His smile faded. “Please, Morrighan,” he said quietly. “Trust me. No one will see us. Let me ride with you and show you some of the things I love.”
My heart thumped, the familiar no beating behind it, but … I did love to ride with him. At first I’d been afraid, but Jafir wa
s a good teacher, gently coaxing me onto the huge animal’s back, and quickly I discovered I loved the feel of his horse beneath us, Jafir’s strong arms circling around me, the strange sense that we were connected, forever inseparable as we rode together. I loved the giddy feeling as the meadow blurred beneath us, the feeling that we had wings, that we were swift and powerful and nothing in the world could stop us.
I looked at him and nodded. “Just this once,” I said.
“Just this once,” he repeated.
But I knew I was opening another kind of door, and like before, it was one that could never be closed again.
Chapter Eleven
Morrighan
“What is beyond the mountains, Ama?”
“Nothing for us, child.”
We sat in the shade of a sycamore, full and leafy with summer, grinding the last of our amaranth seed into powder.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
“I’ve told you the story before. It was where your papa journeyed from. Only he and a handful of others made it out. The devastation was even worse there. It was far more brutal than anything on this side of the mountains. He watched many die.”
She had told me about the choking clouds, the fires, the shaking ground, the wild animals. The people. All the things that papa had told her.
“But he was only a child, and that was a long time ago,” I said.
“Not long enough,” she answered. “I remember the fear in your papa’s eyes when he spoke of it. He was glad to be where we are now, on this side.”
I saw the age on Ama. She was still healthy, robust even, for a woman her age, but weariness lined her face. Moving on and keeping the tribe safe had been an endless journey for her. Here in this vale she had found rest now for almost two years, but lately I had seen her scanning the surrounding hills and bluffs. Did she sense something else? Or was it just an old habit resurfacing? Was she afraid to believe that peace could last?
I desperately wanted to tell her, The scavengers are leaving. Our peace and boundaries would only grow if we stayed. But she’d wonder how I knew, and I couldn’t tell her what Jafir had told me—that our nearest threat might soon be gone forever. His clan wanted to leave. They talked of going to the other side of the mountains. Maybe even beyond that. I had seen the worry in his eyes when he told me. I felt it in my heart. If they left, would he leave too?
“What kind of animals?” I asked.
Ama paused from her grinding and looked at me. Studied me.
“I’m only curious,” I said and ground at my seed more earnestly.
“I don’t know all their names,” she answered. “One he called a tiger. It was smaller than a horse, but with the teeth of a wolf and the strength of a bull. He watched one of the creatures drag a man away by the leg, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. The animals were hungry too.”
“If the Ancients were like gods and built towers to the sky and flew among the stars, why did they have such dangerous animals that couldn’t be controlled? Weren’t they afraid?”
Ama’s gray eyes turned to steel. Her head turned slightly to the side. “What did you just say?”
I looked at her, wondering what caused the sudden sternness in her voice.
“You called them Ancients,” she said. “Where did you learn that term?”
I swallowed. It was the word Jafir used. “I’m not sure. I think I heard it from Pata. Or maybe it was Oni? It’s a good description, isn’t it? They are a people from a time long past.”
I could see her turning my explanation over in her head. Her eyes warmed again, and she nodded. “Sometimes I forget how long past.”
I was more careful with my words after that, realizing there were many terms I had learned from Jafir. It was not just I who had taught him. Arroyo, mesa, palisades, savanna. His were the words of a wide open world. I had watched him come alive in new ways as we raced across a lowland or when he expertly guided his horse up a rocky hillside. This was his world, and he was confident, no longer the sometimes awkward boy who kissed me in a cramped box canyon.
I came alive with him, allowing myself to believe, however briefly, that it was my world too, that our dreams lay just over the next hill, or the next, and we had wings to take us there. But I always watched over my shoulder, always remembered who I was, and where I was destined to return, a hidden world where he would never fit in.