“My hope died in that raid. Filian’s other followers—those who survived—began to doubt his plan and turned back to Vran’s ideals. It would have been easy to join them, and I thought about it, but then you were born. If I were to act as a follower of Vran,” Sina said, her voice stronger, “I would have had to deny you, and that will never happen.”
Abisina still said nothing.
“I must believe I’ve done good here—in healing—and in other small ways. The oppression has driven others to question Vran. There are only a few of us. Some were there today: Magen, the woman who led Paleth’s mother away before she got beaten. She began to doubt when her mother hung herself after her third child was left outside the wall. And Robia. She gave Paleth some valerian so she wouldn’t feel the beating as much. Her son was sent to fight the centaurs when he had only eight winters. Jorno, too, does what he can to fight the Elders.”
Abisina stared at her mother. “Robia and Magen risked the wrath of the Elders?” She didn’t think it was possible. Of all the villagers, women suffered the most. And Jorno— she recalled his look that morning, the whispered warning. She hadn’t imagined it. “Even Jorno?” she said.
“Jorno’s tricked everyone since he arrived. Because they think he’s a half-wit, people talk freely in front of him. He came to tell me the news of Charach and later about Paleth. He spends his days following the Elders and collecting tidbits of gossip that might give some protection to those who need it.”
“But Mama, why have you never told me all this?”
“I was afraid,” Sina said quietly. “Theckis’s power has grown; no one would believe that he was once a dissenter. And he has always watched me. If he suspected me in any way, our lives would be worth nothing.”
“But you’re the healer! They
need
you!”
“Perhaps. But my sister has children. They could send to Vranhurst for another healer. I couldn’t risk your life, so I told you nothing.” Sina’s hand went to her necklace again. “Still, I may have been wrong. When I hear that you think yourself a demon—” She broke off, and Abisina watched her mother control her emotions. “I should have spoken sooner. I’ve meant to ever since the rumors of Charach started.” At the mention of his name, Sina’s face hardened. “Charach has already been to the other Vranian villages. They say he has come to lead us against the ‘monsters’ that surround us. I fear—I fear that it will be even more difficult for the outcasts.” She gripped Abisina’s hand. “We have to leave Vranille. Your father told me how to find him—if I ever changed my mind. We must find him now.”
“He told you?” The anger flared again. “You knew how to find him—and we stayed?”
“He lives so far from here—I didn’t think we could do it alone. And before, you were too young to try. Now, he’s our only chance.”
“But where is he?”
“He’s in a place called Watersmeet.”
“Watersmeet,” Abisina repeated, the word like a drop of cool water on her tongue.
“I don’t know much more than that—except that we can go there and be welcomed.”
Deep in Abisina, something stirred.
We will leave Vranille. I will know my father, and find a new home.
“We cannot put it off,” Sina said. “They might notice if we’re not at the Ritual. But tomorrow night, when it’s over, we will leave for Watersmeet.”
Abisina was sure she would lie awake all night, running through her mother’s story again and again, always returning to that final, mysterious word:
Watersmeet
. In the end, she must have slept, because she opened her eyes in the early light of dawn and found her mother’s bed empty.
On countless nights, a hurried knock awakened Sina, calling her to tend the sick. Abisina had long ago learned to sleep through these knocks, waking alone as the sun rose. This morning her mother’s absence unsettled her.
It’s nothing
, she thought, kicking off her warm bedskins and pulling on her leggings stiff with cold.
You’re just nervous.
Once dressed, Abisina could barely contain her worry. She cast about for anything to keep her hands busy. But the law for the Day of Penance permitted no work; she could not even build a fire or eat a bite of food.
Why bother?
she wondered, enjoying the feeling of rebellion.
Why observe the fast today, when by nightfall we will have left Vranille?
Reaching for the cold soup left on the table, she remembered the coltsfoot that had lain there the night before. The gift for the Ritual! She had burned it!
With sudden inspiration, Abisina grabbed her old work tunic hanging by the door. She tore a bit of leather from the frayed bottom and fished a piece of charred wood out of the fire. She hastily scrawled something on the leather and then sat back on her heels to study her work with satisfaction.
Abisina arrived at the center of the village just before the Ritual was to begin. The Elders’ large huts ringed the common area, glowering down on the gathered people. The sheep and goats, which had been pastured in the common during the most recent round of centaur raids, bleated in a makeshift pen at the far end. Most of the villagers had already taken their places, forming ever increasing half circles around the huge stone altar: first men, then boys, then women, girls, widows—and finally, outcasts.
From behind her loose hair, Abisina checked the crowd for any sign of Charach. The Elders huddled together to the right of the altar. Surely, he would be with them? But the faces were all familiar. She could feel the anticipation in the air, but as she watched Theckis break from the other Elders to squint down the lane toward the village entrance, she knew Charach had not come.
She frowned.
If he doesn’t come, will we still leave?
How strange to
want
him to come—this man she had feared since the first rumor of him was discussed in the streets. Would her mother agree to go if Charach did not arrive?
“Where is your wife?” A loud voice startled Abisina.
“She is laboring, Elder, bringing forth a boy!” a man near her answered. The men of the village always spoke of their unborn babies as sons. Abisina glanced at the expectant father—Hain, Bryla’s husband. He already had four girls. “The healer’s with her.”
Abisina’s frown deepened. Bryla was a long laborer.
This baby better come before nightfall!
“You there! Outcast!” The Elder scrutinized Abisina. “Make your gift!”
Abisina hurried to the altar. The offerings from the meager harvest looked pitiful on the stone slab: bug-ridden turnips, slices of coarse brown bread, wormy onions, stunted squash, a few sheaves of grain, a dusty cask of beer left from last year’s brew, skeins of wool, bits of thatch, a cheese rind, a few bows and arrows.
Even the Elders will not eat well this winter.
The only plentiful item on the altar was a pile of coarse hair—black, brown, white, gray. Centaur tails, cut from the bodies of the slain creatures. Later, they would be hung on the village walls. The centaurs, too, collected prizes from their victims—toes and feet—after mangling every other part of the bodies.
And Filian thought we should befriend them?
“Outcast!”
Abisina spun around to find the same Elder standing over her. He was tall and broad with meaty hands. “Make your gift!” he commanded.
She reached for the bit of leather tucked into the sash of her tunic but froze as she thought of what was written there. She couldn’t take it out now! Not with the Elder watching her!
“Make your gift!” The Elder’s voice grew louder, and the noise of the crowd fell. Shaking, Abisina tugged the gift from her belt and tucked it under a piece of thatch.
She turned away, but the Elder stopped her. “Not so fast, Outcast!”
He reached toward the little leather scroll and picked it up. With nerves as tight as a drawn bow, she watched him unfurl it. And there it was, scrawled in black:
Watersmeet
She thought of running, but the whole village was watching. And they were supposed to leave tonight! How could she have been so stupid?
But after looking briefly at the leather, the Elder threw it back on the table. “Hand!” he barked.
Abisina’s relief left her limp as she held out her right hand, palm up. The Elder drew a short switch from his own waist cord.
Whack! Whack!
His blows left a red, stinging stripe across her hand. “Don’t make me speak to you again, Outcast!” He turned his back on her before Abisina mumbled the required—“In the name of Vran.”
She scurried through the crowd toward the spot farthest from the altar, nursing her palm but stifling a grin. She had gotten away with it! The Elder couldn’t read!
But I must be more careful!
Women—and all but a few men—were forbidden from learning to read, though Sina had convinced the Elders that reading was one of the healing arts. If this Elder could recognize script, as some could, he would now know that she had taught Abisina.
Any risk is dangerous today!
Reaching the crowd of outcasts, Abisina threw herself on the ground as the Elder at the altar called out, “Prostrate!”
The crowd folded on itself, kneeling with their hands and foreheads in the dirt.
“Come to us, O Vran!” a weak voice cried, starting the Ritual. It was Elder Kayn, the oldest of them, clinging to a stick for support. The horizontal bar of iron on the chain around his neck seemed to pull him toward the earth; he was bent with his face almost on the altar. “Come to us in our need!” he croaked, then stopped, interrupted by a spasm of coughing. “Great Vran,” Kayn continued, “fill us now with the awe of your presence that we can honor and glorify you, O Paragon of Man!”
As the Elder wheezed out the final words of the invocation, the crowd lifted their foreheads from the ground and sat back on their heels, heads bowed. Abisina shifted her weight off her right knee where a sharp stone stabbed her. She risked a glance to her left and spotted Eagan, a boy about her age guilty of one of the most heinous crimes: when face-to-face with a young centaur, he had hesitated to kill it. Next to him knelt Delvyn, who had tried to hide her son when the Elders called for a raiding party; farther on she saw Colbart, whose dark birthmark—called a “dwarf patch”—had been discovered when the chalk that covered it washed off in a rainstorm; and Jorno, his face impassive. What was he thinking?
Abisina glanced to her right where more outcasts hunched: Urya, Garm, Ain, Cadrin—all guilty of some crime against Vran in their actions, their words, or just their skin and hair. What was the number up to now? A quarter of the village? More?
Someone groaned near her, and Abisina lifted her head slightly to see who it was. She bit back a cry. Paleth—the side of her face covered with purple-green bruises, a line of dried blood snaking from the corner of her mouth. The white pebble tied into Abisina’s waist cord pressed into her belly. Paleth looked toward her. Their eyes met briefly before something whistled through the air, and Paleth crumpled to the ground. “Eyes down, Outcasts!” a voice growled and Abisina, too, felt a hard knock on her head. Lights exploded before her as she stared back at the ground.
The Elders patrolled the crowd with long sticks topped by iron bars like the ones around their necks. If they spotted anyone drooping or drifting from the required position, they brought the bar down on the offender’s head, a reminder of what Vran expected of his people.
After the Elder moved on, Abisina risked another glance at Paleth. She lay in a heap, arms wrapped around her rib cage, her breath rasping. But Abisina could not move from her own position to help. She remembered Paleth’s defiance the day before. She had faced Theckis and not backed down. And this is what it got her. Abisina swallowed hard.
I may leave tonight, but Paleth will be outcast for the rest of her life.
“Confession!” A new, stronger voice called.
Theckis.
With the rest of the villagers, Abisina lay flat on the ground, her nose in the dirt. Paleth did not stir.
Theckis took up the chant of confession: “O Vran, Paragon of Man! We are unworthy of your example, unworthy of your gifts! You led us to the Land of our Destiny, but we have been unable to make it ours. Have we worked as hard as you worked for us?”
“No!” the villagers cried into the dirt.
“Have we pushed our bodies as hard as you pushed yours?”
“No!”
“Have we denied ourselves as you denied yourself?”
“No!”
“Have we thirsted?”
“No!”
“Have we hungered?”
Abisina spat quietly to get the dirt out of her mouth. It was a battle she would fight through the rest of the confession. The outcasts lay where the goats and sheep had recently been pastured. Her moist breath warmed the rutted earth, and at each “No!” her lips grew blacker. When Theckis began the list of general transgressions, the filth began to move into her mouth.
“Meekness!” he bellowed.
“We beg your forgiveness, Proud Vran,” the crowd murmured.
“Weakness!”
“We beg your forgiveness, Strong Vran.”
“Trembling!”
“We beg your forgiveness, Courageous Vran.”
Theckis’s voice was like a hammer, beating them into the ground.