Something was different about this morning walk home, though. His heart was heavy for some reason, his mood was sour, and he couldn’t figure out what had caused it.
The exhaustion was nothing new, but something else must have happened to make him feel so out of sorts. The sensation of impending doom reminded him of the escalating hostilities with Rogner’s clan and the battle that had ensued last spring.
What was wrong? Was it a bad premonition, or a bad memory?
Gudbrand shook his head, stomped his booted feet, and slapped his temple with his gloved hand in an attempt to clear the haze from his head.
Since he had never gotten premonitions before, it must be a troublesome memory that had evaporated from his brain.
Nights with Ania had that effect on him.
Perhaps if he sat down for a moment and closed his eyes, the damn memory would resurface, if not in its entirety, then at least a string he could follow.
A flat rock jutting out of the snow on the right side of the path was as good a spot as any for doing some thinking. Sitting down, Gudbrand stretched his legs in front of him, crossed his arms over his chest to ward off some of the chill, and lifted his face to the sky. The forest wasn’t dense at the spot he’d chosen, but the weak sunlight filtering through the canopy of the trees wasn’t enough to warm his face.
For long moments, he sat with his eyes closed and his face upturned, letting the cold wind caress his face as he listened to the soothing sounds of the forest.
The wind must have moved the branches above him, and a patch of snow landed on his face, forcing his eyes open. It also opened up a broader swath of the sky, and even though the sunlight was still weak, he squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand.
Suddenly, a memory of Ania’s eyes glowing with unholy light popped up in his mind. Was it a memory, though?
People’s eyes didn’t glow as if twin fires were burning behind them. Not even the eyes of Frella’s priestesses. Not that he’d met any other than Ania.
She was the only one in the five-clan area, and they hadn’t encountered visitors from beyond those lands in many years. The only one to arrive had been Ania and the seven mute servants sworn to protect her, a gift from Frella.
Everyone had envied Bogen when she’d chosen his clan, but Ania was generous with her services, offering healings and blessings to all who came to petition her. She offered healing to anyone who needed it, but she was more discriminating about her lovers. Still, she judged each man as an individual regardless of his clan or his position.
Ania had done a lot of good for the five clans, so why was he suddenly so wary of her?
Where had the disturbing memory of glowing eyes come from?
Perhaps he’d dreamt it, and now it had resurfaced as a memory?
Things like that happened to him from time to time, especially after chewing on the tungboqe weed for too long. Dream and memory would blend so seamlessly that he couldn’t differentiate between the two.
The weed messed with his head, but that was the whole point. Men chewed it to relax after a hunt and to get into the right mood for dancing, singing, and sex. Some of the women chewed it too.
Maybe he’d chewed the tungboqe weed with Ania?
Gudbrand slapped a hand over his forehead. Even though he couldn’t remember if they had, that was the best explanation for his weird lapse in memory after visiting her. They must have chewed weed together after sex, and he must have hallucinated that her eyes had glowed. On its own and in small quantities, the weed was only a mood enhancer, and it didn’t cause hallucinations, but if it was cooked together with hazel bark and chewed for long enough, visions ensued.
Some thought that they were messages from the gods, but Gudbrand knew that wasn’t true. All he’d ever seen had been swirling colors and distorted vision. There had been no profound revelations or glimpses of the future.
Relieved to have found a logical explanation, he pushed to his feet and continued his trek home.
Tonight, when he came to visit Ania again, he would refuse the weed no matter how much she tried to convince him to share the experience with her. Hopefully, abstaining from it would put an end to the gaps in memory and the weird sense of impending doom.
23
Annani
While waiting for the tea to be served, Annani decided to share her story with Alena. It was not because she needed to unburden her guilty conscience, or because she was ashamed of what she had done, but because keeping things from her daughter was hurting Alena’s feelings.
Annani never took her eldest daughter’s company for granted, and she was grateful for it. The least Alena deserved for dedicating her life to accompanying her mother was the knowledge that she trusted her completely and kept no secrets from her.
After taking a couple of sips of the hot tea, Annani put the cup down on the coffee table and leaned back. “You wanted to know what happened between me and David’s prior incarnation.”
Alena cradled the teacup in her hands. “I don’t want to pressure you, and if it involves intimate details, I’d rather not hear about it.”
Annani chuckled. “After all these years, I did not expect you to shy away from carnal tales.”
Even though they usually went hunting for male company together, she and Alena had an unspoken agreement that neither told the other about their interludes. Their Odus were enough to keep them both safe, and if every other option failed, Annani would not hesitate to use their combat skills for her and Alena’s defense. Her Guardians were not happy about them leaving on excursions with only the Odus to safeguard them, but Annani did not want anyone to be privy to the private side of her and Alena’s lives.
It was not a secret that she engaged with humans, but she was the Clan Mother, and no one needed to know who she chose or when.
“It is up to you.” Alena folded one leg under her long skirt. “Nothing you can tell me will shock me, but you are still my mother.”
“I agree. But what I am about to tell you does not require getting into details that would make you uncomfortable.” Annani lifted her cup and took another sip before continuing. “This was long before you were born. Several centuries had passed since I escaped to the north, and as you can imagine, I could not stay in one place for too long. Thankfully, the world was very different back then, and even nomadic tribes did not usually venture out of a defined territory. It was easy for me to pick up and go to a new place where no one had heard about me or the tales I spun to survive among humans.”
“I thought that you lived in seclusion.”
Annani shook her head. “I always affiliated myself with a tribe. Even gods need people to socialize with, a group that they can belong to. We are not meant to live in solitude, and as you know, the Odus could not fulfill that need because they are not fully sentient. Besides, I wanted to have children, and to do that, I needed male company.”
Alena smiled into her cup. “Obviously.”
“Borrowing from existing legends, I invented a new mythology that suited my needs. I was a chosen of the goddess Frella, her priestess, and the Odus were mute servants gifted to me by the goddess.”
“I’ve never heard of a Norse goddess named Frella.”
Annani smirked. “Neither have I, but as I said before, people lived in contained areas, and outsiders bearing new information were rare. Each group of tribes or clans had a slightly different spin on the basic Norse mythology, and it was easy to add one more deity to an existing pantheon.”