Whitney Writes…

Silence smothered the valley, settling in like a heavy, oppressive hand. There were no chirping of birds, no chitter of small creatures, no voices on the wind. Even the wind itself had fallen silent. A storm had been brewing in the Druadach Mountains, and it had suddenly fallen dead. It made his heart skip a beat. Or, it would have, if he still had a heart to beat.

He felt just as empty as the air around him.

He looked to the skies, watching the clouds drift lazily across the sky. They were thin, wispy. The kind Ysa loved to tease the boys were breaths from the sleeping dragons within the mountains. The rays of sunlight pierced them weakly, streaking down to the earth in fractal columns of white-light – the path to the afterlife.

“Vanos?” said a voice, hesitantly, from behind him. Slowly, he turned from the rocky ledge where he stood to regard the one who approached him. Her stance told him everything he needed to know. His sister stood hunched, defeated, blood to her elbows. She could not meet his eyes.

“Is it over?” he asked.

She nodded, swallowing tears. “She won’t last long,” Dyra said. “She is asking for you.”

He nodded, taking a step to follow his sister back towards the tribe’s camp. His relationship with Dyra was tumultuous, at best. However, she was a skilled healer and had proven herself countless times over as their Tribe Mother, and the pair would prove to be formidable in leading the clan once he was a full-powered Briar-Heart and she a Hagraven.

“How long did the child last?” Vanos asked into the silent air. “Or did it even draw breath?” Even though Ysa had been excited about the impossible child, vowing it would finally be her long-sought-after daughter, Vanos had always been wary. No Briar-Heart in the history of the Reachmen had fathered a living child. They were not technically alive, after all.

Dyra stumbled on the rocky path before him. Vanos’ hand was there to steady her without him even having to think about it. Dyra looked up at him and he braced himself for the terrible news. “The child… she still lives,” Dyra said. “She is strong.”

It was his turn to stumble. Of all the news he had been preparing himself to hear this day, that had not been amongst them. “You mean… she may yet live?” he asked.

“She will live, Vanos.” He wondered if Ysa was willing it to be so, and if that was why she was now dying.

As the sun set, Vanos sat alone in the yurt. Dyra had taken Ysa’s body away some time ago. It was just he and his little daughter now. He found with Ysa gone, he could scarcely bring himself to look at the babe. Ysa had named her Visenya in the moments before she had died. He had told Dyra to bring his sons to him after their dinner and he was awaiting their arrival now. Vanos wondered how the youngest of his sons, Madan, would react to no longer being the baby of the family. Though, without a mother to baby him, will he even realize?

He could hear the voices of the boys outside the hide of the yurt. He thought perhaps it was not fair to make them enter the place their mother had died only hours before. He rose, taking the sleeping bundle of Visenya with him, and pushed open the flap to the yurt.

“We were coming, Father,” Orin, the eldest, said quickly, his chest puffing out with importance.

“You said you were scared of Mama’s ghost,” said Madan, the youngest of the boys.

“No I didn’t,” bristled Orin.

“I wasn’t afraid,” said Ronan, the second eldest, abruptly in an attempt to show up his elder brother.

Vanos looked to Cadin, the only one of his sons yet to speak. “And what about you?” he asked.

“I knew you would come out,” Cadin said quietly.

Over the years, Vanos had always lamented to Ysa about being cursed with nothing but sons. Orin was hot-headed and always over-eager to prove himself, often resulting in making poor choices. Ronan was eager to make his own way in the world and get out of his older brother’s shadow, often resulting in him making even poorer choices than Orin. Madan was the baby and was always used to tattling on his brothers to get them in trouble and always having things go his own way.

And then there was Cadin, then the second-to-youngest, but now the middle child of the family. He was quiet, reserved, always thinking. Always observing. Members of the tribe were always getting Orin and Ronan mixed up, Madan as well as he grew. But no one ever questioned which of Vanos’ boys was Cadin. He had always been Vanos’ favorite.

“Come,” Vanos said, motioning the boys to follow him to the camp’s cooking fire where the rest of their clan was gathered, “it’s been a long day; time to meet your sister.”