Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(37)

A sound comes from behind me, beyond the trail. I spring to my feet, my spear in hand. “Who’s there?” Another sound—the clear snap of a twig. “Come out!”

I don’t hesitate. I don’t expect an answer, and I don’t wait for one. I hurry into the trees toward the sound, as farther away, farther down the trail toward the center of the island, I think I catch the rhythmic sound of running feet.

I turn in place, and behind me, near the spot where my brother fell, I hear a voice. The muted voice of a man, whispering to the Divine. “Don’t let this be. Don’t let this be.”

I hurry back, feet flying over the ground—no fear, no hesitation. I plunge into the darkest shade, right up to my dead brother’s side. There I find a man—a man kneeling beside him, a spear in his hand.

Morsk.





FIFTEEN


I raise my spear, training it on the middle of his back. “Get up,” I say, knowing that when he turns—when he rises to his feet to face me—my spear will be pointed right at his heart. “Leave your weapon on the ground and get up!”

He glances over his shoulder and sees me standing over him, and I know he knows. I have the shot. I have the opportunity. I can and will make him pay for what he did to my brother.

My brother who called him a friend, who trusted him. Tears fill my eyes, but I still see clearly enough to kill my brother’s traitor.

He gets to his feet slowly, his arms extended at his sides, his eyes wide. I know he feels the fear—I imagine the pounding heart in his chest, the throbbing pulse in his temples, the numbness that runs up his arms as his blood chills—and I drink it in. I revel in the thought that my brother’s killer knows that I am about to kill him.

“He trusted you.” I don’t know why I say this. To shame him? “But I knew it was a mistake. I knew you were an enemy from the moment you backed me into a corner in my own hut—”

“Mya—”

“Don’t even say my name—”

“Fine. But please listen. I’m not an enemy—not to you, not to Chev—”

“Don’t say my brother’s name either,” I spit. “How can you stand there and lie? He told me you followed him to this island. It isn’t hard to figure out what happened—”

“I heard him call your name! I was looking for him—for you—to warn you both!”

There’s something in his voice, like the wind bringing a storm. Something urgent is at its core, and it makes me listen. I don’t want to. . . . I want to believe that he is Chev’s killer, because it would be so easy to kill him.

I don’t lower my spear. I keep it aimed right at his chest. I remember the fear I felt, however fleeting, when Kol flinched toward me with his spear raised on that first hunt together. That is the fear I wish for Morsk to feel, even as I give him a chance to speak. “Warn us of what? You were seen, Morsk. You were seen by Chev and by Kol. They saw a canoe follow them. They knew you were pursuing them—”

“Why would I come in a canoe? One man alone in a canoe? Think about it—”

“And yet you’re here! You expect me to believe that you found us without following—”

“No, I did follow. But I didn’t follow your brother.” His eyes drop—his gaze sweeps over Chev’s body on the ground—and I can’t help but look, too. My heart chokes in my chest as if a fist is closing around it. When I meet Morsk’s eyes again, I see my own pain reflected there, and for the first time since I found him over Chev’s body, I feel a flicker of doubt that he killed my brother.

A sound starts in the back of my mind. A quiet buzz. It grows and stretches, filling the empty spaces between my thoughts, becoming a roar. In my mind’s eye I see two double kayaks—Kol and Chev, Pek and Seeri—all rowing hard, pushing north toward this island.

And behind them I see another boat. A canoe, pursuing the people who matter to me most to an isolated place where they are unseen and unprotected.

I think I know the answer even before I ask the question. “So who were you following? Who was following Chev?”

I drop my spear to my side as Morsk answers, as he names the paddlers I see in my mind’s eye. “The Bosha. Dora and her daughter, Anki. And the elders who spoke at Mala’s meeting. Thern and Pada.”

I knew. Somehow I knew not to trust them. When I saw them in Kol’s camp, something cold and dark seemed to cling to them. Now I know what that something was.

Revenge.

Morsk’s gaze sweeps down the length of my arm to my lowered spear, then springs back to my face. “So you believe me?”

I don’t answer. I can see that Morsk is suffering, and I know that if I said I believed him, it might lessen his pain. But I don’t want to lessen Morsk’s pain. Not yet. I’m still not sure if I trust him.

“Then where are they?” I ask. “If you didn’t kill Chev, where are the people who did? Why didn’t they kill me too?”

“I think they saw me. Maybe they thought they were outnumbered or had lost the chance to surprise you. I didn’t see them, but I heard them running away.”

I think back to the moment I heard Chev call my name. Hadn’t I heard footsteps, too? If Morsk is telling the truth, could his presence have actually protected me from Chev’s killers?