He sank down, his back against one of the ramada poles, his head tilted as he stared up at the palmetto roofing. “Sometime soon now, I am going to have to do something very difficult. I have no reason to believe that what I am planning will work. You have heard the witchcraft stories?”
“Of course. Half of Sun Town thinks I’m a sorceress. The other half thinks you are a witch. Let them stew. No one wants to make a witch mad. It has repercussions. Like Dancing on the Bird’s Head during a lightning storm. You never know when the next bolt might blast you dead.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that analogy.” He glanced nervously at Wing Heart’s shadow where she worked the dimly lit loom.
“Sorry.”
“It’s not a joke,” he answered. “That’s why I need you to promise. If I tell you to, you must leave. If I fail, they will come to kill you. Do you understand what that means?”
She nodded, sobered, memories of being bound to the pole at the Men’s House still fresh in her nightmares. “Yes, Husband, I do.”
“Then you will go if I ask? You will save yourself and our daughter?”
She nodded, meeting his eyes. They reminded her of dark pools of misery. “I will not let them cut me apart, urinate inside my chest, and feed bits of my body to the dogs.”
He sighed then, body limp with relief.
Hope rose in her heart as she softly said, “You could come with me. They don’t need you here, Salamander. You do so much for these people who despise you, who call you a witch and a fool. They think you are a joke, a spineless boy parading as a Speaker.”
“Sometimes I think that, too,” he answered.
“You are not, you know.” She smiled, laid out the last of the fish, and reached out to grasp his hand. “You have the respect of my clan. Of my brother and my uncle. I love you, Salamander. I, for one, don’t want to live without you.”
His smile was wary. “I thought you came here to kill me.”
She hesitated. What did she say? How did she handle this? “I did. I have no love for the Sun People. I never will. You know what they did to me—did to my friends. But I have a great love for you.” She swallowed hard, and added, “I wish I had never had our daughter.”
“Why?” He looked truly hurt.
“Because then I could stay and fight at your side,” she said proudly. “If Half Thorn came for you, he would find two warriors ready to defend you rather than one.”
“Warrior?” He stared off into the distance, no doubt remembering the blow that dispatched Eats Wood.
“Warrior,” she affirmed. “Come with me, warrior. In time we can work something out, some means whereby we can see Pine Drop and Night Rain.”
“We?” he asked with mild curiosity.
She shrugged, as if it were nothing. “Well, somehow, over the moons, I have come to like them a little. It wouldn’t displease me to see them periodically.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
She gave him a slow smile, hoping against hope. “Will you come away with me?”
“Funny, isn’t it? I asked that same question of Pine Drop. Not meaning quite the same thing, but with the same result. She, too, said no.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would be so easy, and at the same time, so hard. We could all escape the pain, Anhinga. All we have to do is give up our responsibilities. Why is that so hard? Why is it easier to stay and die than it is simply to stop being ourselves to become someone else?”
She stared at him, frowning, hearing the importance of his words but not quite understanding the weight of the ramifications.
He pointed at Wing Heart. “Isn’t that what Mother did? She gave up. Her souls left her body so that they didn’t have to face the pain and disappointment. Pine Drop won’t stop being who she is to run off with me. I won’t stop being who I am to run off with you.” A faint smile bent his lips. “You won’t stop being who you are to stay here with me.”
I won’t stop being who I am? What is he talking about? And then her gaze slipped to the covered earth ovens with their simmering cache of hemlock-laced yellow lotus root. She felt a tingle race across her skin. Panther’s blood! He couldn’t know, could he? If he did, why didn’t he stop her? Challenge her over it?
She could feel his knowing stare burning through her skin as she avoided his gaze. It’s your nerves. If he knew, he’d never allow you to get away with this!
She took a breath, trying to think of what to say, but her response was cut off when Yellow Spider appeared out of the night, saying, “Salamander? There is news. Mud Stalker and Deep Hunter are calling the Council to session tomorrow morning.”