Kingdom of Monsters - Empire of Sand Series

Chapter 1.2

The black flakes crossed her mind.

She kissed the tree's wrinkled, charred bark in honor. Then, she crossed the warm earth to her family's hut and stepped onto her own quiet veranda, alone.

First, preparations.

Asnul clambered up the wall and hung himself from his favorite rafter. Lunsa folded away her woven grass bedding, stoked her sleeping hearth fire, and spread out her gathered herbs.

She called down the blessings of her ancestors and her grandmother-ka to whisper wisdom in her ear, and called down her totem, the mouse sparrow, to move her hands in harmony with life. A dusting of incense powder crossed her circular work stone, and a spark lit the powder to release a pleasant, woody smoke.

Thus cleansed, she carefully unwrapped a spear of Devil's Foot from her basket and used medium tongs to pull out the spines. These hardy spines resisted at first, then fell out easily after she chanted the true name of the Devil's Foot, "Ala'a sa'ana tasana," or Blood Drops Stolen from the Unwary. She saved the unneeded spines in a woven bowl reinforced by clay, and set it in her hearth fire to cure. Even painful spines had their uses, and she knew them all.

From the hut nearest hers, the raucous scolding of aunt to daughter, "How many times have I had to refill the water pot today? Eh?" passed over her.

Lunsa's own water pot lasted many days with only herself and Asnul to drink from it. Melancholy thoughts made the sunlight seem to fade. Her small fire cracked.

She filled the hollow Devil's Foot spear with a paste of dried lavendula seeds for truth, crushed crimson flower for honesty, and honey to beguile the gods. Each ingredient she tamed and controlled by her recitation of its true name. At last, she tied the spear with intoxicating heliotrope sprigs and rested it over the smokiest portion of the fire to cure.

When the sky had turned the color of honeysuckle just after it's started to sour, the village elder stopped by and placed a bowl of peccari stew on her veranda. "Herbaline."

Lunsa stepped out onto the veranda and lifted the bowl toward the sky to honor Bor-Alis, god of rugged mountains and of the peccari.

"You walked long today," said the elder.

"And you."

She slurped the rich liquid, savoring the fresh peccari hind. Although she could gather any variety of plant, she had to rely on her tribe's generosity for meat.

Her elder leaned on his walking staff, his joints bent akimbo beneath his long cochineal-red robe. Silver braid feathers and blue dots patterning his body symbolized the hundred-thousand gods, and daily, he spoke to each and every one to ensure the village's health and success.

"Have you made preparations for traveling? Now is a good season to visit our nearest kin. The Blue Fin tribe and the Green Feathers tribe gave fat bucardo to your grandmother-ka when last she bestowed her blessings upon their sick and injured."

Her appetite departed. "I've not been invited."

His greedy gaze rested on her large, nearly empty family hut. "An herbaline is always welcome. And the roads are safe; no animal will assault you while I pray the gods down from heaven to protect your passage."

"I cannot teach wife's wisdom or mother's magic."

"Your grandmother-ka named you her successor anyway."

"I have no apprentice to leave you in my absence."

"We are well. None have called for the gods' mercy since the White Moon." He picked at a scab on his lip.

She set aside her half-finished stew and padded to the warm hearth, poured sweet resin infused with mashed agrimony into its prepared pot, and carried it to him.

He dipped in a pinkie and dabbed the astringent on the scab marring his intricately tattooed mouth. The silver feathers shifted as he spoke. "We have no need for you. Nothing ties you here."

She picked up the bowl again and chewed gristle.

In truth, her pack was already braided and hung with a strip woven in the colors of her village: a narrow band of Hollow-Tree crimson flanked by thick strips of Hundred-Strokes-River indigo.

Her grandmother-ka's instruments were polished and fitted into traveling pouches. Her father-ka's road boots were reinforced with cured leather straps and fresh reed padding, her mother-ka's bedroll was newly woven, and Lunsa had gathered seeds of the yellow-flower Asnul especially liked for their walk.

And yet, she was waiting.

"You hunt no animals," the elder continued. "Bear no children. You beguiled no men at the Rain Festival and aren't likely to at the Great Hunt, either. Unless you remind our neighbors that we are important, they'll soon forget to invite us to the harvests."

Dull truth thumped against her chest.

Yes, she was unlikely to beguile a man. She had ordinary weaving skills, hair and skin as unremarkable as dirt, and her shape was too stringy. Worst of all, she was silent and serious, and not given to attractive smiles or laughter.

"You'll see your sister again." The elder set aside the resin and wiped his hands on his robes. "Twin Rivers hasn't received an herbaline since your grandmother-ka. Surely, they married your sister with an expectation of receiving you."

"Twin Rivers is far."

"You are young and strong. And in your heart, you are close."

Her sister's bright, strong farewell at the last Great Hunt still filled Lunsa with bittersweet feelings.

I'll get myself a good husband and call one down for you too. We'll build neighboring huts and share children and chase happiness until the day we rejoin our family in Elia.

Confident, as always, that she could change their fortunes simply by willing it. And she had accomplished it, too, by finding herself a capable, healthy, one-armed husband in Twin River. Now happily married and already pregnant with her first child, Mara had escaped their family blood curse.

Lunsa couldn't.

Her family's misfortunes had begun here, in this hut, in this village, beneath the blackened boughs of the lightning-struck rampike. She, too, longed to flee them, but truth lashed her to the injustice-soaked ground. Until her wrong was righted, her body could leave, but her kannen would wait here, forever split from her body, forever barred from the sunlit path to Elia.

Every exhortation to duty, village, and lost family only wedged in a splint and cracked her spirit.

Sensing her distress, Asnul walked down the center pillar and climbed onto Lunsa's shoulder, his long claws gentle on her bare skin.

She offered him her last bite of stew. His little nose wiggled. He looked up at her with luminous eyes, acknowledging her kindness, and plucked a stray leaf from her braids to nibble.

His presence calmed her heart.

"It is not the right time to leave," she said.

A grimace twisted her elder's face. His gaze fell upon girls stringing practice bows of dried peccari sinew and women whispering the secrets of husband-catching. From the overcrowded hut beside Lunsa's, her nearest-aunt hustled her eldest daughter-ka's third set of twins to the night bushes. Their chubby cheeks glowed red from squishing against the family hearthstone. His gaze slid to Lunsa's empty veranda, once filled to the brim, now filled only with ghosts.

If she were not living in this large hut, the elder could move other families into it and receive large gratitude gifts and more tributes. And when Lunsa returned from her travels, he would have reason to force her into a small hovel and redistribute her new wealth amongst his favorites.