Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Surprisingly, though, the lead basandere stepped up behind the most central firepit. She wore a sort of headdress with draping moss, adorned with bones and animal teeth. The cover over her bottom half had been changed to a deep red number adorned with beads and shiny decorations.
Firelight flicked across her stern expression. Her hand drifted out and then moved fast, dropping something into the flames. Light flared, and the flames licked the sky before dying down again. All eyes turned her way. She was focused on me.
“Her. Please step forward,” the basandere said.
Shivers coated my body. Crap, had my soundproofing spell not worked earlier? Or had our basajaun come clean? I wasn’t ready to face her yet! I hadn’t properly chased away my cowardice!
Austin must’ve had the same thought, because wariness pumped through the bonds. He stood with me, his hand on the small of my back.
“It is okay,” our basajaun said, walking closer. “They mean you no danger.”
I nodded at him stiffly and walked forward. She waited behind the crackling fire for me to approach her, and then directed me around it and to her right.
“Turn to face your people,” she told me softly.
Austin had followed me, and he stood by my side, sending the message that we were a team. A unit. I lifted the muffle on the Ivy House bonds, finding readiness waiting for me. Many watched me placidly enough, sitting back with bland expressions, but if the situation escalated, so would they. Sebastian had moved to the side of the clearing, by a tree, his hands out and ready. Next to him, Nessa had her hands on her hips. Broken Sue had gone the other direction, connecting with the shifters and standing just in front of them, braced and ready.
They might not know what was going on, or even that I’d been anxious all night, but they were clearly a team that could pivot on a dime. The seemingly benign evening before this didn’t blind them from the prospect of these creatures turning on us and the situation turning ugly at a moment’s notice.
“Him. Come forward,” the basandere said in a loud, clear voice. As our basajaun walked to her other side, she turned her head to me and said quietly, “They guard you well. It is clear they have great respect for you. Such respect comes from trust. Trust comes from doing right by them.”
“I hope so. We all do right by each other. It’s how we work.”
“Yes. You care about one another. Like family.”
Our basajaun stopped at her other side. Expectation filled the space.
“Him left our community to follow the stars,” the basandere said after a silent beat.
My body pulsed with the spell’s warning, and this time, I felt a curl of malice from the enemy through the spell. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
“He found a lonely mountain to the southeast to call home,” she said. “There he stayed, despite our protests. Despite our attempts to bring him back. And it was there he found what he’d been searching for. He met her under the mountain. He followed her to distant caves. He protects her, guards her, and fights for her…as she does for him. She has provided him with food, welcomed him into her stick-builder’s ways, and introduced him to her young one. She asks nothing. He asks nothing. They ask everything. They are family. Come.”
She held out her hands to each of us. I followed the basajaun’s lead and took her hand.
“It is time.” She lifted our hands into the air and then back down. After releasing them, she dug into a little pouch I hadn’t noticed on her left side. “It is time to reveal the name of his essence to his family. Given we know this name and the stick-builders do not guard the naming of their essences, you may all be present to witness the exchange.”
A swirl of excitement and expectation filled the bond. Ulric was clearly beside himself to learn the basajaun’s actual name.
“Alpha Jessie Ironheart.” The basandere threw powder into the fire. It surged again, and the flames turned green. “Buln’dan of the Ai’Foran brood.” She threw in more powder, yellow this time. “You will guard each other’s essence above all else. You are family.”
It sounded like essence was their way of saying soul, or maybe life force? Regardless, it was clearly an honor.
She combined the powder and threw it into the fire; the green mixed with the yellow and reached toward the heavens.
“It is done,” she finished.
The village repeated the words, and I couldn’t help connecting that saying to the basajaun’s words whenever he finished enacting a punishment.
I murmured the phrase with them, though, not wanting to cause offense and get my head drop-kicked. Ulric lifted his hands in the air in triumph, presumably because he’d finally learned the basajaun’s name.