I hover over Morsk, talking to him, repeating his name, as Kol paddles closer, pulling his kayak alongside us. I don’t need to hear Kol’s voice to know what he will say. Maybe I hear him, maybe I hear only the waves and the wind and the thrumming beat of a drum in my temples.
It doesn’t matter what I hear. I already know Morsk is dead.
I want to stay slumped over Morsk’s body, but I know I cannot. The Tama may have killed Morsk, but we killed their High Elder. We killed Dora and others of their own clan. They’ve retreated for now, but they may return. We need to head back to our camp before they can follow us.
I raise my head. Kol’s heavy gaze rests on my face. Blood flows from two gashes in his shoulder and seeps from a smaller wound in his lower arm. “Can you row?” I call.
He doesn’t answer, except to nod. His blood-smeared face wears an expression like a shattered blade. Sharp, but no longer lethal.
I turn around, still sitting on top of Morsk’s kayak. It’s a larger boat than mine, and it handles the extra weight of my body well enough. Snatching Morsk’s paddle from the sea, I turn the boat in a slow circle.
Each member of the Olen, Manu, and Bosha who came with us is watching me. Many are injured—blood smears across tunics, hands, faces—but they are all here. Morsk is the only one we lost.
When we row into our bay, our clan is waiting. Lookouts standing along the cliffs must have seen us while we were still out to sea, because when we reach the beach, the clan is there, ready to come to our aid. They crash into the shallow water to pull us from the boats and help us to shore. Mala runs to Kol, then Kesh, before her eyes fall on me. When she sees Morsk, his body slumped in the seat, she splashes through the waves and comes to my side. Two cold hands wipe blood from my cheeks before reaching around me and pulling my head to her shoulder.
I don’t remember ever being more grateful for a mother’s embrace.
It’s late, but the clan will not rest tonight. Everyone stays up, sitting in the meeting place around a fire in the hearth, talking about Morsk and his great deeds. For once, I don’t want to hide in my hut. Instead, I need to take part in the storytelling, to make sure that everyone knows of the heroism of Morsk and how he died saving the High Elder of the Manu.
Kol and I take Noni aside. “He’s dead,” Kol tells her. “Your father died in the battle.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, and she covers them briefly with her hands. Yet when she opens them again they are dry. She lifts her narrow chin—a child’s chin in a child’s face. Only her eyes are old. “Good,” she says. “Thank you.” And then, “Was he the one who killed Morsk?”
“No,” Kol says. “Your father was already dead when Morsk died.”
Noni nods. “I’m glad. I already hate him. If I knew he killed Morsk, I would hate myself, too.”
“Don’t say that,” I tell her. My voice is so bright, like a spark flying from the flame. Noni jumps. “Don’t ever blame yourself for what others have done.”
Noni looks past me. “I won’t,” she says, but I’m not convinced she means it.
As everyone talks, I sit on the ground and lay my head against a stone beside the hearth. Looking up, I take in the canopy that covers us, the work of Morsk’s own hands. I recall the meal my clan had with Kol’s family in this very space, and the way Lees had bragged about Morsk’s skill in building the covering. Kol slides closer to my side. “There was a time when the sight of this canopy angered me,” he says. “A time when I resented it. But never again. From tonight on, it will be a monument to the man who built it.”
I draw a breath, thinking of the rivalry between Morsk and Kol at the very end of Morsk’s life. I remember his proposition that we marry, and his promise to make sure I never regretted the decision if we did. But most of all, I remember why he did those things. “He loved the Olen clan,” I say.
“He did,” Kol answers. “He may have been saving me when he died, but he was out there to defend this clan. To defend the Olen and to defend its High Elder.”
My heart seems to float in my chest. I feel as insubstantial as the smoke rising from the fire. These words are the gust of wind that scatters me. I realize that Morsk gave his life for the clan I lead, and I can’t let it be for nothing.
In the morning I wake early, despite the fact I went to bed just before first light. As soon as I’m awake my sisters are up, making me wonder if they were waiting for me. Our brother and our friend will be buried at midday. I’m not surprised that they couldn’t sleep.
Yano and his sister, Ela, as the clan healers, will arrange for the graves to be dug and make other preparations for the ceremony. “Please,” I say to Ela, “don’t let Yano help dig the graves. I’m sure there are others who can do it. And if it can be done without asking those who fought alongside Morsk against the Tama, I think it would be right to spare them from that task.”
“You are a good High Elder,” Ela says. She surprises me—this isn’t something I ever thought I would hear Ela say—and I’m both pleased and saddened at the same time. Saddened because I never wanted this role, and today more than any day I will not be able to deny that it is mine.
I wander out to the meeting place, but I find it empty. People not helping dig the graves have stayed in their huts. Grief is so much harder in the cold light of day, without the fire and the sheltering dark. Daylight exposes what should be here, but isn’t.
I hope to see Kol, but his family stays away. “Maybe they’re sleeping,” says Pada, who, along with Thern, slept in the kitchen last night. I suppose she has noticed my eyes drift to the door of their borrowed hut too many times.
“Maybe,” I say, but I doubt it. I imagine Mala wants some time with her sons. Perhaps she is talking to Kol about the future of the clans, perhaps telling him again that she believes a merger would be a mistake.
Or could she be saying something else? Could she be telling him that she’s changed her mind about the idea of a merger? Could it be that she—like me—can’t deny how well our clans worked together to drive the Tama away?
My thoughts are interrupted by Seeri. “You should come prepare for the ceremony,” she says, tugging me by the hand. She wears a plain tunic made from the stiff hide of an elk. I glance at the sky. The sun is already high up, half hidden behind a net of clouds. “You’ll be standing at the head of the graves. Let me do your hair.”
Back in the hut, I dress in a sealskin tunic that once belonged to our mother. It used to be quite big on me, but Ela took it and cut it down to my size after complaining that nothing I wore from her fit. It’s open at the neck, and my carved ivory pendant—the one that had been my mother’s, the symbol of our clan—hangs against my skin just above the laces.
When the sun is almost at its highest, Ela and Yano come to call me to the graves. “As the High Elder, you should lead the procession out of camp to the ridge,” Ela says. I notice small things about her: bloodshot eyes. Red ocher staining the palms of her hands. “I’m going ahead,” she says. “A few of the children are helping me carry the drum and the masks.”
My stomach clenches at the thought of these things—all the necessary pieces of a burial. The drum, the masks. The bodies laid in pits lined with mammoth skins.
I’m glad I had nothing to eat because I don’t think I could keep it down.
After she leaves I turn to Yano. His eyes are shadowed in violet. I suspect he hasn’t had a moment of sleep since we brought Chev home. Looking at him now, he seems so alone without my brother, so small. “Ela said masks, not mask,” I say. “Please tell me you’re not doing the dance with her—”
“I want to,” he says. “It’s important. It hastens the rise of the dead to the Land Above the Sky. How could I do less for Chev than I would do for any other member of this clan?”
I choke down a sob. I can’t break now. I need to stay as strong as Yano. “My brother always knew he was lucky to have you—”
Yano’s eyes swim with tears. “No, I was the lucky one. I was so proud of him—I loved him very much.”
“And he loved you just as much.” I can’t help but wonder if my brother told Yano how much he loved him. Somehow I think he did. I raise my hand to hide my tears. I start to turn away. But then I catch myself and turn back, my tear-filled eyes meeting Yano’s. He stays with me until our tears have slowed.
The graves are dug on the ridge that overlooks the sea, in the very spot I stood with my brother and Kol to watch for the Bosha on the day Lo attacked our camp. A few of our clan are buried on ridges to the south, but I’m happy Yano and Ela chose this one for Chev and Morsk. This way I can imagine their Spirits watching over the sea, protecting their clan forever.
I don’t see Kol or his family until we are climbing to the ridge. Perhaps they hang back out of respect for our clan. I want to call Kol to my side, to ask him to stay by me as I preside over the ceremony, but I know I can’t. This is my duty alone.
My knee buckles a bit when I see Chev and Morsk both covered in ocher, lying on the mammoth pelts at the bottom of their graves. Both are dressed as hunters. Morsk holds a spear in one hand and an atlatl in the other. Darts have been laid at his feet.
When I look down at my brother, I see in his hand a single weapon—his obsidian knife. The same one Anki stole from him after she killed him. The one Kol reclaimed and gave to Seeri to hold. Chev clutches the knife to his chest, the blade lying across his heart.
Though the drum beats right behind me and the dancers circle right before my eyes, I find my thoughts carrying me away. Maybe that’s what you’re meant to do at a burial, while the drum plays on and on.
I think of my father, my mother, my brother, and I wonder about the clan they share their camp with in the Land Above the Sky. Is Kol’s father, Arem, a part of that clan? Do they all hunt together, and kayak on the Divine’s endless sea? Does the same drum call them to meals? Do they share the same dances and songs?
After the burial, I lead the procession back to camp and everyone descends on the meeting space, tired and hungry. Mala heads into the kitchen and I hear her voice as she offers to help prepare the meal. I hesitate, unsure if I should intervene—I don’t want her to feel she needs to feed my clan. She is our guest, after all. But Kol comes up behind me and touches me on the arm.
“Let her,” he says, guessing my thoughts. “It makes her feel good. It makes her feel at home.”
“She is at home.”
“Is she?” I expect the half smile I so often see on Kol’s face, but instead there’s something else—closed lips in a flat line.
“Of course she is.” I stop. Kol’s eyes are dark. He’s gone within himself. “I want to go down to the beach,” I say.
Without asking why, Kol walks beside me. Together we sit down on the edge of the dunes. His eyes trace the horizon. I can’t gauge his mood. Sad, yes—from the burial, I’m sure. But something else. Lost. Or hurt.
“This view makes me think of death,” I say. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
Kol lays his hand on mine. I turn my palm up to touch his and lace our fingers together. “The first time I stood here was the day we landed, after leaving your camp. My mother was in a kayak coming in behind me. I ran to her, but she was already dead, and Chev chased me away.”
When I pause, Kol doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence, and I’m grateful for that. The sea breeze that’s rippled in all morning has sharpened to a cold wind. Kol moves closer to me. “My mother, my brother, Morsk. None of them died here at home. And before the burial I worried that I would always feel like they were still out there, trying to come to this shore.”
I close my eyes momentarily and I see it, the place my mind traveled to while I stood at the head of the graves and the drum beat on and on. I see again the fires set by my loved ones in the Land Above the Sky.
“But now I see it differently. I see them together in a new place, with a new clan. A clan that includes your father and mine, maybe even Manu and Bosha from long ago. Great hunters, great leaders, not yearning to come to the place they left behind, but instead waiting for us to come to them.”
“So you think that Bosha and Manu—the founder of your clan and the founder of mine—might live together in one clan in the Land Above the Sky?”
“I think maybe they do,” I say.
“Does that mean . . . ?” Kol’s voice flickers like a flame in the wind—faltering and flaring. “Are you thinking maybe then our clans might merge?”
“I think it might be too late for us to make that decision,” I say.
A flinch runs from Kol’s shoulder down the length of his arm to his hand. In response, I raise his hand to my lips. “I think the Divine may have already made that decision,” I whisper, my lips never leaving his skin. Somehow he still understands my words. “I think you and I are already sharing the role of High Elder, with her blessing.” I turn my eyes to his. “We worked together to get our families home from the island. We worked together to fight back the Tama. I can’t deny that our clans are stronger—we are stronger—when we’re together.” I stifle a laugh against his palm. “Even our honey tastes sweeter together.”
Kol turns toward me and there it is, that half smile. He leans close to me, pressing a kiss to the hollow just below my ear. “The Divine has heard my prayers,” he whispers.
His breath is warm on my throat. His lips trace the line of my jaw, flutter over my chin, stopping to cover mine. We fall back against the dunes and he draws me into his arms. His kiss is light and playful, but I pull him closer, deepening the kiss until I feel my heart pounding against my chest as if it’s trying to break into his. I tip my head back. My eyes sweep over Kol’s face, but he keeps his gaze fixed on my mouth.
“Mya . . .” Kol swallows, and I feel the vibration run into me, he holds me so close and so still. “I need to tell you . . . I didn’t want this just to . . . our clans . . . it’s not . . .” His eyes move to mine, and something inside him opens wide and pulls me in. For a moment I’m scared, but then I let everything that is Kol surround me and enclose me. “Mya, I love you.”
“And I love you. With all my heart.” My words are half spoken, half gasped, but I know Kol understands.
I tilt my head forward, touching his brow with mine. Our bodies relax. The tension between us slowly unwinds as we settle into the sand.
“Now,” I say, partly to myself, partly to Kol, and partly to the clan that right now is sharing a meal, not knowing the plans that are being made. “Now we just need to give our new clan a name.”