Kingdom of Monsters - Empire of Sand Series

Chapter 2.2

Her elder stood behind Ayala, equally worried, equally severe. If Mara and her unborn baby died, the village's connection to the Twin Rivers died too. They would become wanderers without homeland, like Deep Riverbend, facing utter annihilation.

Asnul pressed his warm face to the back of her neck. His breath tickled her ear.

Lunsa's heart swelled to its former strength.

She scraped the mash into a clay bowl and gave it to a cousin to finish distributing, then repacked her mortar and implements. "What is her illness?"

"She hungers but cannot eat. Her body is hot as a boiling cauldron, but if we try to remove the blankets, she cries."

The girl demonstrated, rocking back and forth.

"And she dreams. She speaks aloud to family that is already kannen-a and to those who . . . ah . . ."

The girl looked at the elder, swallowed hard, spit on the ground, covered it, and spit again. Trying every possible method to protect herself from the blasphemy she was about to perform.

"She speaks to the one in your family who started your misfortunes. The one who lost his true name."

Tingling passed over Lunsa's skin.

Their elder shook his tiger feathers, sweeping away the devils and their misfortunes.

For her family, his gesture was too weak and far too late.

Speaking to the dead was risky. Sometimes, the dead did not wish to return to the shadelands alone. Speaking to someone who lost his true name was a thousand times more dangerous.

Demons, devils, and all manners of monsters loved to eat the hearts of unfortunates who had lost their true names, and they could travel through the blood to eat the hearts of everyone related, or who thought of the nameless one, or who spoke his ordinary name aloud. The only way to protect against this danger was to pretend the person had never existed.

So only a death-dealing god could make her sister speak to one who never existed.

The weight of the sky pressed hard upon Lunsa.

The girl's fingers dug into her fleshy forearm. "You must come. You're the only one who can cure her."

Lunsa's boots pressed into the earth.

Ayala's exhausted eyes widened. "You can cure her, yes? Of course yes. Yes, you can and you must. You are the herbaline."

Lunsa's belly trembled. Her body trembled. Her heart trembled.

Asnul nuzzled her.

She stroked her beloved heart's companda. Such soft fur. Such lovely soft fur on his faithful, gentle, sweet body. His long claws caught her fingers and squeezed.

One plant could cure the illness Ayala described. Feverish woodbine, so named because a small amount of the white flesh would cause a fever, a few flakes more would cure it, and any above would kill—kill the person who consumed the medicine, kill the person who prepared it, and kill any person who observed. It grew ubiquitous in this region, and overly potent woodbine called death to itself—the skin leaked sickness—while overly weakened woodbine caused the fevers she sought to cure.

The only medicine she knew, and trusted, grew in her poison garden. At the edge of the hidden clover field, in the shadow of the Serengai, in the mountain above her village. Behind her.

Her belly squeezed.

She had thought to escape her family's blood curse.

She had thought to escape.

Her elder lifted his tattooed chin. "As your sister's fate goes, so goes the fate of your tribe."

"They kill compandas," the old man said again, behind her. "Soldiers and devils. Skin them and eat them right up. Men lose their minds."

Before the thought fully formed, Lunsa unpicked Asnul and pulled him away from her body. He stared at her with his dark, liquid eyes, and his small nose twitched.

For these long annums, he alone had formed her home. One could have a companda without having a village, but it was impossible to have a village without a tree full of compandas, and it was impossible to have a home without a heart.

She breathed in his ticklish fur, the soft delicate scent of him. He smelled of warmth and comfort and love. His arms and legs draped bonelessly from her trembling fingers. She kissed him on the crown—such a small, fragile head—and pressed her forehead to his—so terribly small, so desperately fragile—and then thrust him toward her cousin. "Take him to my sister."

Ayala gasped. "What?"

"Please." She held out the precious weight. "Take him."

"I can't!"

Asnul reached out to Lunsa, pleading. His long claws plucked at her woven sleeves.

Lunsa's hands trembled. His absence from her was already a coldness that sapped the heat from her body and hurt with an agonizing ache. It took all her strength not to hug him to her and cry and promise never to pretend to send him away from her ever again.

She shoved him onto her cousin.

He hooked the girl's worn pack, surprised.

Lunsa let go and stepped back. Her heart ripped in grief. "Keep him safe."

Ayala's face clenched, a mirror of Lunsa's. "Your sister chases the dead!"

"I will follow." Lunsa pulled out her grandmother-ka's precious scales and scoops, balances and measures. Her hands felt numb. She clamped the package between her deadened palms and held it out to the elder. "These are too precious to be lost."

He took her tools. "Return to us swiftly."

She pulled on her pack.

Asnul chattered, reaching out to her. Be safe, beloved one. The words stuck in her throat. His face blurred. She turned away.

"Lunsa." Her elder's wise eyes reflected his deeper knowledge. "Beware. The demon's vengeance burns hottest for you."

Her throat squeezed. She bobbed her understanding.

Her neck felt cold and her hands felt empty as she turned from her tribe, from the bridge, from the future, and struck out, instead, onto the path homeward. The scent of fire seeped into the reddening sky. She climbed to meet it.