“That is a person, same as us,” Niya snapped, her temper revealing itself in a bloom of thorns. “And the mark you’re so afraid of is just a birthmark, like I said. A birthmark shaped sort of like a sunburst, if you must know.”
The man crossed his arms, his decorated stick clutched in a fist. “She stays here. She dies here.”
“She comes.” Niya turned on her knees to face me fully. “You need to stand now. You’re coming with us.” She smiled kindly. “We have healers. If you’re sick, we have cures. You need help and—”
“She needs to be left to die,” the man growled. “Come along.” He strode away from the two other men and one woman he’d been standing with.
My vision faded in and out as my heart still struggled to beat on starvation fumes. Compared to my sallow skin and prominent bones, these people glowed. The two males behind the suspicious one had skin that glistened as rich and precious as black river rocks. Their dark-skinned hands, etched with tendon and bone, had fingernails that gleamed almost pink, crowning the end of each one. Their eyes were just as dark, glossy with depth and wisdom.
The male who’d stabbed me rudely with his stick had light skin, splattered with freckles and sun-faded brown hair. The other female had similar colouring to him, unlike the girl kneeling beside me, but it was their intricate braids that made me gasp.
Long hair on both female and male, all intricately weaved and coiled with feathers, beads, and shells. The wind caught a few feathers, twirling them in a breeze.
I swallowed, doing my best to ignore the pain of my body so close to fading. My gaze locked onto the flower-threaded braids draped over the standing woman’s breasts.
I stiffened.
For all the perfection of their health and vitality, they’d hidden parts of their bodies with slaughtered animal furs. The men wore strips around their hips while the women had an extra piece binding their chests.
These people had covered their nudity with the dressings of their prey.
Why did that incite such strange feelings—?
“Don’t worry,” Niya said kindly, drawing my attention back to her. “We’ll find clothing to cover you.” She glanced at my dirty, emaciated form. My bare skin hovered between the colours of hoof-trodden dirt and sun-bleached earth. The ivory lines of scars on my legs and fresh cuts up my thighs only added to the blisters from my sunburn. My colourless, white hair carried its own version of leaves and bracken but not from decoration. I merely wore despair and survival.
“Come,” the man with his stick commanded. “Enough of this.”
No one from his clan moved. Their eyes bounced from me to Niya on her knees, making up their own minds.
Niya used their uncertainty for her gain. “She’s just a person. Same as us. She’s not a spirit. She’s not sickness or evil. We leave her here, and she dies. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to confess that my inactions led to someone’s death at the next fire counsel.”
Those words seemed to work magic.
The two men leapt into action. Surrounding me, they passed their matching long sticks to the woman with thick feather-threaded braids and arched eyebrows at Niya. “Move then. We’ll have to carry her. Hunting is over for today.”
Niya rose from her knees, giving me an assuring smile. “We’re going to pick you up now, okay?” Her black eyes flashed. “Do you have a name?”
A name?
What was a name?
I didn’t think so.
I don’t remember...
Not waiting for me to answer her question, she pointed at the ring of people towering above me. “This is Huo, Rin, and Moke.” Arching her chin at the surly one, she added, “And that’s Kivva.” Tapping her own fur-wrapped dark chest, she smiled with white teeth. “I’m Niya.” Her eyebrows rose as she pointed at me. “Now you...do you have a name?”
I swallowed back the dryness, tilting my head at the bubbling river beside me. I needed another drink. My body kept begging for water, food, and shade. Things I needed to stay alive, but I didn’t want to stay alive if staying alive was this hard, this lonely.
How long had I walked before my body finally gave out?
A moon, a year, a decade?
I’d walked until my feet bled and bones threatened to snap. I’d walked beneath blistering sun and bruising rain. I’d tried to find shelter in the dens of beasts, only to be chased away by howl and fang. Even the kinder animals avoided me, scurrying away as I tripped through their territory.
A few suns ago, a wolf pack with spiral horns on their majestic heads had started to tail me. Their noses locked on the scent of my impending death. Death that I’d given into when I’d found this river and fallen face first into its wet welcome.