Guardian of Calandria | ✔️

Chapter Seven

           Kira held her tongue, fighting off the urge to scream, as the seer's fingers brushed her necklace. For nearly and hour she examined it silently and Kira grew impatient. But if Emma taught her one thing, it was to respect her elders, and a woman with hair of salt and liver spots folded with wrinkles was every bit an elder.

Her eyes had lost all pigment, leaving her blind, yet she stared at the necklace as intently as the rest of the tribe had. Addrick had paraded Kira through the tribe, announcing she was a Guardian, like a prize he'd won at a fair. Bodies parted to make way for them before they followed the pair to the seer's wagon. Whispers hung in the air, gaining in strength as they became one. The seer's apprentice took them into the wagon where they'd stayed ever since. What irritated Kira the most was the silence from the woman. Sometimes she'd give an "hmm" or an "ah" but nothing of any detail.

Addrick, meanwhile, flirted with the apprentice as if nobody else was in the wagon. Neither he, nor the bubbly girl, seemed to care the old women endlessly fingered Kira's necklace. Kira's brow furrowed as her eyes drifted to watch Addrick twirl the girl's dark red hair between his fingers. The apprentice traced his Guardian tattoo as she laughed at anything he said.

"He's as bad as Ry," Kira thought. "It's disgusting. That girl can't be more than fourteen."

"She is sixteen," the seer said. Kira jumped, warmth rushed to her cheeks. Addrick continued with his banter. "You're right, Addrick. The necklace is of Guardian origin. Mind your place, Astrid. Remember who he is before you cart around like a cat in heat."

Kira had a hard time understanding the old ladies words through her thickened accent. Her r's sounded hard while the 'th' of 'the' was replaced with a z. Astrid released her touch on Addrick's tattoo. A blush colored her dark cheeks as she bowed away from him and joined the seer's side. The seer waddled to one side of the narrow wagon, her hands hovered over the shelves of a small book shelf. A whistle slipped through her lips as she handed vials and a chalice to Astrid. Roots hanging from the beams holding the wagon canvas in place swayed with every step of the seer.

"The question now . . . " The old woman looked over her shoulder and stared at Kira. "Does it belong to the girl or not."

"Of course it belongs to me! It was my mothers."

"So you say. Yet I could steal a turd from a cow patty and claim it as my own, but it wouldn't be true. Come, we shall see what the medallion holds."

Kira crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. Her mouth opened to shout at the old woman, but the seer raised one liver spotted hand and moved toward the door. She climbed out of the back of the wagon, Astrid following like a dutiful pet, and vanished into the daylight. Addrick looked at Kira. He'd removed his shirt when they returned to the tribe and hadn't put it back on. It was as if he wanted to show off his tattoo as he made Kira show off her necklace. She couldn't tuck it back under her shirt once they left the lake. Addrick said the tribe needed to see it and she no longer needed to hide who she was. It didn't matter to him Kira had no clue what the necklace had meant.

Kira's eyes moved from his arm to the tattoos on his chest. The claw wasn't large in size yet even at the distance spanning between them she saw the details of each hairy spot surrounding the padding. Fake skin folded away from the claw and she admired the depth of the tattoo. If she hadn't known it was a tattoo, she would've thought it was his inner leopard scratching itself free.

"Ye like what ye see? I can have them draw a picture of me."

Kira blushed and looked at his face instead. He smiled at her, gray eyes twinkling in the sunlight seeping through slits in the wagon canvas.