Of Fire and Fury (Book 1: Light-Born Series)

Chapter 32 - Rabid

The days passed slowly, and with each day the warmth Rabid had felt from Stone’s kiss faded. She now felt more alone than she had since she first walked out of Napuahom. She sat in the little room she shared with Kizi, though Kizi was almost never there except for when they slept. The cot beneath her was unlike the bed she had in Omarihom: it was a solid wooden frame that stood off the ground. A mat made of straw and wrapped in skins was covered by a plethora of thick blankets, which were necessary as the stone of the room seemed to suck the warmth from her body. Next to her bed was a small wooden table that separated her from another identical bed. Other than this, the only other furniture in the room was a set of shared shelves that held both her and Kizi’s meager belongings.

Rabid sat on the bed, ignoring memories and sorrow and emptiness that was held like a rock where her heart should be. She suddenly felt jealous of Kizi, who always had somewhere to be: learning, practicing, finding various plants for tonics, and growing her craft. The knowledge of the Reanni healers was like a dream for her, and she took advantage of every second. Rabid, on the other hand, was confined inside Reannihom’s walls for her own safety. She had nowhere to go, and even if she did, she would not be allowed. How quickly the beautiful carved halls had turned to a prison.

Rather than sit and cry, Rabid spent her time practicing the battle movements she had learned from Stone. She practiced swipes and stabs with her knife until her arm ached, then found herself practicing again. Finally exhausted of physical exertion, Rabid replaced her knife beside her bed and left the little room. She moved down the torch lit hallway until she came to the small window that topped the stairs. Rabid stood on her toes and pressed her face against the cool glass, as she had on each of the four days she’d been here, and gazed at the forest below. She took a deep breath, as though the scent of trees and earth could somehow penetrate the sealed window. She had never realized how much she loved being outside until she had been stripped of the freedom. 

Rather than torture herself any longer, Rabid turned from the window and jogged down the stone stairs that led to the great hall. Turning from the long line of wooden tables, she wound down another hallway. She wandered past several large oak doors until she came to the dim corner that she had come to know well. Here, Rabid knocked and waited.

The hinges creaked as the huge door opened and Meri’s shocks of black hair appeared around the doorframe. The smell of sage and other herbs wafted out from behind her. Meri’s face lit up when she saw Rabid, beckoning her inside. The room was nearly three times the size of her bedroom, and was lit by long windows that lined the ceiling of the wall to her right. Through these windows, Rabid could see the top edge of the main wall, where she and Arven had addressed the Omari days before. These windows allowed light to illuminate the long work tables that lined the back wall.

“Rabid!” Meri exclaimed, wrapping her in a hug. Rabid smiled, loving the way Meri’s accent pronounced her name.

“It’s still too soon.” Kizi said, her back facing the wall as she bent over a work table. She was grinding the source of the strong scent between two stones. Around her, glass bottles of all shapes and sizes lined the work table. A few were filled with water, others with a pale yellow oil.

“How much longer, do you think?” Rabid ask, trying to sound casual as she followed Meri further inside the room. The door clicked shut behind her.

Kizi looked back over her shoulder, then, her brow wrinkled as she squinted.

“You worrying won’t bring them back any faster.” she chided.

“I know, I just…” Rabid let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s so hard to sit here. The sooner the messengers return, the sooner I can leave here and…”

“The sooner you’ll see that man of yours again?” Kizi interrupted, flashing a wry smile. Heat rose to Rabid’s cheeks and she glanced at the fireplace that stood opposite the windows. She was embarrassed that Kizi always seemed to see so clearly what she was aching for.

“That, too.” Rabid conceded. Meri looked almost giddy with excitement and she giggled.

“I can’t wait to have a man.” she sighed dreamily, gazing up at the windows as if he would appear through the glass. Eager to take attention off herself, Rabid asked,

“Is there someone for you back at Ohavehom?”

Meri’s eyes flashed as she furiously shook her head. 

“My father tells me to wait for the perfect one, and I haven’t met one yet.”

“No one’s perfect.” Kizi said, as if she were Meri’s mother. She turned back to her stones and began to grind again. Meri looked at Rabid and shrugged.

“Stone seems pretty perfect for Rabid.” she said. The heat was in her cheeks again, but Rabid couldn’t help but smile. She had been starting to think the same. When she looked back, Kizi had turned and was studying her.

Rabid looked away, toying with a string of herbs left on the table. The room fell quiet as Meri and Rabid observed Kizi grinding her herbs. She began to pinch small sections and put them into a pile on a flattened panel of wood. There were other things on the plank: a bright orange powder, pale purple that looked like ground flowers, and several others that were varying shades of green. Kizi sighed and tossed the stones to the table, they landed with a loud thump. She quickly tucked her hands under a cloth and began to wipe them vigorously, but not before Rabid saw that they were shaking.

This is how it had been for the past few days: both Rabid and Kizi leaning into their own distractions, feigning perfect calmness, then breaking down into a fit of grief. Most of the time it was in the dark of night, when one hoped no one would hear their stifled sobs, and the other kindly pretended to sleep through it. Other times, Meri had been there to silently comfort, as she did now with a hand on Kizi’s back.

With a sudden burst of emotion, Kizi shoved the entire plank to the ground. 

“I’m sorry, I…” Kizi stammered, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. “Red Moon taught me to make this.”

Kizi fell to her elbows on the table and sighed heavily. Rabid’s own chest ached at the mention of Red Moon. The image of her body contorted onto the ground in Omarihom struck her like a slap to the face. Everything had moved so quickly, as though everyone had simply bypassed the normal grieving procedure. This was the first time that Kizi had mentioned her name. Rabid was used to it, though. After all, this is what she had done when her entire tribe had vanished like smoke into the air. She pushed past it, dove into training, and tried to forget that they had existed at all.

But these long stretches of silence, of sitting in strange rooms and peering out of high windows, had made it harder for Rabid to forget what she had seen. She blinked back the tears that pricked at her eyes and studied a knot in the edge of the wooden table. 

“What’s the point anyway.” Kizi said sullenly, straightening and wiping her dark eyes. “The Reanni are healers again.”

“We still need healers.” Meri said softly, comforting Kizi. “The Reanni can’t help everyone all the time.”

“I don’t know how much more death I can take.” Rabid whispered softly, surprising herself. Kizi turned from the table and grabbed her wrist with one hand, her other wiping the tears from her own cheeks.

“She died keeping you safe. She’d not have you wasting any moment of your life mourning her.” she said, sniffing with determination. “But still, it is not good to keep inside. How would you mourn the dead, back in Napuahom?”

Rabid thought back to the few burials she had lived through. None of them had died from the sword, they had simply grown old and passed peacefully from this life to the next. For a moment, she wondered how she would leave the world, then the thought became so terrifying she ignored it.

“We buried them under white foxgloves.” Rabid said, remembering the mounds of soft earth and the fields of white that grew over them. Kizi smiled. She turned to the work table and rummaged through various drawers until she found a handful of dried flowers. She smiled sadly at the flowers in her palm. 

“We don’t have foxglove, but would ammi flowers be okay?” 

Looking at the tiny flowers, a tear trickled down Rabid’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly.

“Yes, but, we can’t leave the hall.” she said regretfully. Kizi nodded and scowled, thinking.

“In Ohavehom, we burn our dead and scatter the ashes. How about a blending of traditions?” Meri said, pointing to the open fireplace. 

Kizi smiled and placed a grateful hand on Meri’s shoulder.

“What do you say, Rabid?” Kizi asked.

Rabid nodded, feeling that anything would be better than carrying this weight inside of her. They stepped closer to the smoldering flames, and each knelt before the warmth. Kizi separated the tiny flowers and handed some to each of the girls, keeping some for herself.

“From one world to the next, we send you on your journey. We thank you for your sacrifice, and celebrate each of your lives. Yä tsä’.” as she spoke, Kizi plucked the flowers from their stems and tossed them into the hungry flames.

“What does it mean, yä tsä’?” Meri asked. 

“It means go forth.” Kizi said, her eyes remaining on the fire. “We release their spirits from this earthly realm and allow them to move on.” 

Rabid nodded slowly in agreement. Then, as she whispered her own prayer, she pictured the faces of those she lost. With each bulb she tossed into the flames, she blessed one of her dead. Red Moon. White Fawn. Her mother. Her father. Even Teeda, Harvest, and Chief Elkhorn. When her hands fell empty, she felt the squeeze around her heart lessen. Her tears fell with her flowers into the sizzling fire. Beside her, Meri took a deep breath before breaking the flowers into three clumps and tossing them each into the fire.

“Travel on.” she whispered, a single tear falling from her eye. Then, she looked at Kizi and whispered, “Yä·tsä’.”

They each stared for a long moment until all the remains of the flowers had burned away. Then, they silently stood in a little circle and looked at each other. In the quiet between them there grew an unspoken bond. They each decided in that moment that—come what may—they would each make it to the other side. After a few moments, Kizi nodded once, and the silence was broken as they all set on with helping her work with the herbs.