Blood and Bone

The Council's Children

        "The nerve of them!" When angry, Yasha had a tendency to do things more loudly than she would normally. She slammed the woodbox with a bang and viciously began to throw kindling into the fire. The pot came next; the lid was thrown off and the contents stirred so viciously that Mhera and Elan, who were sitting around the hearth, both recoiled from droplets of hot soup.

"What's gotten into her?" Jacy came through the door, his dark curls dripping from a day at the river and his damp sleeves rolled to the elbow. Mhera caught a sliver of darkening sky behind him.

"The council is sending Mhera behind the wall," Elan said as he dug into his food.

"The council is losing their minds, that's what they're doing," Yasha snarled. "Spirits alive, I don't know what they're hoping for, putting our Mhera in a stone city." She filled a third bowl with stew and gave it to Jacy as he came to sit next to Mhera. He ruffled her hair.

"Is that right, crow feathers?" She shrugged, dipping her spoon into her bowl but not bringing it to her mouth. Her stomach was roiling, and she didn't think she could take it. It was a thick broth, with chunks of potatoes from Yasha's garden and meat from Dyani's bear. The carcass had been dragged back to the village soon after the Werowans' assembly, and in no time the hide and bones had been cleaned and dried for clothes and talismans, the meat portioned off with extra servings for Dyani's and Mhera's families. "Why the sour face? The spirits answered your prayers."

"What?"

"Remember when you were eight years? Little pest you were. Always yammering about how you wanted to get out of here and live in the city with the princes and princesses." He laughed at the memory. "Chua's stories used to kill ya." 

"I remember," grumbled Mhera, her face flushed. The great wall had intrigued her, as it did most children in the clan. It had seemed the worst irony in life that she should live so close to the Asrani Gates and yet never be able to cross into that other world, a land of castles, gardens, lords and ladies. The closest glimpse she could get of life in the Stone City was through the merchants that came through the gates to sell their goods. One such merchant had been Chayton, a cheerful old man who passed through on occasion. Whenever he came into the village on his fat mule the children would swarm about him, and he would regale them with his tales, not only of Asran, but all the stone cities he'd visited in his youth. To complement the stories he'd gift them with trinkets from his travels. They were usually worthless things, unable to sell, but to the clan's children they were priceless gems: a brass hairpin from Undry, the City of the Moon, a peacock feather from the Silver City of Deondance, a pretty piece of stained glass from Thedos of the Sapphires. 

Chayton's visits had been the most exciting times in her life until she turned ten, and then her training as a witch had begun in earnest. There was no time for glass and feathers and pretty things when there were runes to be learned and bones to carve. Her dreams of living in the city had faded quickly enough. 

"This isn't want I wanted," she said. "I didn't want to be thrown away."

"There goes the crow, squacking nonsense," Jacy said indignantly. "Who's throwing you away?"

"The Council is! Tora will find a new daughter, Dyani will find a new sister, and I'll have no one." Mhera's eyes stung. Jacy ruffled her hair.

"Don't worry, little sister. You'll always have stew. It's your bear, try some."

"It's Dyani's bear, not mine. And I'm not hungry."

"I'll take it," Elan said, then yelped as Yasha hit his head with her spoon.