With the improvement, she’d lost the refuge of sleep, which had become elusive. Arion spent hours lying on her back, staring at the wooden rafters. Most of the time she lay listening to the world: the breathing of whoever was on watch, the wind above the roof, random thuds from below, or an occasional shout from outside. On that evening, she listened to the whispers of the old woman trying not to disturb her rest.
The guard changed every few hours, always the same three: Persephone, Suri, and the old woman, whose name Arion didn’t know. Maybe she’d heard it, but it hadn’t stuck. The old woman didn’t speak Fhrey, and as a result she was as interesting as the chair she sat in. Arion’s eyes were closed, but she knew who had entered the room—impossible to miss the click of claws on wood. The girl with the wolf was back. As much as she feared the animal, which had a tendency to stare while licking its fangs, she looked forward to Suri’s shifts.
The girl was fascinating. She made complex string patterns and juggled. Suri understood the Fhrey language and talked to the wolf as if it understood what she said. And although none of those things by itself indicated anything, all of them together suggested a particular inclination. If Suri were Fhrey, Arion would have her tested for entrance into the Estramnadon Academy of the Art. The enigma, of course, came from Suri being a Rhune. Only a small percentage of Fhrey had the talent to be Artists, and Rhunes were known to be akin to animals and incapable of basic reasoning, much less mastering the Art.
Unfortunately, Arion also continued to lack any ability in that regard.
The Rhune girl hadn’t explained what she had meant about it coming back. Arion had asked, but the girl had feigned ignorance, teasing her with a smile each time the subject was broached.
It hadn’t come back.
With each day’s passing, Arion grew less confident the Art would ever return. The blow to her head had severed her connection to the natural world. The ability to sense life had gone numb. Like birds that knew when to fly south, Arion used to feel the impending sunrise and experience the shifts in weather and seasons as if they were moods, colors, or music. Once discovered, the Art had opened a previously unnoticed window through which a continuously shared consciousness with Elan passed. The world was a bonfire of power that produced constant heat, but that heat was gone, and she felt horribly cold in its absence. Unlike the numbness in her hands and feet, which had healed quickly, her connection to the world and the ability to tap it in order to wield the Art had not. Arion felt blind, deaf, and numb—imprisoned in her own body.
“You can stop pretending,” Suri said. “Padera is gone.”
Padera! That was her name.
Arion opened one eye. In the light of the little lamp with its flickering flame, the girl was perched once more on the chair, one foot tucked underneath her, the other thrown over the arm. The wolf curled up beside the chair. Both stared at Arion.
“How did you know?”
“Breathe different when you sleep.”
Arion carefully pushed up to her elbows. She could feel her fingers, which was good, and her head throbbed with just a dull ache. She was much better, yet knowing this was little comfort.
Why hasn’t it come back? If I can feel my hands, why not the Art? What if it never comes back?
“Did you bring your string?” Arion asked. Helping the girl with patterns was one of the few things she looked forward to each day.
Suri tugged on the loop around her neck, pulling it out of her clothing but leaving it as a necklace. She still sat on the chair, staring at the floor.
“Something wrong?” Arion asked.
“Might not see again.”
“You’re going blind?” Arion asked, dramatizing the girl’s purposeful avoidance of pronouns.
The girl scowled. “Know what I mean.”
“You know what I mean, and you should have said, ‘I might not see you again.’ ”
Arion expected an irritated smirk or maybe an argument. She’d been making a concerted effort to teach the girl to speak proper Fhrey, something Suri reluctantly submitted to but rarely without protest. Suri did look over but showed no hint of resistance. She appeared pensive, even a bit scared.
“Why? What’s going on?” Arion’s first thought was that a village meeting had been held and the mongrel hordes had decided to execute the evil Miralyith. They probably would do it at dawn, a ritual killing, a sacrifice to their sun god.
“Have to do something dangerous,” Suri said.
A wind blew in through the window, threatening the lamp’s flame, which fluttered but survived.
“What are you going to do?”
“Fight demon for girl’s soul.”
Arion wasn’t certain she had heard correctly. Suri had probably gotten the words wrong. She did that on occasion, and it then became a verbal form of the string game as Arion worked to untangle the idea from the sounds Suri made. “The word demon means an evil spirit.”
Suri nodded. “A morvyn—an evil spirit—took over an infant. Turned her into a giant bear. She feed on people. Bones show morvyn will come here on morning of full moon. Tomorrow. Greatest power then. Kill everyone if me not stop it.”
Arion didn’t bother to correct the pronoun. She had other more important concerns. “What do you mean when you say you saw the future with bones?”
Suri pulled out what looked to be a burnt stick from her satchel. “The signs are clear. Even know part of the name of the demon, Grin, like a nasty smile, see?” The girl held out an old chicken bone. The bottom half was scorched black. “There is an evil bear in the forest called Grin the Brown. Not bear, is morvyn. Think that is what the bones mean. But me never drive out demon before. If fail…”
She glanced at Minna. “Need to ask favor.”
“From me?” Arion was barely able to sit up and feed herself. “What?”
The wind fluttered the lamp again. Suri glanced at it, then continued, “Going with the mother of the child to a bear den. Not to fight, too powerful. Only hope is to drive demon out. Will have mother call to child. Bear knows mother, sort of knows me, too. Not taking others. Morvyn would attack. That includes Minna.” She paused to scratch behind the wolf’s ears. “Hoping to leave Minna here. Door is only thing that stop her from following.”
The idea of being trapped alone with an angry wolf was only marginally better than the idea of the village executing her. “This doesn’t sound at all wise to me. Forgive me for saying this, but you can’t tell the future from bones, and demons don’t possess children and turn them into murderous bears. It all sounds like tribal myths, silly stories to frighten children.”
“Can leave Minna?”
Maybe it was the way Suri acted like a Fhrey by playing with string. Or perhaps it was because she watched over Arion every night. Most likely it was the mournful look on the girl’s face while asking. Regardless of the reasons, Arion said, “Yes.”
She regretted it immediately. Arion opened her mouth to take it back when the wind gusted again. This time the lamp blew out, leaving them both in darkness.
Arion could still see; the moon was nearly full and its light spilled in through the window. As such, there was no mistaking what happened next. Suri looked at the lamp, which sat on the table across the room. She rubbed her hands together briskly, murmured a few faint words, and then clapped.