Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(38)

I drop onto my knees beside my brother’s body. I tighten the laces of his parka, tugging the collar up and over the gash that circles his throat. His blood has a thick, dark scent, like damp clay. His skin is cool, though it still holds a hint of warmth. I could almost fool myself into believing he’s still alive, if his eyes weren’t open in a lifeless stare.

I can’t help but wonder what they saw last—Dora standing over him? Or her daughter, Anki? Did the person who cut his throat do it with his own knife? Did she gloat when she killed him? Did she mention Lo or Orn?

I drop my head to Chev’s chest, my body shuddering with sobs. I don’t know what to do now, and I don’t care. I can’t imagine a world without my brother in it. I don’t want to know that world. I want to stay here by his side. “I love you,” I whisper again. “For all the times I didn’t say it, I hope you knew it to be true. I love you.”

I kneel like this for a long time, until finally my sobs slow. Morsk doesn’t speak, though I know he is still there. I hear his feet crunching over the leaf litter on the ground, pacing in an ever-widening circle. Finally, I sit up. I look down on Chev’s face—his eyes still wide, his tan skin dulling to gray. I touch his left eye and then the right, pressing his lids shut. “I love you,” I say one more time, knowing I can never say it enough. Then I look around for downed limbs that might be nearby, anything usable for lashing together a travois.

“Do you have twine?” I say, not even looking up at Morsk.

“Mya . . .” My hand falls on a long branch, and I lift it to check its length. One end is rotted, and I let it fall. “Mya, we can’t take the body with us.”

I let these words wash over me, still reaching around the underbrush. “If you don’t have twine, we may be able to find vines. Otherwise we’ll need to carry him—”

“No. Mya, we can’t.” And there it is in his voice again—the urgency of the oncoming storm. “The people who did this to Chev—they have other targets. They didn’t come here just to kill your brother. You’re also a target. You need to move—to find your sisters and warn them. You need to help the living—”

“But if we leave him . . .” I break off. I can’t say it. If we leave him, his body could be eaten by scavengers. Dire wolves. Even buzzards. “I can’t leave my brother behind,” I say, but even as the words pass my lips, as quiet as a whisper, I know it’s what I have to do.

Because Morsk is right. I have to help the living. My sisters. Any of us could be the next victim. Even Kol. I have to warn them. That’s what my brother would want me to do.

“Not out in the open. He deserves better than that,” I say. I think of Noni’s mother, covered in small stones. It felt almost like decoration as we placed them on her body. “We need to cover him. I want to feel like we’ve done a sort of burial. Something . . .” My voice breaks, and I go quiet. I don’t want Morsk to try to comfort me.

I get up from the ground and begin to walk farther into the trees, off the trail, until I find a depression in the ground—a place where the terrain naturally dips. I hear Morsk walk up behind me. All at once I realize that I may not be safe with him, and I turn, my heart beating in my chest like waves crashing in a stormy sea.

Morsk returns my gaze. His spear is at his side. His cheeks are stained by tears.

A flicker of understanding lights his eyes. “I’m not creeping up on you,” he spits. For the first time since I found Chev, I see anger in Morsk. “I only came to offer help.”

“Thank you,” I say, a note of reconciliation in my voice. “Could you help me move Chev here? I think if we lay him where the ground naturally drops down, we could cover him with branches.”

Together, Morsk and I lift Chev from the ground. I try, but fail, to look away from the pool of blood where he fell. Anger rises in me and burns my throat. I taste it in my mouth. Not just anger, but more than that. A longing for revenge.

Morsk helps me gather branches, twigs, and leaves, to camouflage my brother as best we can. It won’t make much of a difference—we can’t camouflage the scent. But it makes me feel a little better to give him some sort of burial. Each twig, each leaf, each handful of grass is another silent good-bye.

We leave his face uncovered until the end. Morsk steps away to give me some privacy, and I’m grateful. I want to make my brother one last promise before I walk away. As I drape each eye in pale green leaves, as I cover his face in moss, I whisper to him. “I will make you proud of me,” I say. “The Olen clan will not weaken. We will thrive. And you will always be remembered.”

The first few steps down the path to the beach are terrible. The next few are even worse. I force myself to keep moving, but the lack of Chev follows me like a shadow that has weight. Like a burden too heavy to carry.

It’s strange to travel over this trail with Morsk—this same trail that I traveled over alone this morning, when I was still excited about the island and the elk I thought I was tracking. We are almost to the spot where I first realized that what I thought was an elk was not an elk at all, when something—or someone—rustles in the woods to our right.

We stop, ducking into the shade of the trees that edge the path. We’re closing in on the ledges above the beach, and the breeze has picked up. It churns the leaves, masking all other sound. But there is sound within the sound—measured and even steps within the random and swirling wind.