My knees weakened. “No,” I said, shaking my head.
“She lives,” Reena said quickly to correct my assumption, but then added, “but maybe not for long. She is very old, and in stamping out the flames, her heart failed. Its beat, even now, is weak. The outpost healer came out to see her, may the gods bless him, but there was nothing he could do.”
“Where is she?”
* * *
The inside of the carvachi was dim except for a thin blue flame flickering in a bowl of sweetly scented tallow—to keep the scent of death away. I carried a bucket of warm water floating with pungent leaves inside with me.
She was propped up on pillows in the bed at the back of the wagon, feather light, gray ash to be blown away. I sensed death hovering in the corners, looking on. Waiting. Her long silver braid was the only strength I saw, a rope that kept her moored to the living. I pulled a stool close and set the bucket down. She opened her eyes.
You heard her. Get the girl some goat cheese.
The first words I’d ever heard her speak swelled in my chest. You heard her.
She was one of the few who ever did.
I dipped a rag into the bucket and squeezed it out.
I wiped her forehead. “You’re not well.”
Her pale eyes searched my face.
“It is a long way you’ve traveled, and you have farther yet to go.” Her breath faltered, and she blinked slowly. “Very far.”
“I’ve only traveled far by the strength you’ve given me.”
“No,” she whispered. “It was always in you, buried deep.”
Her eyelids closed as if their weight was too much to bear.
I rinsed the rag and wiped her neck, the elegant folds marking the days she had spent on this earth, the beautiful lines crowding her face like a finely drawn map, ancient, but now, in this moment, not nearly old enough. This world still needed more of her. She couldn’t go. Her hand inched on top of mine, cold and papery light.
“The child Natiya. Speak to her,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Do not let her carry the guilt of me. What she did was right. The truth circled and gathered her into its arms.”
I lifted her thin wraithlike hand to my lips, squeezing my eyes shut. I nodded, swallowing the ache in my throat.
“Enough,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I was almost eaten by wolves. Did I tell you? Eristle heard me crying in the woods. When the skies quaked with thunder, she taught me to shut out—” Her eyes opened, her pupils large black moons floating in a circle of gray, and she weakly shook her head. “No, that is my story, not yours. Yours is calling. Be on your way.”
“Why me, Dihara?”
“You already have the answer to that question. It had to be someone. Why not you?”
These were the same words Venda had spoken to me. Cold fingers danced up my spine. This world, it breathes you in … it knows you, and then it breathes you out again, shares you.
Her eyes drifted shut, and her tongue reverted back to her native one, her voice as faint as the flickering of the candle. “Jei zinterr … jei trévitoria.”
Be brave. Be victorious.
I stood to leave. It felt like it was impossible to be either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RAFE
Sven tapped the table near my plate. “Colonel Bodeen will be offended. You’re not eating.”
“And these are the best bison chops I’ve ever had,” Orrin added as he sucked the last bit of sauce from a bone. “Don’t tell him I said so. I claimed mine were better.”