Spreading out his tattered and charred cloak, he fumbled to place all of the objects upon it ... even that hiltless sword. He could not tie it all together and was forced to gather it all in his arms. That only made his flesh sting as he crawled up the stone steps out of the searing depths....
Wynn sat on the bunk. She ached inside as she watched Osha, who only stared at the dead wick of the candle that no longer sent a trace of smoke into the cabin’s air.
“I have told no one but you,” he whispered, expressionless.
Wynn began to shudder, and the room became a watery blur before her eyes. But she would not cry, not let one tear fall. Nothing she felt could match what he had been through.
Most Aged Father, Brot’an, and then the Chein’âs ...
What had they done to the Osha she had once known?
She slipped off the bunk’s edge and knelt on the floor before him, though the dead candle was in her way, and she didn’t know whether she should—could—move it to reach him. Only then did Osha blink once and look up at her.
“I can’t imagine what ...” she started, and looked at his hands, cupped one in the other in his lap; the sheen of burn scars was visible below the sleeve cuffs. “I can’t imagine,” she repeated.
“No, you cannot.”
“What ... what then?”
“I made my way to the shore.... I am uncertain how....”
Osha remembered waking to the sound of waves crashing and the sight of the ship’s master standing over him, her wide eyes filled with fright and worry.
“Be careful,” she said, looking aside at someone else. “He has been burned.”
Osha almost cried out as two of the ship’s crew gripped and lifted him. As they stepped into the water to place him in a skiff, he must have fallen unconscious again. When he next awoke, he lay on his stomach upon a bunk aboard the ship. For all that he could tell, he was naked, covered only by a thin blanket. But he could feel cold, soaked cloths wrapped around his forearms and draped across his back. Nearby on the floor lay the wrapped bundle of what had once been his cloak and what was held within it.
He did not want to see or think about it.
Days passed, each the same, and the ship arrived at the enclave where he had first boarded it.
The crew found clothes for him from among their own people—in various shades of brown. He managed to dress himself, as he would not let anyone do so for him. He did not want them staring at his burns.
It had been so long since he had worn anything but the forest gray of an anmaglâhk. When he looked down at himself in those strange yet familiar clothes of his people, he did not feel like himself; he did not feel like anyone at all. And then he gathered the hated bundle to go up on deck.
“Take me ashore,” he said.
Two of the crew immediately prepped the skiff.
Once ashore, Osha walked to the very back of the settlement, near the edge of the tree line, as he thought of that shadowy figure ... the one he had thought had been ...
No, it could not have been Sgäilsheilleache. His jeóin would have been ashamed of all the breaches into which his student had been forced, of the Chein’âs casting him out ... of their taking his gifts as an anmaglâhk to force a human weapon upon him.
His sorrow suddenly smothered under anger.
“Valhachkasej’ú ... Brot’ân’duivé!”
Osha cursed the greimasg’äh by name in the foulest way of his people. Dropping his bundle of burdens, he ran into the forest and searched for any open space among the trees. He tried to think—imagine—how to call to the clhuassas, the listener, so it might take him away....
Everywhere among the thinned coastal trees, there seemed no place like the one in which the twisted greimasg’äh had first called the sacred one. Osha panted in pain as his clothes rubbed his burns.
Then a sharper rustle rose in the branches above him. It was too loud for the shore breeze.
Before he halted or even looked up, a large black feather flipped and rolled down into the scrawny grass before him.
It looked to be that of a raven ... a very large one. Osha tilted his head back.
Something peered down at him with round and glassy black eyes in a black face.
Between the leaves hid something—someone—larger than a mere bird. He would have been no more than half Osha’s height if he stood upon the ground instead of squatting on a thick, low branch.
The séyilf—a Windblown one—gazed fixedly down at Osha as he flexed his folded black wings just once.
Though he was slight-boned and narrow of torso, if he had opened those wings fully, they would have spanned five times his height. From his pinion feathers to the downy covering on his body and face, he was a shiny shade of black.
The only séyilf that Osha had ever seen was at Magiere’s trial before the people’s clan council of elders. He had never heard of a black one.
Instead of hair, larger feathers combed back from the top of the séyilf’s head. The same were visible on the bottom edge of his forearms and the sides of his lower legs. He pushed farther out of the leaves above and cocked his head like a raven.
As Osha continued looking up, all the anger, sorrow ... everything washed out of him. He knew the Windblown did not speak as he did, but he had to know what it was doing here. They were responsible for carrying message stones to and from the mountain of the Chein’âs. How was unknown, and beyond this, they were seldom seen. The Windblown, like the Burning Ones, were protected in alliance with the an’Cróan.
Before Osha could think of a way to pose a question, the male began plucking more of his feathers. He dropped each one, and, five in all, they fluttered to the ground before Osha. The séyilf pointed to the feathers and then out and north along the coast.
Osha looked down at the shining black feathers, and when he looked up, the séyilf was gone.
Five feathers ... and five white metal arrowheads ... for war.
The meaning was clear.
Osha began to pant again, as if he could not catch his breath, until he went numb. He watched as one feather rolled twice under the coastal breeze ... and he waited.
Let them all blow away, and he would not have to look at them again. But not another one moved.
Osha gathered the feathers and slowly returned to retrieve the bundle of his other “gifts.” He returned to the enclave to find that there was already another, larger vessel anchored offshore, and when he asked about it, he was told that it was bound for Ghoivne Ajhâjhe—Edge of the Deep—his people’s only true port and city far to the north.
A hesitant knock came outside the cabin door.
Wynn started slightly, still on her knees facing Osha over the dead candle.
“Wynn ... are you in there?”
At Chane’s voice outside, she stood up—having no wish for him to walk in and find her kneeling before Osha.
“Yes, we are here,” she called.
The door cracked open halfway, and Chane peered around its edge. He glanced from Shade to Wynn and then back to her before his eyes found Osha.
“We near Oléron and should gather our things. I could not find you in our cabin, so ...”
He trailed off, and Wynn watched his expression darken. But her thoughts were churning with everything she’d heard. Osha suddenly rose, snatching up the candle, and he tucked it away in a small satchel.
Ignoring Chane, Wynn asked softly, “Are you all right?”
Osha nodded once without looking at her, but she didn’t believe him.
“You should get packed,” she said for lack of anything better.
Lying near the bunk’s other end, on the floor, was the long and narrow canvas-wrapped bundle. She had already seen his bow and his black-feathered arrows, though she didn’t know what had become of the tube of Chein’âs metal that he’d mentioned. But there could only be one thing left in that canvas.