Night Shadow Star gasped, backing away until she felt Snapping Turtle’s wedge of a nose against her back. The great turtle hissed in irritation.
“Horned Serpent,” she whispered, a coldness settling in her bones.
In the pantheon of the Underworld, Piasa, the Water Panther, and Horned Serpent, the winged snake, were adversaries. Governed only by First Woman, who dreamed the world from her cave beneath the World Tree’s roots, the two Spirit beasts constantly vied with each other for dominance.
“You carry Piasa’s stink, woman.” Horned Serpent inspected her with crystal eyes the size of plates, each surrounded by the three-forked design of the underworld. “Four Winds Clan. What’s left of the Sky Moiety, victors in the great civil wars fought for control of Cahokia. And you’ve brought us to this.”
“I smell ignorance inside her.” Snapping Turtle spoke from just behind Night Shadow Star’s head. “She truly doesn’t know.”
“Know what?” Night Shadow Star whimpered as Sister Datura’s grasp tightened in time to her fear.
Horned Serpent replied, “That you have done this to our world. Your Four Winds Clan. And your family in particular. You have meddled in what you should never have contemplated. You have dared to attempt, and succeeded in a thing that should have horrified you. You have rent the world asunder and changed everything.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, fear running bright through her.
Horned Serpent hissed the words. “Spirit possession runs in the Four Winds Clan. But most particularly in your lineage. The mad evil of Tharon? That perversion came of drinking galena tea. But you and your family? The madness lies in the blood, passed from one generation to the next. It infects the male seed and lurks in the wombs of the women. The brilliance that allowed Black Tail to overthrow Petaga and defeat the Dreamer Lichen? It was driven by the Spirit voices that whispered between his souls. They drove him to attempt the impossible and recall the Morning Star’s souls from the Sky World.
“The voices skipped your father’s generation, leaving Red Warrior, your aunts and uncle only the cunning brilliance. But it was reborn in you and your brothers with a vengeance. You hear voices from a world not your own, and it incites you to madness.”
“And Lace and Sun Wing?”
Horned Serpent’s crystalline eyes glowed from within. “Your sisters do not concern us.”
She saw a flicker from the corner of her eye, felt Piasa’s presence as what seemed a blur materialized into the Water Panther. His wings spread wide and radiated a bluish light. Hard yellow eyes fixed on hers, the whiskers quivering as he flexed his eagle-taloned feet. The snake’s tail lashed back and forth in either irritation or threat. A cerulean ripple ran across the Spirit beast’s fur as he bared white curving fangs in a feline snarl.
“We’ve done her no harm,” Snapping Turtle said. “Yet.”
Piasa arched his back, head cocked. “Then you understand her value?”
“If she’s the one.” Horned Serpent’s head remained motionless while his body slipped sideways as if in preparation to strike.
“She’s broken,” Snapping Turtle insisted. “A whimpering, grieving shell. She couldn’t even endure her husband’s death without sending her souls into our realm in search of him. How do you expect her to find enough courage to defeat the abomination?”
Horned Serpent had fixed his crystalline eyes on Piasa; his tongue flicked out like a forked black whip, before he said, “She reeks of pity and privilege. Her Spirit possession will lead her to self-inflicted misery in the end. She knows this … knows she’s different. Nor can she bear the fact that she shattered like a dropped pot, ran to the women’s house, and afterward, married the only man she knew would never question the voices, or the events of that day. Look into her soul, Piasa. She’s hidden the memory of what they did to her, covered it over as if it were a mold-ridden seed cache that could be sealed away with a layer of hard-packed clay.”
Piasa stepped close, his terrible yellow eyes burning into Night Shadow Star’s. “You know who the abomination is, don’t you? I can see the cracks in your souls. Tendrils of memory from that day are filtering through you. It’s been bubbling up in your dreams. Appearing as nightmares that you refuse to believe to be real.”
She bowed her head, wrapping her arms over her breasts. “I … I…”
The images came reeling up, memories, the physical sensation of hands on her body, of his eyes. That was the worst. His eyes seemed to expand, filling the entire world as hungry hands slipped along her skin. Then came the feel of soft fur beneath her back. His weight slammed down, his knee like a wedge between her legs.