“I wish I could make a fire,” he said, almost apologetically, “but in this location the Murdano’s men may notice smoke if it escapes the cave.”
The guide studied me, and I studied back.
He had likely never seen a dairne. I wished I had never seen a human.
His furless skin was a soft brown. The only significant hair he possessed grew in black waves, tied back with a leather cord into a stubby tail. His dark eyes were not unlike my own, though it was hard to be precise in the strange light. He had no muzzle, only a strangely flat mouth. Full lips alternately covered and revealed useless teeth that could never take down prey.
“So,” he said. “You’re a dairne.”
“And you’re a human boy,” I spit back.
A wide smile formed. “Well, I’m glad that I can fool you, too.”
“Fool me?”
“Indeed.” Suddenly the gruffness that had always sounded false to my ears was gone. His voice was higher in register—serious, but not grim.
It hit me with the clarity of a lightning bolt.
“You’re female!”
“Correct,” said the guide, in that same amused-but-serious voice. “I’d have thought the fabled dairne sense of
smell would have exposed me by now. But then, I suppose after weeks hunting in the wilds, I’m dirty enough to smell like the foulest man.”
“I’m sorry.” I blurted the words automatically. I’d been raised to be respectful, never to call any creature by the wrong name. “I’ve had little experience with humans.” Then, recovering my anger, I added, “And I wish I’d had still less.”
“I’ve had no real experience with dairnes,” the guide replied. “You’re the first I’ve been near.”
“Then it wasn’t you who sent out the dairne warning call near the cliff?”
“So you heard it?” The guide looked pleased. “Yes, that was me. I’ve learned what I could about your kind over the years. One of the poachers taught me that call.” She tilted her head. “How did I do?”
“The pitch was all wrong.”
“Perhaps you’ll teach me how one of these days.”
“So that you can capture more dairnes?” My throat tightened. “If there are any more of us.”
He—no, she—looked down. “I’m sorry about your . . . about the others.”
I felt words inside me bubbling to the surface like bile, but I didn’t speak. I could not say the word “family.” I could not say “brother” or “sister.” “Father” or “mother.”
The pain of it would have choked me.
Instead I focused on sense memory. I recalled the smells of the poachers and the Murdano’s soldiers and compared them to the scent of this girl. I picked out the differences and tucked them away. Never again would I confuse male and female humans.
“Do you have a name?” the girl asked.
“Do you?”
“My name is Kharassande, though everyone calls me Khara, which can be a name for either boy or girl. But I’ve been called ‘boy.’ Or ‘guide.’ Or ‘you there.’”
“Are humans so stupid they don’t know that you’re female?”
“Humans see what they expect to see. I dress as a boy, speak as a boy. So they see a boy.”
“But why?” I asked, my natural curiosity getting the better of me for a moment.
“Why am I disguised as a boy?” Khara tore me another chunk of the meat and pushed it into my mouth. “Girls aren’t allowed to hunt. Girls aren’t allowed to do many things. Most things.”
It was a strange notion, but then, I knew so little of humans. It was the truth, of that much I was certain.
There is no point in lying to a dairne. We will always feel the falseness. And while dairnes may exaggerate or tell tall tales, may joke or be playful with words, we do not lie the way other species do.
Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it’s not.
“And you?” Khara asked casually.
“I am female,” I said. “I have no reason not to be.”
She nodded. “Lucky.”
“I’m not feeling lucky.”
“I suppose not.”
Khara stared at me. So much about her human face was unfamiliar, and yet her gaze was every bit as intelligent and searching as any dairne’s.
“If we were to run into the wrong sort of person,” Khara said carefully, “being female might get me hurt.” She paused. “Even killed.”
Instantly I understood what she was doing. She was telling me that she’d entrusted me with dangerous information.
I did not trust her. I would never trust her.
But I no longer feared her.
I looked into her eyes. I said, “My name is Byx.”
14.
An Unexpected Visitor
In the middle of the night, my eyes flew open. At least, I assumed it was the middle of the night. It was hard to gauge time in the depths of a cave.
Two strange sounds competed for my attention.
The first sound was odd breathing coming from Khara. On each inhalation she made a sustained snorting noise, not unlike a bog toad.
I assumed all humans did this when they slept.
The second sound seemed to be a rat scrabbling over the stony cave floor. But my nose immediately corrected that impression. It wasn’t rat or mouse.
It was wobbyk.
My heart leapt.
I strained to listen. Scrabble, scrabble, pause. Scrabble, pause.
And there he was.
Tobble.
He flashed a grin. In the faint light from the moonsnails, his black eyes glimmered. I shook my head, silencing him before he could speak. We could not afford to waken Khara.
I rolled onto my side to show Tobble the rope that still bound my wrists. His nimble little paws, along with his teeth, went to work. My hands tingled with their newfound freedom.
I patted Tobble in thanks. He seemed pleased, for he produced a purring sound, a softer, more melodious version of Khara’s heavy breathing.
We crept inch by inch, Tobble in the lead. Vallino heard us, of course. He was a clever beast, and herd animals have sharply developed senses. He could have exposed us with a single nicker or a loud snort, but he stayed silent.
I suspected Vallino did not enjoy carrying my weight along with Khara’s. He was probably happy to see me leave.
We soon emerged beneath a star-strewn sky and moved away from the cave as quickly as we could while still remaining silent.
“Many thanks,” I whispered. “So that was you I heard calling my name on the trail?”
“Yes. I wanted to give you hope.”
“I thought I was imagining things.”
“Your wound,” Tobble said, pointing to my side. “Are you well enough to travel?”
“I’m fine.”
Tobble jutted his chin toward the cave. “Did the human girl plan to kill you?”
“You knew she was a girl?”