She seemed so casual, so calm. But then, she’d had far more experience with mornings after lovemaking than he’d had. He felt awkward and uncertain, his thoughts absorbed by last night’s sweetness. He returned her smile. “Almost. After breakfast, we’ll need to gather our tools and fill our packs. Then we’ll be ready to go.”
“But where will we go, that’s the question.”
“Down the beach. Whalebeard Village isn’t far. We’ll stop there. Perhaps Oxbalm left word of his whereabouts.”
Kestrel used two sticks to lift a large hot stone from the edge of the fire. Gingerly, she dropped it into the boiling bag. A violent explosion of steam made her fall backward to the sand, her brown eyes wide. The fracturing of rock sounded as loud and sharp as cracks of thunder. “That rock was much hotter than I thought! I hope it doesn’t split the bag!”
“Won’t matter. The mussels will be cooked long before the water drains out,” he noted evenly.
“They certainly will.” Her eyes sparkled as she laughed.
The sound of that childlike amusement warmed something old and cold in his soul. He looked at Kestrel, his whole heart in his eyes. She sat with her hands braced behind her, her hair tumbling wild and tangled over her shoulders. The posture accentuated her enlarged breasts, breasts that had pressed against’ him in the urgency of their lovemaking.
“You look very beautiful this morning,” he said.
She sprang up from the sand and ran to kiss him soundly, then returned to stirring the boiling bag before he could even move. She added two more hot stones to the bag, small ones this time, and gazed at him adoringly.
He smiled and shook his head.
Blessed Spirits, how alien all of this was to him. Oh, he’d loved once. Ten cycles ago. Her name had been Mistletoe, though it surprised him that he could remember. They’d had a passionate relationship for two moons. He’d given Mistletoe every shred of his heart, but she’d demanded his soul. That, he could give to no one. Only Power had claims on his soul. He recalled painfully how he’d sat down with Mistletoe, taken her hands in his and apologized for making promises that he couldn’t keep. She’d nearly beaten him to death in rage before she’d run screaming back to her mother’s lodge. Good Plume had aptly remarked, “Driving you to Dreaming is probably the only good thing that girl will ever do in her life. Show some gratitude. Forget what a fool she is.” He must have done it. He couldn’t even recall clearly what Mistletoe had looked like.
Steam spun a lacy pattern around Kestrel’s face. If he lived to be as old as Mother Ocean, he would never forget Kestrel’s childlike beauty. “You know,” Sunchaser said, “you can’t collect those big mussels in the summertime.”
“No? Why not?”
“They eat small creatures that make poisons. It doesn’t seem to bother the mussels, but the poisons can make a human very sick.”
Kestrel’s dark, graceful brows drew together. She seemed to consider everything he said with great seriousness. “They don’t eat those same creatures in other seasons?”
“I imagine they would if they could, but those tiny animals flourish only in warm weather.”
“I must collect the big mussels only in the cool moons,” she said, as though to memorize it. “Good. Thank you for
telling me. In the marsh country, we don’t have such mussels.” The smile returned to her face. “I’m sure they’re done. Are you ready to eat?”
Kestrel set out their bowls and scooped five mussels into his bowl and three into her own. Rather than handing the bowl straight across to him, she rose and carried it, knelt before him and placed it ceremoniously at his feet, her eyes downcast as though waiting for his approval.
Sunchaser frowned. He put a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to look into her bright eyes. “I don’t know the ways of your people, Kestrel, but you don’t have to do this for me. If you were from my clan, I would make no move without your consent. I would go to live in your mother’s village. You would own all of my belongings—our lodge, our children, everything except my Healer’s bag. I’m allowed sacred things. But only those. My people trace their lineage through the women. Men rule—after having their decisions approved by the female elders of the clan.”
Eagerly, she said, “Iceplant told me about that. That’s why he said I wasn’t his cousin.”
That fact seemed important to her … as though it absolved her from crimes she couldn’t bear to face. He sighed silently. He didn’t know very many things, at least not in the sphere of human emotions, but he thoroughly understood the anguish of self-accusation. “That’s right. Among my people, you and Iceplant would not have been cousins.”