Fire Day blessing to my Fiery Child
I know you haven't quite outgrown your old one yet, but it is starting to look rather ragged. Please do try not to get any dagger holes in this one. And tell Daigo the hem is not for claw sharpening.
All my love, always,
Father
Moria read the note twice. Then she dropped to her knees and she wept. Finally, she wept.
Ashyn
Twenty-three
As Ashyn climbed the pile of rock, she banged her knee--the same one she'd banged twice already. She hissed in pain as tears sprang to her eyes. Tova whined from the base and put one tentative paw on the rocks, but she motioned for him to stay down and then waved to the others, assuring them she was fine as they made camp.
The outlook was man-made, rock piled by an age of travelers along this road, using a rare rise in the landscape for a base and adding to it. The stones were volcanic, like everything around them. Sharp as broken glass, if you grabbed the wrong piece. Ashyn already had a cut on her hand to prove it. But she kept going until she reached the top. Then she found her footing and looked out.
There was little to see. One could argue that these lookouts were a tribute to the endless--and foolish--optimism of the human spirit. Or to their equally foolish determination to conquer everything in their path, including nature itself.
In the Wastes, nature won. There was no contest, truly. Ashyn stood on that pile of rock and looked out at . . . more rock. In places the land was smooth and swirled, like a quiet river. In others, it was as rough and choppy as a stormy sea. There were patches, here and there, of scrubby trees and moss, improbable islands of life. Yet most was rock.
They'd been walking for two days now, and every time she saw a possible lookout, she'd run ahead. After the first day, she no longer even needed to search for them herself. Tova would see one and bound off with a bark.
While she was scouting for danger, she was also looking for Ronan. At first, she'd scoured the landscape, furious with him for abandoning them. Then, as her temper had settled, she'd begun to look with less anger and more hope. By the second day, though, the hope had vanished.
He was long gone. She tried to understand that. Given the way the village had treated him, she couldn't blame him for leaving. But it still hurt. She took one last look around, then scrambled down to rejoin the others.
Ashyn crawled from her sleeping blanket. She could hear the soft snores of Wenda beside her. Beatrix was on Wenda's other side, and the two men were about five paces away. Only Tova was up, having woken as soon as she did.
Ashyn followed his pale form through the rocks, stumbling as she went, her body aching from a third night sleeping on stone. She shivered as she walked. Even her fur-lined cloak did little against the bitter nights. If her bladder weren't full to bursting, she'd have stayed in her blankets until the morning rays warmed the rocks. By midday, she'd be cursing that same sun. It was like living in an oven, nestled among stones that were bitingly cold until the flame made them unbearably hot.
Tova was anxious to return to bed, too, and they'd gone barely ten paces before he found a place to lift his leg. When Ashyn continued on, he grumbled.
"You can go back," she whispered.
His grumble bordered on a growl, annoyed and offended that she would suggest such a thing. Normally, she'd have patted him in apology. But their even tempers were both fraying out here in the Wastes. It wasn't simply the poor sleep or the inadequate food, or the heat or the cold or even the boredom. They were lonely. They had each other, but that was no different from having your arm or your leg. You couldn't imagine life without it, but it was, after all, a part of you. They missed Father and, even more, they missed Moria and Daigo. In sixteen summers, they'd never spent more than a night apart.
When Ashyn insisted on finding more privacy, Tova laid down as if to say, I mean it.
"Wait there, then," she said.
His grumble warned her to come back and argued she didn't need to go so far. As the distance between them grew, Ashyn could feel it, like a rope going taut. She was being unreasonable.
Ashyn turned. "I'm just going there, behind those rocks."
Tova chuffed and pushed to his feet. As he padded toward her, Ashyn jogged to the rocky outcropping, swung behind it, and--
She heard the sound of something scratching against rock. She wheeled, and it was right there, perched nearly at eye level. A scorpion. Or so her eyes told her, but it was unlike any scorpion she'd ever seen. In Edgewood, they were less than a hand long. This one was a leg's length from clicking claws to raised tail.
As she stood there, paralyzed, Tova tore around the corner and the scorpion rose up, claws waving, tail poised. She could see the stinger now, as long as a
finger, venom glistening on the tip.
She took a slow, careful step backward. Her gaze stayed fixed on the creature as she prayed to the goddess that it would let her leave, just let her--
It sprang. She tried to twist out of the way, knowing it would do no good, seeing Tova leaping forward, knowing that wouldn't help either. The scorpion was coming right for her and--
My dagger.