finger. “The sun’s setting.”

The last few rays disappeared past the hill behind her. Rhia turned back to him to ask what was the matter.

Marek faded from view.

“No!” She grabbed his arm.

“That won’t help,” he said with a wistful smile that vanished with the rest of him.

She slid next to him so that their shoulders touched, then laced her fingers with his, both hands.

“Now how will we eat?” He loosened one hand and put his arm around her. “I’m here, even if you can’t see me.”

“This may sound crazy, after having spent three days alone in the forest, but I don’t like the dark.”

“A Crow afraid of the dark?”

“Not afraid,” she said. “Just not preferring it.”

“Ah.” He placed a quick kiss on her temple. “Now I see what I’m meant to teach you.”

“Besides how to not be ticklish?”

“That could take months. But this I think we can do in one night.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“First, eat.” A levitating stick poked the fish from the fire, and an unseen hand unwrapped them. “Careful—hot.”

Though she had learned to live with hunger during her fast, the smell of fresh food made her stomach yearn. She broke up the fish’s flesh to cool it, but still burned her mouth in her impatience to eat.

“Why are you afraid of the dark?” Marek corrected himself. “Sorry, why do you not, er, prefer the dark? Was that the word you used?”

“I
am
afraid. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s instinct. Humans are made to live in the day—our eyes only work well with lots of light. If your Guardian Spirit were a night animal, like mine, it’d be easier for you. Or if it were a day creature who never needed the dark to do her magic. Crow dwells in a different kind of darkness. But to work there, you need to stop fearing the darkness of this world.” He stopped, and Rhia heard chewing sounds. “Am I making any sense at all?”

She sighed. “I understand what I need to do. I just don’t know how to get there.”

“What’s so dangerous in the dark, in your mind?”

“Anything.”

“Specifically. When you close your eyes and feel the fear, what do you imagine? Is it something real, like a wild animal, or is it some unnameable force?”

“Both.” She hesitated. “When it comes to beasts, I imagine wolves.”

“I thought so.”

“But after meeting that old wolf in the forest—”

“And after meeting me.”

“And you. You’re not what I expected, either of you.”

“We’re not crazed, bloodthirsty killers. We hunt to take care of our family, to do our part. That’s the role of Wolves in Kalindos, to provide meat for our people.”

Relief flooded her. “You’re not a warrior, then?”