“Pretty sure. My father didn’t allow me to spend time with warriors, but I know I’ve seen him.”
“Do you think he’s a spy? Is he here to help us? To r-rescue us?”
Zateri turned to face the camp, searching for the man amid the blanket-wrapped bodies near the fire. She subtly shook her head. “Just before we left on the Trading mission where I was captured, I heard my father whispering to our war chief, Nesi, that he feared there was a traitor in the village. I’m afraid—”
“Zateri, are you saying that you th-think Akio is the man who sold you to Gannajero?”
Zateri stared at her moccasins, as though tormented that one of her own had done something so terrible, but she replied, “He’s not here to help us. I can tell by the way he looks at me.”
“How does he look at you?”
“I don’t know … .” She shrugged. “It’s a kind of gleeful pride, as though he knows something I don’t, something he would really like to tell me.”
“Like the fact that he betrayed your father?”
One of the guards glanced at them, clearly listening, trying to hear what they were saying. He must have caught a few words. Among the trees behind him, firelight flashed and danced. The scents of cooking food wafted on the cold night wind.
Wrass leaned forward until his mouth almost touched Zateri’s ear. “If he is the traitor your father suspected …” He hesitated, suddenly not sure he should finish that sentence.
Zateri pulled away slightly to look at him. “It’s all right, Wrass. I know. If he’s the traitor, he can’t let me escape.”
They both knew it would be to Akio’s advantage to get rid of the evidence—to have her dead. The man’s only stumbling block was that she was now Gannajero’s property, and the punishment for killing one of the old woman’s slaves was a very unpleasant death. But if there was an opportunity, he’d probably do it anyway.
“From now on, you need to stay as far away from him as you can.”
“I will. I just wish I could ride in the same canoe as you, but she’ll never allow it.”
“No.” The distant hooting of owls penetrated the trees. “We’re troublemakers. Which means she’s probably going to sell one or both of us at the first opportunity.”
Tears blurred her brown eyes. “Wrass, if she sells you, I don’t know if I can … do this … without you.”
He reached out to clutch her hand. “You won’t have any choice. You can’t l-let the other children down.”
Zateri clenched her teeth to hold back sobs. When she could, she said, “I hope that she sells me first. You’re better at saving people than I am.”
He shook his head. “No. You’re smarter than I am. Without you and your knowledge of Spirit plants, I’d have never been able to help Odion and the others escape. We did that, not me.”
Zateri wiped her tears with her hands, and some of the struggle seemed to go out of her face. It was replaced by resolve. “Sleep, Wrass. I’ll be back to check on you later. If they let me.”
Eighteen
Red and angry, Elder Brother Sun climbed above the mountains, but his gleam barely penetrated the smoky miasma that stretched for as far as Sindak could see. The haze-choked forest had a dull crimson glow.
Sindak shook his head, and Towa, who marched beside him, said, “What’s wrong? You look like you ate something crawling with maggots.”
Towa’s long braid and oval face bore a coating of ash, as did the rest of him. He’d tried to wipe it from his forehead and cheeks so often that black streaks slashed across his skin.
At the sight of the abandoned warriors’ camp, a sensation of panic filtered through Sindak. “Finding Gannajero’s trail is going to be even harder than I thought. I hadn’t anticipated this layer of ash.”
All night long, the black blizzard had drifted over the forest, blown from the smoldering ruins of Bog Willow Village. The breeze had obviously been coming from the east, because the western sides of the spruces and pines were green, while the eastern sides bore a thick coating of gray. Worse, every time the branches swayed, ash wafted down over the trail.
A whimper sounded, very faint. Sindak cocked his head. It seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“That whimpering. It sounds like a lost child.”
Towa stopped and listened. “It’s just the frozen trees creaking in the breeze.”
Sindak shook his head, doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“No, but I think so.”
The rest of their party continued up the trail into a copse of white cedars that seemed to pulse orange in the dusty surreal gleam.