Morrighan

  “Tell us a story, Ama,” I said. “About Before.” I needed a story to soothe me, for my mind still jumped like a grasshopper of the fields.

  The children called out their choices, the towers, the gods, the storm.

  “No,” I said. “Tell us about when you met Papa.”

  Ama looked at me uncertainly. “But that’s not a story of Before. That is a story of After.”

  I swallowed, trying to hide my misery. “Then tell us a story of After.” I had heard the story before, but it was a long time ago. I needed to hear it again.

  “It was twelve years after the storm. I was only a girl of seventeen. By then I had traveled far with the Remnant who had survived, but only to a place that looked as desolate as the last. We lived by our wits and will, my mother showing me how to trust the language of knowing within me, for little else mattered. The maps and gadgets and inventions of man could not help us survive or find food. Each day I reached deeper, unlocking the skills the gods had given us since the beginning of time. I thought this was all my life would ever be, but then one day, I saw him.”

  “Was he handsome?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Was he strong?”

  “Very.”

  “Was he—”

  “Stop interrupting,” I told the children. “Let her finish!”

  Ama looked at me. I saw the wondering in her eyes, but she continued.

  “But the most important thing I noticed about him was that he was kind. Desperation ruled the world, and kindness was as rare as a clear blue sky. We had come upon one of the cellars from Before. There was still some food to be found in those days, pantry stockpiles that hadn’t yet spoiled or been raided, but it was risky to venture into such places. The leader saw us coming and waved us away, but your papa intervened, pleading for us, and the leader relented. They allowed us in and shared what little food there was. It was the last time I ever tasted an olive, but that small taste was the beginning of something far more … satisfying.”

  Pata rolled her eyes, and the other miadres laughed. Far more. The hidden meanings of Ama’s stories no longer escaped me.

  * * *

  “Where are you in such a hurry to?” Ama asked. “The beetles of the field will take you to task if you’re late?” Her tone held suspicion. I had seen her watching me as I raced through my morning chores.

  I slowed my steps, ashamed that I hadn’t told Ama about the building of books—or Jafir. But not so ashamed that I came forth with the truth. One thing I had learned was that Ama could not read my mind as I had once believed. But she knew my mind. She breathed it. She lived it. Just as she did with the whole tribe. It was a heavy weight for her to bear. Part of that weight would one day pass to me.

  “Is there something you need, Ama?”

  “No, child,” she said caressing my cheek. “Go. Gather. I understand the need for solitude. Just stay aware. Don’t let this time of peace cause you to let your guard down. The danger is always there.”

  “I always watch, Ama. And I always remember the dangers.”

  Chapter Eight

  Morrighan

  I flew through the fields. Ran breathlessly down the canyon. The day was already hot, and sweat rolled down my back. I stopped to gather nothing, my empty bag flopping wildly in my fist. When I reached the trail that led to the old building of books, I saw his horse tied to the low branch of a tree. And then I saw him.

  He stood in the middle of the wide porch entrance between two pillars watching me approach. He was early, just as I was. I slowed at the base of the steps, catching my breath. I looked at him in a way I never had before—in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to see him. How tall he had become, a head taller than me. His ribs no longer poked out pathetically, and his knotted ropes of hair had somehow become a thing of beauty and power. They fell gracefully over his shoulders, which were now wide and muscled. My gaze traveled to his chest, broad and strong, the chest that had brushed my back yesterday.

  He watched me walk up the steps but said nothing. I said nothing, but I knew today would not be like yesterday or all of our days before that. When I reached the landing, a small quiet hello escaped from my lips.

  He stepped back and swallowed. “I’m sorry I left so quickly yesterday.”

  “You don’t need to explain.”

  “I just came to tell you I won’t be coming anymore. There’s better hunting elsewhere.”

  My gut turned hollow. My mind spun with disbelief.

  “I can’t waste my days here with you,” he added.

  In a single beat, my disbelief ignited into anger. I glared at him. “Because being friends with a girl of the Remnant is one thing, but being—”

  “You don’t know me!” he yelled as he pushed past me, almost hurtling himself down the steps.

  “Go, Jafir!” I yelled after him. “Go and never come back!”

  He untied his horse with quick, angry jerks.

  “Go!” I yelled, my vision blurring.

  He paused, staring at the saddle, his hands clamped in tight fury on his reins.

  My heart pounded painfully in a long hopeful beat, waiting. He shook his head, then mounted his horse and rode away.

  Whatever air was in my lungs vanished.

  I stumbled back into the ruin, my hand sliding along walls for support. The cool darkness swallowed me. I reached a pillar and slid to the ground, no longer trying to hold back my tears. My thoughts tumbled between grief, resentment, and rage. I will never come back here again either, Jafir! Ever! I will forget everything about this valley, including you!

  But even in my anger, I ached for him.

  I ached for all our yesterdays.

  A door had been opened that couldn’t be closed again, no matter how angry he made me. He was in my thoughts, my hair, my fingers, my eyes, his memory in places where no one else had been, in a hundred ways that made no sense. I stared at the empty bag still clutched in my fist, my knuckles pale.

  “There is no future for us, Morrighan. There can never be.”

  I startled, looking up. He stood in the doorway, a tall silhouette against the bright day behind him. I knew he was right. A future was impossible. I could never embrace his home or kind, nor he mine. What did that leave us?

  I stood. “Why did you come back?”

  He stepped into the coolness of the cavern. “Because…” His brows pulled down, his eyes becoming dark clouds, still angry. “Because I could not leave.”

  He walked closer until only inches separated us. His gaze was sharp and searching. There was so much I didn’t know about the ways between a man and a woman, but I knew I wanted him. And I knew he wanted me.

  “Touch me, Jafir,” I said. “Touch me the way you did yesterday.”

  His chest rose in a deep breath and he hesitated, but then he lifted a single finger, slowly tracing a line up my bare arm, his eyes following the path as if he was memorizing it, and then the path turned and his finger traveled across my collar bone, resting in the hollow of my neck. Something bright and liquid and hot rushed under my skin and through my chest. My fingers went slack, and I dropped the bag still in my grip.

  I reached up and laid my hands on his chest, my fingertips searing, trembling at the feel of his skin beneath mine, the rapid beat of his heart, and I breathed in the scent of everything that was Jafir, earth, and air, and sweat. My hands burned, meeting in the middle and slowly traveling down, feeling his ribs and the muscles of his stomach. His breath faltered, a catch, and his hands came up to cradle my face, his thumb swiping across my cheek. We brought our lips closer, misjudged, bumping noses, but then my head turned one way, his another, and our mouths met, our tongues met, and it seemed there was no other way for us to be, tasting each other, exploring the feel of each other, discovering each other in ways we never had before.

  His hands slid down my back, strong, pulling me snug against him, and his lips brushed over my cheekbone, my lashes, my temples, and all the empty spaces between.

&nb
sp; I didn’t think about his world or mine or the future we couldn’t have. I only thought about the warm light behind my eyelids, his soft murmurs in my ear, and the fullness of what we had in that moment. And we touched in all the ways of yesterday and more.

  Chapter Nine

  Jafir

  She knelt behind me, her hands covering my eyes. “Don’t look.”

  “I’m keeping them shut,” I promised as I reached up and brought one of her hands down to my lips.

  “Jafir, pay attention,” she said tugging her hand away. I turned and pulled her down on top of me, drawing her face to mine, kissing her, whispering between breaths, “You are all I need to taste.”

  She smiled, tracing a line around my mouth. “But one day you will be glad for a berry to quench your thirst.”

  “You are—”

  “Jafir!” she said, sitting up, straddling my stomach and placing a finger to my lips to quiet me.

  I closed my eyes obediently.

  I had asked her about the knowing, the gift the Siarrah of Harik the Great was said to have. She had frowned and said it was a gift to many in the tribes of the Remnant, except that some sought it more earnestly than others.

  Here, she had told me, pressing her fist gently against my ribs.

  And here, she said again, pressing it against my breastbone.

  This is the same instruction my ama gave to me.

  It is the language of knowing, Jafir.

  A language as old as the universe itself.

  It is seeing without eyes,

  And listening without ears.

  It is what led me here to this valley.

  It is how the Ancients survived in those early years.

  How we survive now.

  Trust the strength within you.

  Now she tried to teach me this way of knowing.

  She had already taught me much—the difference between berries that could nourish or kill, the seasons of the weed thannis, and the gods who ruled it all. In the last few months, I hadn’t missed a day of riding to the concealed valley to be with her. She consumed my thoughts and dreams. Everything had changed between us the day she held my slingshot and I placed my arms around her. It frightened me, this change, the way it made me feel and even think differently, but every day since then, as I rode to the valley, all I could think of was holding her again, kissing her, listening to her, watching her laugh.

  Just as she had since the first time I saw her, she fascinated me, except that now I needed her like a raven needs the sky. It was a dangerous game we played, and from the beginning, we had known it couldn’t last, but now I wondered. She wondered. We talked about it. Love. Was that what this was? I love you, Jafir, she would say at any moment of the day, just to hear it said aloud. She would laugh and then say it again, her eyes solemn, looking into mine. I love you, Jafir de Aldrid. And it didn’t matter how many times she said it, I waited for her to say it again.

  “Now what do you hear?” she asked, her hands resting on my chest.

  I heard nothing but the distant chirp of a beetle, the ruffle of my horse’s breath, the swish of meadow grass in the breeze—and then she placed a berry in my mouth, sweet and juicy. “It calls to you, Jafir. It whispers, a voice riding the wind, Here I am, come find me. Listen.”

  But all I heard was a different kind of knowing, one that even Morrighan couldn’t hear, a knowing that felt as sure and old as the earth itself. It whispered deep within my gut, I am yours, Morrighan, forever yours … and when the last star of the universe blinks silent, I will still be yours.

  Chapter Ten

  Morrighan

  From the time I was small, Ama had told the stories of Before. Hundreds of stories. Sometimes it was to prevent me from crying and revealing our hiding place in the darkness when the scavengers ranged too near, desperate whispers in my ear that helped keep me silent. More often, at the end of a long day, she told them to satisfy me when there was no food to fill my belly.

  I clung to her stories, even if they were of a world I didn’t know, a world of sparkling light and towers that reached to the sky, of kings and demigods who flew among the stars—and princesses. Her stories made me richer than a ruler in a great kingdom. Stories were the one thing she gave me that couldn’t be stolen, not even by a scavenger.

  Once upon a time child,

  Long, long ago,

  Seven stars were flung from the sky.

  One to shake the mountains,

  One to churn the seas,

  One to choke the air,

  And four to test the hearts of men.

  A thousand knives of light,

  Grew to an explosive rolling cloud,

  Like a hungry monster.

  Only a little princess found grace,

  A princess just like you.…

  Ama said the storm lasted for three years. When it was over, few were left to tell of it. Fewer still cared to speak of it. Survival was all that mattered. She was only a small child herself when the storms began, her memory shaky, but she filled in the details with what she had learned along the way, more parts filled in by the need of the moment, and the message was always the same. A blessed Remnant survived—would always survive—no matter the hardship.

  Other things survived too. Things we had to watch for. Things that sometimes made my faith in the Remnant waver, like when Papa was struck down, trampled by a horse; when Venda was stolen; when Rhiann lost a baby goat and her life with the single slash of a knife.

  These became stories too, and Ama charged us to tell them, saying, We have already lost too much. We must never forget from where we came, lest we repeat history. Our stories must be passed to our sons and daughters, for with but one generation, history and truth are lost forever.

  And so I told the stories to Jafir as we explored the very small canyon that was our world.

  “I have never heard of glass towers,” he said when I told him about where Ama once lived.

  “But you’ve seen the ruins, haven’t you? The skeletons that once held the walls of glass?”

  “I have seen skeletons. That is all. There are no stories to go with them.” I could hear the shame in his tone, the defensive boy I had met so long ago.

  I circled my hands around his waist, taking in the warmth of his back against my cheek. “Stories must begin somewhere, Jafir,” I said gently. “Maybe they can begin with you?”

  I felt the stiffening of his shoulders. A shrug. He broke loose from my grip, turning suddenly. “Let’s go for a ride. I want to show you something.”

  “Where?” I asked suspiciously. There was not a corner of this small closed-in canyon we hadn’t explored.

  “Not far,” he said, taking my hand. “I promise. It’s a lake that—”

  I frowned and pulled my hand away. We’d had this conversation before. The boundaries of the small box canyon seemed to grow smaller each day. Jafir chafed against its limits. He was used to riding freely in the open plains and fields, a risk I couldn’t take. “Jafir, if someone sees me—”

  He drew me close, his lips grazing mine, stalling my words that waited there. “Morrighan,” he whispered against them, “I would cut out my own heart before I would let any harm come to you.” He reached up, stroking my head. “I would not risk a single hair, or a lost eyelash.” He kissed me tenderly, and heat flooded through me.

  Suddenly he jumped back, lifting his arms to the side to show his muscles. “And look!” he said, a grin teasing at the corner of his mouth. “I am strong! I am fierce!”

  “You are a fool!” I laughed.

  He put on a startled face, feigning fear and looking heavenward. “Beware the gods!”

  Perhaps I had told him too many stories.

  His smile faded. “Please, Morrighan,” he said quietly. “Trust me. No one will see us. Let me ride with you and show you some of the things I love.”

  My heart thumped, the familiar no beating behind it, but … I did love to ride with him. At first I’d been afraid, but Jafir wa
s a good teacher, gently coaxing me onto the huge animal’s back, and quickly I discovered I loved the feel of his horse beneath us, Jafir’s strong arms circling around me, the strange sense that we were connected, forever inseparable as we rode together. I loved the giddy feeling as the meadow blurred beneath us, the feeling that we had wings, that we were swift and powerful and nothing in the world could stop us.

  I looked at him and nodded. “Just this once,” I said.

  “Just this once,” he repeated.

  But I knew I was opening another kind of door, and like before, it was one that could never be closed again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Morrighan

  “What is beyond the mountains, Ama?”

  “Nothing for us, child.”

  We sat in the shade of a sycamore, full and leafy with summer, grinding the last of our amaranth seed into powder.

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  “I’ve told you the story before. It was where your papa journeyed from. Only he and a handful of others made it out. The devastation was even worse there. It was far more brutal than anything on this side of the mountains. He watched many die.”

  She had told me about the choking clouds, the fires, the shaking ground, the wild animals. The people. All the things that papa had told her.

  “But he was only a child, and that was a long time ago,” I said.

  “Not long enough,” she answered. “I remember the fear in your papa’s eyes when he spoke of it. He was glad to be where we are now, on this side.”

  I saw the age on Ama. She was still healthy, robust even, for a woman her age, but weariness lined her face. Moving on and keeping the tribe safe had been an endless journey for her. Here in this vale she had found rest now for almost two years, but lately I had seen her scanning the surrounding hills and bluffs. Did she sense something else? Or was it just an old habit resurfacing? Was she afraid to believe that peace could last?