Ice Blink

7: Fever Dream

Half-imagined images flashed through Nuna's mind, rippling like water, shining unnaturally bright. Was this death? Was her life going to replay for her before all was lost?

A shimmering image of the Nualik village, how it looked when approaching from the south... the island rising up out of the sea and many wooden houses perched high on the steep slopes, driftwood stilts lashed together to support them, so the houses would not be damaged when the sea pushed ice onto the shore...

Then she was young and in the woods, shrieking with laughter as Aniu pelted her with snowballs, zigzagging between trees to avoid them, having too much fun to bother throwing any back... Oh, Aniu... Nuna missed her so much, every breath hurt.

She was learning to throw a spear for the first time under Aneguin's strict tutelage. The wind had whipped the snow into coils like ribbon dancers twirling around her, and her young arm shook, the weighted spear too heavy.

"Just give her a child's spear, Father." Kenai had sat on a boulder nearby, legs swinging as he carved an amulet out of whalebone.

"If I give her a child's spear, she will find it harder to adjust when she grows out of it and switches to the larger one."

Nuna remembered willing herself not to cry at the ache building up in her arm, still holding the spear aloft. She threw. It thudded into the snow, three paces from the painted target.

"Missed again. She will never be a hunter," Aneguin had told Kenai.

When he had left, snapping at Kenai to take Nuna home, her brother pressed his bone carving into her little fingers. It was a hooded figure mid-throw, the spear about to leave its hand.

"This is you," he had told her, ruffling her short black hair.

"No, it isn't," Nuna had wailed. "Father hates me. And I'm not good enough!"

"You're not good enough yet," he'd replied. Kenai's smile always reached his eyes, and it was like a sunbeam penetrating the thickest grey clouds. But that day it had not been enough to stop her tears.

Nuna been forever disappointing Aneguin, forever proving the muttering, superstitious tribespeople right: she didn't belong in Nualik.

Why had she thought this doomed journey would be any different?

I'm sorry, Father. I'm sorry, Mother. I'm sorry, Qignaaq. We didn't save the village. But we found the gods... is that enough? Will anything ever be enough...?

"Stay with me." The voice was jarring and unfamiliar. It disrupted her comforting memories.

A hand Nuna didn't know stroked her forehead, smoothing hair back, and her previously-numb legs exploded into agony. The pain ripped through her like knives.

"We've done all we can for her –"

"Leave. She is under my care now."

No, Nuna tried to moan, but no sound escaped her lips. In her dreams everything was shining and warm, she didn't want to return to reality, she couldn't face death... I'm not ready to die.

"Nuna, you are a strong huntress," the soft male voice said. How did he know her name? "I know you can stay with me." The hand kept stroking her hair soothingly. When had anyone ever stroked her hair? She vaguely remembered Meriwa doing it when she was small.

Her strength was fading, and the world darkened once more.

Nuna was hobbling through trees on crutches, trying to keep up with Qignaaq as her recently-broken leg dragged uselessly behind her. She feared catching up and getting too close, but she didn't want Qignaaq to reprimand her, either.

"I know you're faster than this, Nuna," she called. "Come on, we're nearly at the sacred site."

Nuna quailed. "You're... you're taking me to a spirit shrine? Why? Are you going to sacrifice me?"

"No." She sounded amused. "Your father informed me you broke your leg on your first big hunt."

"Yes," Nuna whispered as hot shame enveloped her from head to toe. "I failed. Father said no one has ever botched their first hunt so badly." Perhaps she was going to cast her out of the tribe forever.

"Yes, but while your father kept telling me you couldn't be trained, your mother has informed me you've spent your days since providing invaluable help to her in the healing hut. She says you have a gift."

"She... she does? So... are we going to gather herbs, then?"

"No. We're going to a sacred shrine because I want to introduce you to the spirits."

Nuna's mouth went dry. "Why?"

"No need to sound so scared. I believe there is another path for you, one the spirits intended all along. Come."

Nuna tried to follow, but she'd disappeared and the trees were closing in, dragging her back. "Qignaaq? Qignaaq, wait for me!"

She was too late. Qignaaq had gone.