Each woman took an end of the rawhide strap and then pulled it tight. The fountain of blood slowed to a stream.
“Get a stick!” Padera growled.
Straining with both hands on the leather, Roan focused on Sarah’s daughter. “Brin! Get the hammer from my bag.”
Brin squeezed through the crowd, rushed to Roan’s side, and pulled open the satchel. Out of it the girl drew a small hammer.
“Here, child. Lay the handle where the straps cross,” Padera ordered.
Brin hesitated, looking at the blood and cringing with Holliman’s screams.
“Do it!” Padera shouted.
Persephone pushed forward and took the hammer. She placed it where indicated. Padera and Roan crossed the straps, wrapping it.
“Twist,” Padera ordered.
With weak, shaking hands, Persephone managed to find the strength to tighten the belt. The stream of blood subsided to a trickle, then a drip.
“Hold it there,” Padera commanded, then pointed in the direction of Mari’s statue. “Fetch down a brazier.”
The closest man removed his shirt and wrapped his hands. He placed the pan on the ground near the women. Padera snuffed out the fire, leaving the smoldering wood.
Holliman’s struggles were subsiding even before the hot poker used to stir coals was pressed to his leg. He let out a violent scream, then went limp. The smell was horrific, and Persephone held one hand under her nose while the other remained clamped tightly to Roan’s hammer.
Around them, faces clustered, peering over shoulders. Those who spoke did so in worried whispers.
Holliman was one of the dahl’s best hunters. The deer he killed in winter were often the difference between life and death. He had no children, and his wife had been lost to a fever three winters back. He hadn’t taken another. Too heartbroken it was said. Although not someone Persephone would pick as chieftain, he was a good man.
Konniger leaned against the well, waiting and still holding his bloody ax. Persephone wouldn’t have chosen him, either. He didn’t impress her as being wise or the sort to inspire others. He was a warrior, a shield, an ax.
Padera, who was wrapping the blackened flesh of Holliman’s knee, paused. She stared at his face as if the unconscious man had asked a question. Putting aside the wounded leg, she reached over and laid a hand to the side of the man’s neck. As she did, the furrows on her craggy face deepened. The urgency the old woman had radiated died along with Holliman. She untied the leg and returned Roan’s hammer. Then the old woman walked to the well to clean up.
“Congratulations,” Padera told Konniger. “You’re the new chieftain.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Before the Door
Delicate, radiant, beautiful, in our eyes she was every inch a god, and she scared us to death.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
While every other Fhrey in Erivan celebrated, Arion stood alone in a darkened tomb. She put a hand on the marble urn that held Fane Fenelyus’s ashes. The vessel was eight feet tall, wider at the top, tapered near the bottom, and polished to a smooth luster.
Just outside, crowds filled Florella Plaza, all the avenues, and even the palace. A thousand bonfires blazed, commemorating the start of Fane Lothian’s reign.
Less than a month and they’ve already forgotten you.
Arion rested her head against the urn. The stone was cold, so very cold. “I worry about what’s to come and could use your counsel.” She paused, straining to hear any faint sound.
Fenelyus had been the first to wield the Art and founded the Miralyith tribe. In her time, she’d single-handedly defeated entire armies, built the great tower of Avempartha, and become the fifth fane, leader of all Fhrey.
Is it so unreasonable to hope she can speak to me from the other side? Why not? The old lady did everything else.
But if Fenelyus had replied, Arion couldn’t have heard over the whoops, cheers, and laughter of the city’s celebration.
The tomb of the old fane was dark; Arion hadn’t bothered to light the braziers. Instead, she left the door open to admit the moonlight, and along with it came the noise. Somewhere a group was singing “Awake the Spring Dawn,” but their rendition was so bad that winter was certain to return. The clamor ruined her mood. The very idea that anyone could be happy after Fenelyus’s passing made her angry. Death wasn’t something Arion was used to. None of them were.
Why am I the only one here? The only one who seems to care?
Arion tried to block out the shouts and the singing and focused on the urn. She wasn’t going to hear any messages that night, but that wasn’t really why she was there. Arion just wanted to say goodbye, again. “I’m going to teach Mawyndulë as you asked. Lothian has decided to allow it. But will that be enough? After all you did, after all you gave me, taught me, will anything ever be enough? I just wanted to—”
Outside, cries of celebration became shrieks of terror.
She rushed out to find a flooded Florella Plaza, the entire square had turned into a lake. From the steps of Fenelyus’s tomb, Arion could have dived from the porch of the sepulcher and not hit bottom. Streamers and banners, splintered boards that once had been part of a stage, and other debris bobbed and spun on the surface. People thrashed and gasped for air. Those who could swim, screamed; those who couldn’t weren’t able to.
Arion flung out her arms and with one loud clap exploded the water. Like stomping in a puddle, the lake burst in a spray that flew in all directions. She did this three more times before the stone was visible again. What had been a marketplace recently decorated for the coronation was now a disaster of shattered shops and horrified people spitting water and holding on to poles or one another.
A gaggle of soggy youth picked themselves up, laughing. Arion marched toward them. “Who’s responsible?”
Eyes shifted to the tall one in a powder-blue robe with a smirk on his face.
His name was Aiden, a graduate from the Estramnadon Academy of the Art less than a decade ago. Arion had taught him advanced chords. A bright kid. Looking at their faces, she remembered having taught all of them. Some of the younger ones were still in school.
Aiden held up his hands in defense. “Hey, we all agreed there was absolutely no better use for water on a night like this than a living sculpture of Fane Lothian. Am I right?” He grinned at his fellow conspirators. A few smiled and sniggered. “Certainly no sense drinking it. Am I right? Am I right?”
Aiden staggered, and the rest of them laughed.
“You’re drunk,” Arion said.
“But that’s not why it failed.” Aiden pointed at Makareta. She’d been one of Arion’s students as well. A mousy introvert with a wonderful talent for sculpting stone. “She took too long getting the features just right. Perfectionist, you know.”
Makareta scowled and blushed at the same time. They were all drunk.
“You tapped the Shinara River for a sculpture?” Arion asked. “Here. In the square?”
“Genius, am I right? We were gonna have it smile and wink as people walked by.”
Behind them, an elderly Fhrey coughed as she got to her feet. She struggled to drag hair from her face as she stared across the plaza. “My stand. It’s gone.”