“Then who are you, if not Corn Woman?”
“I’m Night Shadow Star, Piasa’s mouthpiece, accursed and alone.” She barked a bitter laugh. “And here’s the irony: You’re the one who made me that. It was you who broke me down, rubbed my face in the muck of my own false sense of arrogance. You caused me to see the vile being I had become. You forced me to live it from the other side, the victim’s side. You made me feel, Brother.”
He snorted, his paddle trickling water as they drove for the center of the river. “And if I am not Thrown Away, who am I? Who but the Wild One could call the Power of the Underworld? I cut my father’s throat! Sacrificed my sister! If I am not great, what am I?”
“A witch,” she said simply. “One possessed of demented voices and polluted Power. Evil. A witch driven to sate your appetites for status and authority no matter how much misery, pain, and despair you inflict on others. You never see past yourself.”
“You think it’s about me?”
“Completely.”
“It’s about the world, Sister! About how I’m going to remake it. I’m surrendering myself to Piasa. Sacrificing my body. How can that be about me?”
She turned then, staring back at him, seeing the gleam of anticipation in his eyes.
“When you surprised me that night, beat me into submission and pinned my arms above my head, do you remember what you said as you were ripping my skirt off my hips? How you were weeping with joy? Do you remember your words when you drove your knee between my legs? Or the whimpered words that passed your lips as your seed spilled into my torn sheath?”
“I was taken by the Power of the moment, changing the world, changing you to—”
“You cried, ‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes.’ And ‘How I’ve wanted this.’ Over and over. I wasn’t there, Brother. Not as your sister, not as a terrified girl, not even as a person. I was a just a hot piece of meat with a terror-dry sheath to plunge your spear into. That’s when I knew you for what you were. And I’ve hated you ever since.”
For the first time, his eyes narrowed. He flipped his head to sling the rain off. “Then why are you helping me?”
She gave him a triumphant grin. “Helping you? Piasa told me how it had to end. It took every ounce of my strength to keep from shooting that arrow into your accursed heart. I looked at the pieces of Lace’s body, remembered her sweet face. Saw again how excited she was at her first pregnancy, and the fact that she actually loved her husband. She was trying so hard, studying at how to be a good Matron Wind in anticipation of the day she ascended to the Four Winds chair.
“I loved my father. As much for the license he gave us as children, as for the service he gave to Cahokia and its people as tonka’tzi.”
“He—”
“Quiet! I loved them all. And you murdered them! Would have murdered Sun Wing, me, Columella, and those children! Pus and blood, I wanted with my very soul to drive that arrow through your heart the way you drove your shaft into my sheath that night.”
“Then why didn’t you?” he asked through a sneer. “It’s because you know my Power, want to share it, to—”
“Piasa kept whispering for me to be patient, that I was clever enough to eventually get you here.”
They were drifting on the current now, rain spattering on them, stippling the river’s roiling surface. Someone had pushed a canoe out from the shore, a single figure, paddling like a madman in an attempt to catch up.
Walking Smoke arched an eyebrow, chuckling to himself. “Why would Piasa choose you? Look around. We’re on the river. Headed south. In a quarter moon we’ll be beyond Morning Star’s reach. I don’t have to conjure Piasa’s souls in Cahokia. There are other places that—”
“You are just where we want you,” she told him simply.
Walking Smoke threw his head back and laughed. “Quite the opposite, Sister. You’re alone with me. On the river. And as much as I appreciate your help getting out of Evening Star town, you still ruined my ceremony. And for that you must be punished.” He cocked his head. “But fortunately for you, I do love you so. The last time I shared my love, I didn’t hear you gasp when you reached your pleasure. But you’ve given yourself to me now. Before Piasa takes my body, I will hear that explosive little cry of delight.”
“Want to try now?” she asked, reaching down and peeling her moccasins off, the canoe wobbling as she did. One after the other, she tossed them into the river. “Are you desperate enough to take me in a canoe, here, in the rain?”