Page 29

A GODDESS AND A MAN

TAHRIK

C hildren rush by me, faces bright with residual joy from the hunt, and they push me against the bones as their tiny hands try to touch every exposed surface.

Once the main scavenger hunts were complete, the adults in the village decided to prolong the merriment, and hid little treasures throughout the First Ring walls.

Even now, hours later, the smallest are still looking for any leftover bounty.

I laugh with them, ruffling hair and calling out to the group as they race on, “Carefully! Carefully!” but none turn around.

And why would they? A hunt in the village is an almost unheard of treat these days.

“Why did you not join in our hunt?” Davvy, one of my friends from the Third Ring, approaches, holding up his hands as though he wants to box. “Didn’t want to take me on, Miller?”

I grin back, shaking my head. “Not today, Blacksmith. Our family gets enough that I didn’t think it fair for me to try. Others need it more than I do.”

He rolls his eyes in response. “Truth. But most wouldn’t think of it. Only Tahrik. Your heart’s too tender for this life, I swear. Only saving grace is your Gods-blessed voice, hmm? You’d never be called to Offering.”

“You’re ridiculous. You know you sing just as well.”

Davvy laughs in response. “ I know. Better even, perhaps. But the ladies love your…instrument.”

I punch him lightly at the innuendo, and we tussle for a minute like children, the lightness of the day infectious, before he pulls away, hearing a faint, “Davv!” in the distance.

It must be a lover’s ears, because I can’t tell the difference between his wife’s call and the hundred others who are shouting.

“Ah, the family beckons.” He tries to be exasperated, but fails, the exuberant smile on his face betrays him.

“All is well with Bri, and Isabel then?” Davvy’s wife had borne a child in the Month of the Mother, on the Birthing Day, and as such, his baby Isabel is safe until after her own first-born appears. The thought is a knife in my heart, but I try to ignore it.

Davv is a good friend, though, and lays a comforting hand on my shoulder before looking away and giving me space.

“I swear to you, Tahrik, I thought Bri was going to cut the child from her body to get her out before midnight. But yes, both are well.” His happiness is contagious, and chases away dark memories.

“Congratulations, my friend. Truly.”

“Thank you.” Clearing his throat, he looks back at me, raising an expectant eyebrow. “Though Bri has been asking when you’re coming by, and the older children miss their Uncle Tahrik…We’d like to see you before we’re storm-shut.” It’s a light rebuke disguised as an invitation, and I nod in reply.

“The harvest is hard this year, but I’ll come down this week. I’d like to see the newest, and have some treats for the other two.”

“You spoil them.”

“Ah now. What are children for if not to spoil?”

He pauses, then says carefully, tone forcibly light, “Bri has a friend–”

“Davvy.” There is a warning in my voice, but he shrugs it off as only close friends are able.

“I promised her I’d try, Rik. And a promise to a wife trumps making a friend uncomfortable with hard truths.

You’ve danced with half the girls in this village.

Twice or more…” He’s teasing, but si ncere.

“Rumor is you’ve tasted from enough wells.

Have you not found water you like? When are you going to settle down?

A hearth and a home for yourself. Little feet running around.

It’s a green field in a parched land, friend. ”

And I know it. I know it.

I wish I could explain. Wish I could tell him. But there are secrets and there are secrets.

“It is not a bad life here, Rik.” He is serious now, looking around at the shining faces of the children touching the bones, the faint sound of music in the distance, the smell of fresh bread mixing with clean hay and dust. “It’s hard, but it’s not bad.

And it’s made a good bit easier when you have someone to love. ”

And that is where we divide, earth from water, sky from ground. Because I have someone I love. And nothing is easier because of it.

A group of women walk by, chatting as they head toward the shops on the main street, and one or two glance at me from under dark lashes. Davvy notices, and nudges me gently.

“Eh? You see? You’re running out of time. It will be a cold storm season for you with no one to warm your bed.”

“Leave off, you washerwoman. I’m not so ancient yet.”

“You’re 25, Rik. Not so young either. Just think on it.

I’ve already promised Bri her friend Grace has a place at the table when you come visit.

She’s a nice girl. Knows how to keep a hearth warm from what I’m told.

Give her a chance.” I’m about to reply when his name is shouted again, and he steps away hurriedly.

“Have to go! Too late to say no now! Send word when to expect you.”

“Why you–” The music in the distance grows louder, cutting me off as it turns into a rollicking, joyful harvest tune, a call-and-return, and I can’t help but grin as Davv bursts into song, drowning out my protests.

“Hey and ho and up we go

To the mountains to the mountains to dig for the gold!”

He waves over his shoulder, and I sing out the reply in farewell.

“Hey and ho and down we go

To the valley the valley to thresh fields of gold ”

And then together, our voices blending and fading,

“Hey and ho and home we go

To the hearth to the hearth where there rest hearts of gold.”

The song is picked up and echoed around us, repeated through the village as the gaiety of the scavenger hunt builds into a crescendo.

I’m suddenly filled with a fierce, biting love for this place and these people, our land and our mountains, our songs and traditions.

There are dark, dark parts of our world, but the brightness in the days is a balm, and I feel the village wrap around me as I navigate through the rollicking streets toward the outer edge of the garden wall where my sister resides.

“Will you play later?”

“Did you see who won the hunt?”

“Come by for your mother’s order when you’re able!”

Friends and acquaintances call out as I walk past, occasionally waiting for replies, sometimes just waving in greeting, weaving me into the fabric of their days, into the rhythm of their lives.

And though the noise and gaiety fades as I curve around a corner, it stays on my skin, a blanket of love and comfort, of acceptance and belonging.

Slowly, I turn down a quiet street, across a patch of grass, and then finally to a small section of bone wall where my sister is kept.

Losing her to a Reaping was unexpected and heartbreaking; she had been my best friend and only sibling, even with the years between us.

She was my little shadow, trailing me through town, begging me to teach her how to play the lute, wanting to learn all my songs.

Everyone knows that anyone could be called, but Cara was so bright, so vivacious — a blessing born one day after the Birthing Day.

One short, stupid day, and she was not safe.

The Earth must eat, and her sacrifice was not in vain, but I lost a piece of my heart the day my sister was chosen.

My only solace was that the Council named her, and not Wren.

Cara was called to the Offering early, before her eighth birthday, when I was only fifteen and Wren herself was but thirteen.

It was during a time when the Council would still occasionally select names if Wren was not well enough to leave her rooms. Even at my sister’s Guiding, Wren was so pale her skin looked almost like mountain ice, and she was shivering as though she had been left out in the Storms. Every inch of her trembled for the whole of the ceremony.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was doing as much as she was able; no one ever held it against her that she couldn't speak for the bones.

But the Council…that is a different story.

The illusion of their neutrality faded with every Offering.

Before Cara, they had received the same rations of flour from our mills as everyone else in the village, my father refusing their demands for more due to their stations.

After, no Councilmemeber ever had to ask for extra again.

And no one from my family has been called to the Sun God or Earth since.

Though Wren is the only one who names the Offering now, my father is not willing to take the chance, so others have empty bellies, and the Council stays full.

Wren had cried during my sister’s Guiding, the only time I’d ever seen someone in our village openly weep for another.

Real tears, heavy as a storm, mixing with the trails of blood falling down her face from her bone crown.

The gift of her sorrow changed something in me, watered a flower that had only just begun to bloom.

I wanted to give her a gift in return, but had nothing.

What could I give the BoneKeeper? I watched, and waited, studying her, hoping that someday I could repay her for her kindness in the darkest moment of my childhood.

Then, one day, in the flowers of the Children’s Garden, I realized what I could offer her that no one else could. Or what no one else would, for reasons I will never understand. So I became her friend. Her only friend in a village of thousands. Her refuge, her safe space, her home.

And she became my goddess, stealing my heart and breath from my body. I’d worship at her feet for eternity if she’d take me. If she’d let me.

She is too much for this world, too good for the dust and death around her.