A hum fills my ears, drowning out the footsteps, the birdsong, the sound of Seeri, Pek, and Morsk moving under the trees. My gaze sweeps the ground all the way back to the spot where we entered the woods. The shaft of light that fell across Kol’s face now shines empty, illuminating nothing but a crumpled shadow on the ground.
I stiffen. For just a moment I hesitate, questioning my eyes.
Then I am running toward him.
If the others see me, they pay no attention. They keep one eye on the trail while fading farther into the dense growth, sliding between the lower branches of trees so thick with dark leaves, they block out the sky. Only thin threads of light filter through to the ground.
I reach Kol. He lies on his back, his eyes staring up at the treetops overhead, as if he’s not quite sure what just happened. The skin of his face, dripping with sweat just a little while ago, is now dry and hot to the touch. I drop to one knee and wind an arm around his waist. His eyes shift to me and he mutters one word. . . .
“Mya.”
Pulling him toward me, his weight slouching against my shoulder, I stumble after the others, who are already hidden from view.
We follow them to a jumble of boulders that spring from the ground near the edge of the woods, right before it drops over a lower ledge of the cliffs, straight down to the sea. The whisper of waves mixes with the breeze in the trees, and the scent of salt filters into the thick fragrance of evergreen and dead leaves crushed under our boots. We duck behind a rock the size and shape of a sleeping mammoth. Not far away, just a few paces deeper into the trees, I see three shadows—Seeri, Pek, and Morsk—as they flatten to the ground behind another large rock.
My gaze traces the trail that cuts through the trees less than twenty paces away. My ears filter out the layered noises around me—the waves below, the wind, the flutter of wings—listening for the unmistakable sound of footfalls.
And then I hear it, distinct and clear.
Something moves through the splashes of light that dot the path. We all hold still, soundless, as it draws closer, stepping into view.
Not an elk. Not a bear.
A woman. Two women, side by side. One with dark hair, one with white.
Dora and Anki, spears at the ready, are moving along the path. They are moving away from the center of the island—away from the lake—the place where we hope to find Lees and Noni.
We will be fine. This is what I tell myself as I watch them. We are covered in the thickest of shade. We are motionless, as if the Divine has turned us to the same stone we crouch beside.
It won’t be long. It won’t be long. . . . They will pass us. They will continue back the way we came, moving farther and farther away.
But then a sound comes from deep within the woods. A howl. Something bounds toward us through the trees. Toward me.
Dora and Anki stop. They turn and look as Black Dog comes hurtling out of the deep woods behind them. They watch as he stops, howling, just five paces from the place I hide.
They each raise their spears above their shoulders. They each train their eyes on the dog.
And they each take a step off the trail—a step toward the five of us.
But Black Dog sees them, and he knows. His instincts tell him that they are a threat. One long, final howl pours from his throat and he turns and flees back the way he came.
The women slow. Like me, they must be wondering the meaning of what just happened. Why would a wolf run right to this spot to howl? Was it a warning? And if so, who was it meant to warn?
I watch the two of them as the wind stirs the leaves, swirling the light that splatters the ground like the liquid surface of the sea. For just a moment, light washes over my shoulder, Kol’s back. We are exposed. Their eyes slide over the ground, searching, their focus shifting with the light.
Dora takes a single step toward the place where we hide, and my heart stops.
She takes a second, tentative step, and my heart restarts, pounding like a drum.
Her eyes sweep over the ferns and thickets, but they don’t quite reach the rocks. Instead, she stays closer to the place where Black Dog stopped, sifting through the undergrowth with the sharpened flint point of her spear, as if she expects to find some hidden object. She lifts her eyes once, letting her gaze alight on first one tree, then another, searching the branches overhead.
The longer she stands under these trees, the more her eyes will adjust to the lack of light. If she were to flick her gaze over us now, she might see us, covered as we are by mere shadows and a thin layer of spindly branches.
We crouch shoulder to shoulder, and I slide my hand into Kol’s. His fingers are cold, and I want to lift them to my lips, but of course I don’t dare move. I want to speak to him, to tell him I’m sorry I didn’t see how sick he is, but I don’t dare even breathe his name.
All I can do is swivel my head to search his face, to gauge his condition.
His eyes are on Dora and Anki, but his gaze is clouded. Still, as Anki strides closer, his eyes narrow. His attention sharpens. I turn my attention to Anki, too, and I see the thing that has Kol riveted.
I see the knife in Anki’s hand.
My brother Chev’s knife. The one with the obsidian blade. The one that was taken from his body when he died.
She swings the knife as she walks, twirling it in front of her . . . she is playing with it like a child. She takes another stride and tosses it into the air. It flips once and she catches it by the handle. Like this is all a game.
The sight of Chev’s knife—this perfect confirmation that she is the one who killed my brother—reignites my rage. It’s as if a coal had burned down to a smoldering ember, but now the sight of the knife in Anki’s hand is like breath on that ember, flaring it back to life.
She takes another step, tosses the knife even higher, watches it flip once . . . twice . . . then snatches the handle out of the air.
My eyes flick to the shadows where I know Seeri hides. I cannot distinguish even her outline. Does she see this? I wonder. Does this rage burn in her, too?
Then the Spirit of my brother puts an end to Anki’s brazen game. She tosses the knife up, letting it tumble end over end, and reaches out to catch its bone handle. But something slows her hand, and the blade flips around and slices her palm. She cries out—a sharp gasp of pain—as it slips from her grasp and drops into a tangle of briars and shade.
I bite my lip, holding back the taunts that fill my mouth.
But then she drops to the ground, crawling on her hands and knees just a few paces away, searching for the knife. She is so close, I fear she will hear Kol’s ragged breaths, but she is consumed by her need to find the knife.
She is completely unaware of our presence, I think. She is completely unaware of how easy it would be for me to kill her.
I watch her, and the fingers of my right hand—the hand that holds the shaft of my spear against the ground—begin to tingle. My eyes move to Dora. She is watching Anki, too.
In my mind, I take the shot. I plant my spear in Anki’s back.
But then what? How long would it take her mother to retaliate? If Kol were well, I could count on him to take down Dora, but he’s far too weak. And the others are too far away for me to signal.
No. This is not the right time. My fingers relax on my spear.
“Give up. It’s lost,” Dora calls. I watch her. Her interest in the mystery of the wolf that stopped to howl has faded. She’s ready to move on. “You know not to steal from the dead—even from Chev. You’re lucky all you got was a cut on the hand.”
Anki stands, dragging her cut palm across the front of her tunic, leaving a red smear. She sweeps her eyes across the ground at her feet one final time before running off in the direction of her mother, back toward the path.
As their rustling steps fade, I let out a long, silent exhale.
But before they are out of range, Seeri springs up from her hiding place. She stands at her full height, her spear over her shoulder, ready to throw. She takes a few sliding steps and I think she will do it. She is about to release the spear and let it fly into Anki’s back.
But just as quickly, Morsk is on his feet, lunging toward her. In just three steps he is beside her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and tackling her to the ground.
The women look back—they were not so far away that they couldn’t hear them fall. We all hold still, hidden only by the low growth and the deepening shade, Morsk’s huge hand cupped over Seeri’s mouth. Dora and Anki stand and stare over their shoulders, searching for the source of the sound. Finally, when nothing stirs, they turn away.
We watch them recede, picking their way back to the trail, disappearing into the trees. No one moves until their footsteps can no longer be heard.
Then Seeri shoves Morsk away, kicking at him as she climbs to her feet. Pek rushes to her side, his hands on Morsk’s chest, pushing him away from her.
“Why?” she spits. “Why wouldn’t you let me kill her? She admitted to killing Chev—”
“Because he was protecting them,” Kol says, his voice so thin I wonder if I’m the only one who hears it.
But no. Morsk hears. He turns on Kol. He dares to speak in a voice above a whisper.
“I wasn’t protecting them. I was protecting Seeri. Seeri, Mya, your brother, even you.”
“We don’t need your protection.” Pek spits the words, backing Morsk so far away from Seeri, I wonder if he intends to push him off the cliff. But then, with a final shove against his shoulders, Pek leaves him and turns back to Seeri, who is brushing broken bits of needles from the front of her tunic and the knees of her pants.
“If she’d taken the shot—then what?” Morsk asks. “Dora turns and fires her spear. Maybe she hits Seeri. Maybe she misses and hits Mya or you or me. But she would have hit one of us. And that’s assuming Seeri didn’t miss—”
“I never miss,” Seeri snaps.
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the best plan,” Morsk says. He walks back to where he’d dropped his own spear on the ground. As he picks it up, Kol begins to rise to his feet beside me, and Seeri pushes the tension a bit further.
“I don’t care what you think,” she says. She walks to me and extends her hand to pull me to my feet. “I only care what my High Elder thinks. Mya?”
As I grip my sister’s hand, I struggle with how to answer. I see the pain in her eyes, the reflection of the pain I feel, too. The urge she’d felt to strike Anki down . . . I’d felt it, too.
And yet, like Morsk, I’d judged it to be the wrong time to attack.
“Just like you, I want revenge,” I start, letting Seeri haul me up. “Whether that was our best opportunity or not, I can’t say. But I promise it won’t be our last.”
There’s more I want to say—to Seeri and to Kol, too. But before I can form the words, a long howl comes from deep within the heart of the island—Black Dog. My eyes meet Kol’s, and I can see he feels the same urgency I feel.
“That’s Noni’s dog,” I say. “He belongs to the girl I left with Lees. We need to go find him.”
Seeri nods, but her eyes slide to Morsk as she shoulders her spear. It’s clear she trusts him no more than Kol does. With Pek in solidarity with his betrothed and his brother, Morsk is without an ally.
Unless I am his ally. Right now, I’m not sure how I feel.
Before Kol walks away, he squats down in front of a thicket of thorns. At first I worry he is getting sick—his skin is still gray, his eyes still dull—but when he straightens, Chev’s knife is in his hand. Relief washes over me at the sight of it. Though it may have been used to kill him, it is still his knife—the work of his own hands—and I would’ve hated to have left it behind.
Kol hands it to Seeri. “Hold on to it,” he says, glancing at Morsk. “You may get a chance to use it.”
For just a moment, anger flares in me, though I’m not sure why. Is it because Kol refuses to trust Morsk, or because he chose to give the knife to Seeri instead of me? It doesn’t matter. I shove the anger down. This is not the time for emotional reactions. I can’t be selfish now. I need to stay focused on our task.
I need to think like a High Elder.
As we move downhill toward the sound of Black Dog’s howls, I notice changes all around us. Off to our left, the chime of water spilling over rocks comes from the stream that feeds the lake. The trees begin to thin, even as the underbrush thickens. A cold breeze whistles past my ears, chilling them. Overhead, a circle of blue appears—the open sky above the lake—ringed by dark green treetops.
And straight through the shade, running straight toward me, is Black Dog.
He jumps against my leg, runs a few paces back the way he came, then circles around and jumps against me again. He wants me to follow.
We move closer to the edge of the trees, and I notice the scent of algae mixing with evergreen, and a sound I had not expected. The roar of falling water.
Sun hits my face as we step out from beneath the trees. Finally Black Dog stops. He runs out ahead of us and looks up, letting out another piercing howl.
Right in front of us lies the lake—an oval stretch of water that reflects the blue and white of the sky. A sharp cliff of black rock rises behind it, and tumbling from its top ledge is a spray of water and light—the waterfall.
Black Dog howls again, and I scan the ridge at the top of the falls and spot two figures seated on the highest ledge. Two figures under the broad sweep of the sun, waving at me.
Lees and Noni.