Butterfly wings turned to bird wings, flapping about her insides, beating against her rib cage. She’d never been one to flirt with or swoon over a man. The other women in the caravan always said she was too guarded, with a gaze that peeled back more layers than a would-be suitor cared to reveal.
This man didn’t court her, but he didn’t retreat under her scrutiny. He was reserved and enigmatic, a mystery that invited exploration and fascinated her a little more each day, even while she remained wary of him. She was certain he was somehow connected to the draga bone. Most of all, he made her mother laugh.
“Then you’re in luck,” she said. “You’re stuck with me—and the pitchers of willow-bark tea I still expect you to drink.”
She bit back a pleased smile when later he proclaimed himself fit enough to join their group for supper. Asil, giddy as a bride on her bonding day, danced in a circle in front of him, eliciting a chuckle from him and a promise that he’d sit by her through the meal and, if he still felt up to it, the storytelling.
Most welcomed his addition to their gathering with smiles and inquiries into his health. A few eyed him suspiciously, including Marata.
The cook leaned down as he filled the plates Halani held out to him from the large pan positioned over the coals. “He doesn’t need to be here, Halani. He’s an outsider.”
“But not an outcast,” she countered. “Would you have it known that Hamod’s folk ignore the rules of hospitality and shun their guests?”
“I like him.” Talen circled the fire, bearing a tray filled with cups of hot tea to pass out among the group. “He’s polite to all of us who actually talk to him, and is pretty to look at.” She winked at her scowling husband.
Supper that night was an even livelier affair than usual, spurred on by Asil’s unabashed excitement over Malachus’s presence and his repeated assurances that he intended to stay for the storytelling he’d heard so much about from her.
“What do you want to hear?” Halani asked the crowd ringing the communal fire. She sighed inwardly when a chorus of voices rose in one refrain. “The Sun Maiden!”
Of the hundreds of stories to be shared, that one was by far the most popular and the one she most disliked telling. Celebrating the heroism of a man who slew so majestic a creature as a draga simply for fame and fortune never sat well with her. She glanced at Malachus sitting at the perimeter of their circle, just at the edge of the firelight’s reach. Asil sat next to him, face beaming with a child’s delight.
Malachus, on the other hand, no longer wore a jovial look. His grim expression made her wonder what had caused the sudden change in mood.
Over the years, Halani had learned how to tell the story of the draga Golnar and the Empire hero Kansi Yuv so that it was her audience who did most of the telling, with strategic guidance from her. The free traders recited the major scenes of the tale: how the brave Kansi Yuv lured the greedy Golnar into a narrow ravine where a beautiful golden statue called the Sun Maiden waited. A draga’s lust for treasure, especially gold, was its weakness, and Golnar couldn’t resist the temptation to possess the bright statue.
“It was the monster’s downfall,” Halani proclaimed, lowering her voice to signal the story’s impending climax. “For Kansi Yuv and his brave men waited with their ballistae and nets, and then . . .” She paused for effect, enough to coax the enraptured crowd to fill in the silence.
“Golnar crept into the ravine, ready to steal the Sun Maiden,” Asil called out. Others nodded as if she spoke a sacred truth.
Halani spared her mother a smile before glancing at Malachus.
The guarded expression was gone, replaced by one of withering contempt. Her stomach somersaulted at the sight, and though she told a story familiar to many and loved by most, a wave of shame purled over her, leaving her in a cold sweat.
Despite her mortification, she finished the tale with help from the crowd, who eagerly described Golnar’s attempt to steal the Sun Maiden, his death from one of the giant arrows fired from Kansi Yuv’s ballista, the point slamming through the draga’s natural scale armor and into the great heart. Revulsion joined the contempt stamped on Malachus’s pale features at the recitation of Golnar’s skinning and dismemberment.
Halani almost wept in relief when the story was done. Declining to tell another one, she turned the task over to Marata.
Malachus slowly gained his feet, waving off Asil’s attempt to help. She captured his hand for a moment to give it a squeeze. He returned the gesture, then disappeared into the shadows beyond the firelight’s reach. No one noticed when Halani skirted the circle in the opposite direction only to drift away and double back toward the path she guessed her quarry had taken.
She found him just outside camp, alone, face raised to the sky as he contemplated the gibbous moon gilding his silhouette in silver. The wild rye rustled against her skirts as she drew closer to him.
“Had your fill of telling stories of slaughter, Halani?” he asked without turning around. His voice was soft, flat.
“You didn’t like the tale?” Her question was rhetorical. His expression had clearly conveyed his opinion.
“I hated it.” The loathing in those words could have curdled milk.
Halani had told the story so many times over the years, she knew it by rote and could tell it in her sleep. Always, it had drawn praise from audiences, whether they were her own camp folk or the denizens of some town where they sometimes stopped to trade and earn extra coin by entertaining people in the town square or the public houses. This was the first time she’d ever faced such outright revulsion. The hot fever of embarrassment made her ears burn.
“I’m very sorry you didn’t like the storytelling. I know you were expecting something better after listening to Mama’s boasts.”
Her prayers that he’d keep his back to her went unanswered when he pivoted. He didn’t answer immediately, and with the moon’s luminescence now backlighting him, his expression remained hidden in the shadows. “I didn’t say I hated your storytelling, only the story you told.”
Relieved but confused, Halani frowned. “Have you not heard the story of Golnar and Kansi Yuv before?”
“Oh, I know the story, just not as you told it,” he said in a voice heavy with disdain. “The version familiar to me is very different from yours.”
She took a step closer. “How so?” It was just a story, more fable than real. His reaction to it seemed out of proportion.
Though she still couldn’t make out his features, she sensed his grim regard. “Beyond the fact that your version is a cauldron of lies stewed with a handful of half-truths?” His sharp tone dulled a fraction at her surprised inhalation. “Kansi Yuv.” He virtually spat the name as if he’d bitten into something rotten. “The great hero was a liar, a butcher, and a coward whose name was bought with the blood of betrayal.” He turned a little, presenting his profile just enough for her to view the strong arch of his nose and downward curve of his compressed lips. He stared at the ground for a moment before raising his head, and a glimmer of moonlight caught in his eyes, revealing a hatred fermented by time. “You’ve a true talent for weaving a riveting tale, Halani. Don’t waste it on a man unworthy of the breath you spend in telling it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Moonlight was as kind to Halani as sunlight was, emphasizing the elegant lines of her face. An attractive woman made beautiful by the glimpses of her soul, which sometimes revealed itself in her eyes. A compassionate woman who had just entertained a crowd with a story so revolting it twisted his guts into knots.
He’d hoped she wouldn’t follow him here, knowing she’d want an explanation for his reaction. He hadn’t missed the stricken look in her eyes. For a moment, he wished desperately for a pipe and tobacco, so the mindless draw and exhalation of smoke could soothe the beast once more awakened inside him.
Halani had simply told a history she’d learned from generations before her. Its inaccuracy wasn’t her fault. “Forgive me,” he said. “You are undeserving of my anger.”
“It’s an ugly story when you take it apart. Is the version I told so different from the one you learned? Was Golnar the hero and Kansi Yuv the villain?”
She didn’t ask outright why he’d reacted as if personally offended or even what spurred his admonishment that she not waste a breath on Kansi Yuv.
He hedged his answer. “Remember, this isn’t my country. Our tales might be similar or not, some with the same characters but assigned other roles with different outcomes.”
“And those that are altered distress you this much each time?”
A sharp bark of laughter escaped him. “No, just that one.” He held up a finger to forestall her inevitable request. “I’ve no intention of telling you the tale I know. Not tonight anyway.” He still seethed over the warped version that glorified a butcher like Kansi Yuv. Had the man not died long ago, Malachus would have welcomed the opportunity to gut him with his bare hands.
“Then maybe before you leave us.” Halani crossed her arms, from either cold or self-consciousness. “I apologize for the story. It was never my intention to upset you.”
Shot full of arrows and almost dying wasn’t exactly a blessing, but Malachus thought it a twisted sort of luck. The mother-bond and the lightning might have led him to Halani, but it was the attack and her mercy that gave him the opportunity to learn more about her. As a draga in human guise, he found human women physically attractive and had indulged in brief relationships with a few. None had beguiled him the way this woman did.
He grasped one of her wrists to ease her arm straight before sliding his hand down to entwine his fingers with hers. She possessed small hands, capable of making him nearly bite through the prayer stick in agony and of soothing him to sleep with a caress across his brow. “You don’t owe me an apology. My reaction is solely my darkness to shoulder. The only wrongdoing here belongs to history and its memory of someone long dead.” He squeezed her fingers for emphasis before letting go.