Tharon grabbed one of Orenda's dolls and brutally tore it in half before throwing the pieces across the room. Breathing hard, he began kicking the rest of her toys with all of his strength. Fragments of com shuck and silk fluttered in the thin glow. Where was that big doll? He searched every shadowed nook. Gone. The little wretch had taken her favorite "companion" with her.
"You've asked for it," he rasped. "When I find you, Orenda, you'll wish you were dead with your despicable mother!"
In rage, Tharon overturned Orenda's bed, then methodically broke every pot and piece of jewelry he could fmd. His rage escalating, he snatched back the door-hanging and stamped into the hall.
Light the color of fresh maple sap coated the walls near the dimly burning firebowls. Kettle had thinned the width of the wicks since they had been unable to get more hickory oil from the last traders. Apparently Petaga had cut off their trade access. Well, Badgertail would fix that. Badgertail always fixed things. Tharon smiled. What a superb trained bear the burly warrior made.
"Just you wait, Petaga. I'll take great pleasure in watching Badgertail cut out your living heart. Oh, yes, I ordered him to take you alive, Petaga. I want to see you die myself!"
Tharon strode through the burnished auras from one mat-lined hall to the next. He'd worn his red-lace tunic tonight. The tiny holes in the weave let the gold of his robe come through in flashes like darts of lightning. Where could that demented child have gone? She hadn't escaped to the outside world, had she? Perhaps hidden in the flood of Badgertail's warriors?
His rage towering, Tharon turned a comer and jerked open the first door-hanging he came to. Boldly, he strode into the room. Before his eyes fully adjusted to the darkness, he heard a woman gasp.
"My Chief!" Thrushsong pulled herself upright in bed, hastily attempting to blink the sleep from her eyes. Ugly and skinny, Thrushsong would never have ascended to the position of priestess had it not been for her mother's and aunt's deaths a few days earlier. Black hair fell over her face, and she sputtered, "What—"
"Where is my daughter?"
"I ... I don't know. I haven't—"
"Find her!" Tharon gritted his teeth, watching maliciously as Thrushsong lurched out of bed and frantically began throwing on her clothes. "I want her in my room in less than one hand of time. Search the south half of the temple, Priestess. I'll search the north half. Wake all the other Starbom if necessary."
"Yes, my Chief!"
Tharon ducked back into the hall and raced to the next curtain. Beyond it lay a storage room, filled with vessels containing rare seashells, pounded sheets of copper, galena nuggets, and finely woven blankets. Roughly, he searched the room, shoving aside the largest jars so that they crashed to the floor and spilled their contents in a glittering wealth across the dirt. Tharon slammed his fists into the walls while he screamed, "I want Orenda! Bring me my daughter! Bring me my daughter!"
He heard Thrushsong's feet thudding down the hall and heard her awaken another of the Starbom. Voices rose urgently.
Tharon charged out of the storage room, blood pounding. He raced down the hall and turned the comer, but here his steps faltered. The only room still occupied in this corridor belonged to Nightshade. All of the other Starbom had moved out when Nightshade moved in.
Tharon pursed his lips, trying to overcome his panic at the thought of challenging her. Nightshade had been acting very strangely in the past two days. She ghosted through the halls long after everyone else had retired, no more than a shadow in the darkness, as though looking for some malignant Spirit that stalked the night.
Tharon had watched her surreptitiously from behind his door-hanging. She seemed to spend more and more time outside his room, and the thought terrified him. Why? What purpose could she have other than to intimidate him? For all he knew, she might be out tonight. Furtively, he examined the hall behind him and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that no one stood there.
He had awakened yesterday moming to find a raccoon-skin pouch tacked over his door. When Kettle had taken it down and slit it open, she'd screamed from the Power that inhabited the evil device. A shriveled tumor lay on a bed of cedar bark. Hair and teeth had grown inside the monstrous bit of flesh. And someone had painted his likeness on one of the teeth.
Tharon had been enraged. Throwing things and shouting for over two hands of time, he had forced all of the Starborn to huddle, terrified, in the Sun Chamber, but his heart had begun to jump around in his chest like a flea on a hot rock. Even now, his queasiness would not leave him alone. He felt so weak that he could barely walk up the temple steps without reeling.