Ivory and Bone(67)

“Listen to me.” These words are just a whisper—your whisper, your words—from the dark somewhere behind me. Your mouth is so close, I feel the vibration of your breath on my ear. “You need to get warm. I’m trying to save you. I need you to understand this, Kol. What I’m doing . . . I’m doing this to save your life.”

I try to work through your words, to make sense of what you’re saying. But only some words catch in my mind—warm . . . understand . . . save your life. As I try to arrange these thoughts into some sense of meaning, the edge of the mammoth pelt lifts from my shoulder and something made of pure heat and life slides in beside me.

It’s you.

Your bare skin stretches along the entire length of my back. Somewhere deep inside me, a flame that was fading catches in fresh kindling.

I want to speak—thoughts light up my mind like flashes of lightning in the night sky. I try to form words. “Mya . . .” is all I manage to say.

“It’s necessary,” you say into my ear. “I can’t let you die.”

If I could, I might laugh. I didn’t know how close I was to death until your warmth pulled me back from the edge. Like a wave, heat washes over me. In my mind’s eye I imagine my frozen blood, thawing and cracking like the ice in our bay in the spring. Each spot where your skin touches mine is like a stone dropped into that bay, sending ripples of warmth radiating outward. These ripples expand, reaching my ears, my cheeks, the backs of my closed eyes. After what has felt like hours of constant shivering, my body finally goes still.

Your breath brushes over my neck, and it feels cool.

I no longer see water when I close my eyes. Instead, I see the sun. I feel its embrace.

Sleep pulls hard at me, but I fight it. I have to stay awake. My thoughts are slow and heavy, but I know I have to tell you something of huge importance. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve ever said. I search for the words.

When I remember this later, I will realize that it didn’t make sense. I will turn these memories over in my mind and I will know that I was weak and my thoughts were jumbled and confused.

But at this moment, this one word feels like the answer to every question:

You.

I feel better now that I’ve said it. I let sleep pull me from your arms.





TWENTY-SEVEN


When I wake again you are dressed and sitting at the opening of the cave, staring out through a sheet of rain and sleet. The world outside is beginning to lighten. Could it be first light already? Could you have sat up through the short, summer night, waiting for morning?

“Lo’s clan . . . They’re coming. If they didn’t turn back—”

“You told me,” you say. “I’ve been watching for them.”

I told you? I remember wanting to tell you, but I don’t remember saying the words.

Your pack lies beside you, and you pull out a small wrapped package about the size of your fist. “You should eat,” you say. “I’ll leave this with you—”

“Leave it?”

You turn to face me, your features glowing in the amber light thrown off by the dying coals of the fire.

“I need to go. To warn them—”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“You need more rest—”

“If you intended to leave me, why didn’t you leave while I was still sleeping, rather than wait for sunrise?” Something inside me wants to believe you waited to be sure I was recovered, but I know better.

“It will be hard enough to travel in this weather in the day,” you say. “At night, it would’ve been impossible. You told me the Bosha were waiting out the storm, so I waited, too. But I was watching. If I’d seen them, I would’ve left you to warn my clan.”

Of course you would have, but that doesn’t matter now.

“Well, I’m awake. So I’m going with you.”

Instead of traveling back down to my boat, I follow you through a shower of freezing rain, up a narrow footpath that leads to the peak above us. I look down to the surface of the water and some part of me stirs with the memory of scrambling up the rocks in the dark last night. My bruised hands remind me how slippery and treacherous it was. Yet as difficult as that trail was to climb, the trek farther up strikes me as impossible. Only the smallest cutouts in the rock allow me to place my feet safely as we ascend. “This path is man-made,” I say.

“My brother found that cave when our clan first settled here. We use it as a lookout, to watch the sea to the north.”

“Watching for what?”

“When we first came here, it was you. Well, your clan. We watched for the kayaks of the Manu, not knowing if you would pursue us.”

I’m struck by the sudden realization of how improbable it is that you and I should find ourselves here, together on this morning. The past should have ensured that this day would never come. Your mother and your betrothed both died. Your brother killed a man. You and I should have remained enemies for the rest of our lives. Yet here we are, making this climb together.

My foot slips on loose gravel as I take my next step up the steep path and you spin around quickly and grab my arm to stop me from tumbling. Our eyes meet, but you turn your head, dropping your gaze to the rock underfoot.

Why won’t you look at me? Are you embarrassed about last night? Or did the mention of the history between our clans stir some resentment toward me?