Spiritwalkers: Seeker, Part One

[aithne]

"Is it still snowing?" Nascha asked Ahiga. Her arms were full of a squirming Nastas, who she was trying without much luck to dress. Ahiga had his head outside the flap, surveying the winter sky.

"It's cleared off, and the wind's calmed down," Ahiga reported, and then pulled his head back inside. "We should be all right to hunt the day after tomorrow. Are you coming this time?"

Nascha grimaced. "Maybe, if my knee lets me. I'd love to get out a bit." Her knee was mostly healed, but it was still going through times when it was swollen and hurt to touch, and walking on it too much would mean that she limped for the next several days.

Nastas squirmed, protesting. Sakhyo's hands were full, since she and Hania were making the evening meal, so Nascha crooned to the little boy. "You're getting so big," she said to him. "Look at you. You're going to be strong some day, just like your father."

Ahiga came to sit down next to her, and held out his arms. Nastas giggled and climbed off of Nascha's lap into his father's, and Ahiga finished putting on his son's shirt. Nastas snuggled down into his father's arms. He seemed to have been no worse for wear for his and his mother's captivity. He was young enough that it had not affected him like it had Sakhyo.

There was a ripple in the air and Cheveyo appeared. "The new ones are ready to start," he told them all.

"Good," Nascha said, smiling. "Did you see the way Shappa was looking at Aquene? I think he's been half in love with her since we arrived."

"Wouldn't doubt it," he replied. "We'll start him on the stories tonight, and Hakan the night after."

Hakan was the shaman's son, younger than Cheveyo but already fully trained. Shappa was eight seasons older than Nascha, a man with a quick smile who occasionally looked as if he were expecting to wake up from the dream of being chosen at any moment. Cheveyo had found Hakan, and Ahiga had found Shappa while talking to him one day.

Winter was the slow season, when traveling was difficult to impossible and the threat of raids was small until the snow melted and did not return. The spiritwalkers had been keeping the tribe here supplied with fresh meat and hides; Nascha helped as much as her knee would allow her, but seemed to spend most of her time in and around their wickiup, talking to Sakhyo and Hania and helping care for Nastas. Sakhyo's pregnancy was showing now, and this pregnancy seemed to be troubling her more than the first, all in little ways that added up to mood swings and bursts of tears. Nascha tried to be understanding, and Ahiga was as careful as he could be, and together they all seemed to be muddling through.

It helped that there had been no sign of the skinwalkers since they had arrived, and though Cheveyo kept in sporadic contact with Zotum, there was nothing much happening with their home tribe. They had a chance to heal, all of them. Wahcommo had taken Gosheven and Okomi's deaths particularly hard; he had admired Gosheven for what he had been able to do even before he'd become a spiritwalker, and Okomi and he had had an understanding of one another because of their respective talents. It was hard to see the young man brooding, but as winter passed his mood was beginning to lighten a bit.

The days passed, and soon enough it came time for Hakan and Shappa to tell their stories. Shappa was tall, built lightly and quick rather than strong. He'd had a normal childhood until the unthinkable had happened--all of his relatives had died of cholera except him. Shappa hadn't even gotten ill. Since then, he had been set apart, shunned as bad luck. He'd never married, since none of the women of the tribe would have him.

The rejection of his people after losing many of the people he loved had hit Shappa hard. He had jumped at the chance to become a spiritwalker, figuring that even if his life were shorter, it would be more interesting. His greatest fear was rejection, since that was all he'd had for most of his life.

He had liked Aquene since he had met her, and now that he'd had a chance to get to know her, he definitely liked her and thought that he might love her. Whether it was love or just lust, he followed Aquene around like a puppy every chance he got.

They did blood ceremony with him, and the next night it was Hakan's turn.

Hakan was small and wiry, with intense eyes and a manner of moving that made him look as though he had swallowed embers. He thought a lot about things, but rarely spoke, and had done that all of his life. His father, the tribe's shaman, had encouraged him to become a spiritwalker. He wanted Hakan to live a little before returning to settle down and take the shaman's role from him. His mother had died in childbirth with Hakan.

Hakan showed them the story of his life through flashes and stops and stutters. He had a powerful temper that he kept locked down tightly. There were flashes of that temper in his story, and when the rage roared out of him and Hakan lost control of it, the results were always ugly. There had been a boy a bit older than Hakan who had taken great pleasure in tormenting those younger than him. When he finally pushed Hakan too far, Hakan had nearly beaten the boy to death with his bare hands. The only thing that had saved the other boy was the timely arrival of Hakan's father.

His greatest fear was that some day, he was going to lose control of that temper and kill someone for no reason. Nascha knew well the price of letting anger take control--her knee was a reminder every day that a spiritwalker's greatest weapon was their mind, and giving in to hatred would do nothing but get them killed. She resolved to herself to keep an eye on Hakan.

They trained as they could for the rest of the winter. It was a strangely peaceful time, deep snows both trapping them in their tents and keeping the worst of the human dangers at bay. Nascha's knee got better to the point that she could usually go out on hunts with her fellow spiritwalkers, and went back to helping train those who were newer than her.

Eventually, the snow melted, and the sun warmed once again. There was a feast held the day of the season change, as the days lengthened and the last of the snow melted. Nascha was restless. With spring came change, and the wind that was gentling and the sun that was growing warm brought with them another promise, one that was dark indeed. With spring, their enemies would be moving. Who would they lose this season? Would any of them survive?

She had walked out away from the camp a bit. It was dusk, and she startled jackrabbits that had come out to munch on the new leaves of the plants emerging from beneath the snow. In the distance, Nascha heard a familiar screech; an owl, making a kill.

There was a step beside her, Cheveyo dropping out of spiritworld. "Tashunka is moving out tomorrow," he said. "What do you want to do? He said we can move with them. He was impressed by our hunting skills."

It was no more than Nascha had expected, and thinking of it made her feel uncertain. This had become another home. "I'd like to go with them, but I think it's only a matter of time before Chogan finds us, though. Better that we be out hunting him, likely. We might leave Hania and Sakhyo with them, though."

"I thought about that too," he said. Her hand sought his, the air still held the last bite of winter in it, and his skin was reassuringly warm. "Chogan will find us sooner or later. He will have two new by now at least, maybe more. Seems the Arapaho are a lot more flexible about becoming skinwalkers. Sakhyo will give birth in another season and a half, we can wait that long and then go if you think that Ahiga will want to stay for the birth, or you do."

She was silent for a moment, staring out into the darkness with the star-sprinkled sky above, and then looked at Cheveyo. Quietly, she said, "Chogan will find us before then, won't he?"

Cheveyo inclined his head. "Before summer season. I have seen him."

"Then we should go. Ahiga will understand. I don't want to risk Sakhyo falling into his hands again."

"I am more worried about you than Sakhyo," he said. "Chuslum is dead."

Nascha twisted her mouth briefly. A pale shadow swept overhead; the owl that she had heard before. "I think Chogan would take Sakhyo again just for spite. Me, well..." She shrugged, one-shouldered. "I'll die, or I'll live, but I don't want to endanger any more people than I have to."

"He tracks us some way that feels familiar," he said, looking thoughtful. "Like he is tracking us because he can sense spiritwalkers, which we have thought anyway, but this is different, like he is sensing our thoughts and intentions."

"Like what Adoeete could do?" she asked.

"Yes, like one of the old ones of us is following our thoughts and leading them to us."

Her breath snagged in her throat. "Adoeete wouldn't have become one of them, would he?" she said slowly. "We can check in with those we left behind, see what's going on back there."

"With Adoeete, anything is possible." Cheveyo shook his head. "We can talk to Zotum."

"He might be able to tell us more," she said. She reached out to Zotum. It seemed like it had been years since they had last spoken, and the connection between them was attenuated with neglect. "Zotum, how are things going there?" She included Cheveyo in her query, letting him listen.

The answer came immediately, with much warmth from Zotum. She could almost see his smile, with those teeth that made him look so wild. "We survived the winter with no trouble. But otherwise bored. And you?"

"Healed up, finally," she answered. "Had a run-in with Chogan's people that I don't know if Cheveyo told you about. Has Adoeete been acting stranger than usual, lately?"

The dislike in Zotum's voice gave Nascha a metallic taste in her mouth. "He is more arrogant and sure that what he says is the only way to do things. So far he has been right, but he seems darker and quicker to banish."

"He hasn't had any times where he was gone without explanation?" she asked.

"He does that a lot," Zotum replied. "Disappears for days and returns."

Nascha let a breath out of her that seemed to come directly from her toes. "And he doesn't tell anyone where he's gone?"

"No. He is the great Adoeete, beholden to no one." The sarcasm in Zotum's voice was as biting as the point of one of his arrowheads.

"We may have a problem. We know he's had at least a couple of meetings with Chogan. If that kept up over the winter, I hate to think where this is going." She shook her head. The connection between of them was becoming stronger as they talked, the bond between them warming and brightening. She missed him, and the rest of those they had left behind. The winter had almost buried that in the snow.

"He has been negotiating peace between our two tribes," he said, and now suspicion was coloring his voice. "You think more?"

"Maybe. Just a feeling Cheveyo has, about the skinwalkers being able to follow our thoughts and feelings. Just--be careful, all right?"

"We will, and you too. Remember we are still your brothers. If we can help. Let us know." The sense of his presence, the warmth in his voice, was abruptly very strong. Zotum had been her favorite of her teachers in the spiritwalkers, partly because she'd already had a talent for the bow, and partially because unlike the rest he had never gone easy on her because she was a woman. She was merely a pair of clear eyes and an arm that could use some strengthening. It had been comforting.

She blinked tears away from her eyes. "Thank you. We will."

Nascha broke the connection and leaned into Cheveyo, putting her arm around his waist. There were no words between them, just the knowledge that come morning, they would pack up and leave.

They went back to tell the rest. Sakhyo cried, throwing her arms around Ahiga, not quite begging him not to go. Hania just nodded as if he had known it was coming.

In the morning, they were up around dawn with the rest of the camp to pack up. Their packing went quite a bit more quickly than the rest of the Sioux tribe, and once they were done with theirs, they helped the rest. Nascha hugged Sakhyo, feeling how thin she was now, except for her swollen belly. The last two seasons had been hard on her, and the prospect of losing Ahiga was one that she was still having trouble with.

"Be safe," she said. "Listen to Hania. I hope to see you again before the little one's born."

Sakhyo's voice trembled. "I hope so, too. Bring Ahiga back safe, if you can."

"I'll do my best," she said, kissed her cousin on the cheek, and released her. Ahiga swept her up into his arms, and Nascha bent to pick up Nastas, who had been happily playing with a couple of old arrow shafts. He babbled into her ear as she settled him on her hip and kissed the top of his head. "Be good, little one," she told him solemnly. "Be strong, like your mother and father."

Nastas's response was a wet baby kiss that landed somewhere in the vicinity of her ear. Nascha laughed and put him down, letting him run to Sakhyo once more.

Then it was time to mount up and ride.

They headed south, getting rained on for a few days, and then the sun warmed and the clouds cleared away. The sky looked different in the spring here, as Changing Woman walked the land and made all manner of thing grow and bloom. It was the only season that this place had soft edges. Despite the mud that the rain left behind, despite the insects that came out of their winter sleep, Nascha for once felt glad to be traveling, despite missing Sakhyo and Nastas and Hania desperately.

It was true, what Cheveyo had said that terrible day that they had left the Apache camp. They were free to do what they needed to do.

Days passed, a handful of them. Aquene teased Shappa, though her eyes were not unkind, and Nascha thought she might be starting to return the lanky young man's interest. Wahcommo spent all of his time, waking and sleeping, with the horses; there were moments when he and they turned their heads in unison, as if he were hearing and seeing the same things they did. He seemed less the boy, now, though he was so small it was hard to forget his age.

Ahiga fell into a silence, a contemplative space where he seemed to be rehearsing things over and over in his mind. He admitted to Nascha that he was dreaming of Sakhyo nightly. Hakan seemed to be more at peace since they had left the Sioux, and moved a little less like he was carrying embers in his belly.

And Delsin--

If Nascha had hoped that with spring she would see some life returning to the oldest of the spiritwalkers, she was disappointed. Gosheven's death, and that he had died to keep Delsin breathing, seemed to weigh on him. He hardly looked around himself, seeming to deliberately ignore the beauty all around him, the vivid colors of earth and sky.

All of Nascha's attempts to talk to him fell into silence. Still, she kept trying, though Cheveyo shook his head at her when she did so. She refused to keep her distance, though. It wasn't in her to simply let him be silent. She was afraid of Delsin's quiet, because it did not feel right.

But she got nowhere. She refused to retreat, though.

On the fifth morning after they headed south, soon after dawn, they were sharing a quiet meal as the last of the night slid from the sky. Cheveyo abruptly stood and walked away from their small fire, stopping and staring out west. Nascha frowned, watching him.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head. "A calling."

Nascha felt a bit of unease in the pit of her stomach. "From who, can you tell?"

"No, just an image of rock in the form of a woman. She is west of here."

He looked back at her, a smile on his face that had a trace of ruefulness in it. She returned that smile, knowing that the calling must be very strong for him to talk about it. Cheveyo always spoke of his visions in terms of hunches, but she knew that he saw more things, and more clearly, than he ever said. He was always afraid of those he led thinking he was sun-crazy. "We should go look, unless you think it's a trap," she told him now.

"No, I don't think so," he said. "If nothing else, it will give Chogan something to chase."

"True enough. How far away, do you think?"

He smiled. "Seven risings and settings, I think."

Nascha blew out a breath. "Well, it would be silly to argue with a calling like that, and it's not like we had a destination otherwise. Let's go."

Cheveyo looked briefly surprised, as if he had expected her to argue. Then he relaxed. "As usual, you are right. We will turn west today and see what we can find."

Nascha rolled her eyes good-naturedly at that as usual, and Cheveyo laughed and came over to hug her. When they mounted up, they turned west, and continued on.

As they traveled, the landscape changed. It turned harder, the red bones of the earth showing everywhere, strange rock formations arching and curling into the sky. This was sacred ground, and the wind that whipped across it sang strange songs.

On the eighth sunrise, they reached their destination. Cheveyo pointed out a rock formation that, when looked at just right, looked like a woman standing and holding a big-bellied clay pot on one hip. Behind it was a large arch, one of the largest they had seen so far, big enough to stand ten horses nose to tail in with some room left over.

Nascha had dismounted, and realized that the place felt familiar. The barrier between this world and spiritworld was very thin. "This is like the place back where the Apache were in the fall. And like the inside of a medicine wheel. Maybe whatever's calling is in spiritworld, here."

Cheveyo had dismounted, as well. His voice was determined, echoing oddly on the nearby formations. "Ahiga, take charge. If we aren't back in a day, take over and leave. Do what you think is right. Understand?" Ahiga nodded. Cheveyo turned to Nascha. "Ready?"

She took a breath and let it out. Just so much wind on the stone. "I am."

They stepped into spiritworld at the same moment. Cheveyo stepped to Nascha's side, and she noticed that this place felt strange. She couldn't say exactly how, though, but she did notice that the misty forms of the spirits, instead of moving closer, were all wandering away.

Only one spirit was coming closer, one that looked like the stone woman. She had that same pot on her hip, and as she approached her features became clear. Nascha reached out for Cheveyo's hand, entwining her fingers with his. She did not feel truly afraid, merely uneasy, but she still took comfort in Cheveyo's presence.

The woman approached and stood about a horse's length in front of them, looking them over in silence. Nascha and Cheveyo looked back. The woman was probably twice Nascha's age, with graying hair at her temples and deep lines at the corners of her mouth, and she wore her hair loose and unadorned. Her hands had fine, delicate fingers, and Nascha thought she looked distinctly Navajo.

"Bad times for you all," the woman said suddenly, breaking the silence. "They only get worse."

"I was hoping they might get better. I am Nascha, this is Cheveyo, but I'm guessing you knew that already," Nascha said, after Cheveyo's hand tightened on hers.

"I did," she said, not without humor. "Spider Woman, but you probably knew that."

The hands. Delicate and strong. A weaver's hands, her mother's hands. Nascha had to swallow back tears; this has been her mother's favorite of all the gods, and it seemed unfair that Nascha got to meet her and Shadi never had. "No, I did not," she said, stumbling over her words, trying to remember her manners. "Greetings. So, you called us."

"I did. You seek to destroy the skinwalkers."

Nascha inclined her head. "We do."

"The game you play will go on and on until the spiritwalkers can find a way to kill them all at once." Spider Woman's voice was registering disapproval. "Or stop them from getting more skinwalkers."

"As long as one of them lives and can initiate others, we're going to be fighting them. Do you have any suggestions?" Nascha asked.

The goddess smiled thinly. "I do. But it has costs."

What in this life does not? Nascha knew that it was unfair, and averted her eyes briefly. "So does fighting them to a standstill," she replied. "What is it?"

"I will show you how to stop the power of the spiritwalker for good. Those that are now will remain as they are, but no more can be created."

She gaped briefly. "That's...you're right. A consequence I'm not sure I want to have on my hands."

"If you don't, Chogan will kill and kill with the white allies and they will be the only ones left."

Nascha's stomach turned, and she was remembering a number of things all at once. Cheveyo telling her about his vision that she would change everything about what it meant to be a spiritwalker. The uneasy feeling in her stomach when he had told her of his calling. And, strangely, Shadi's hands on the loom, telling the whole story of her soul.

"True", she said, and looked at Cheveyo. "True. Even if they kill all of us, time till eventually get them."

Cheveyo was looking stunned. "No more spiritwalkers ever?"

Spider woman smiled gently. "Four hundred seasons before the next one will be born."

"So there will be more, some day. But not any time soon." Nascha's stomach might have been in turmoil, but by some miracle her mind was calm.

"Your grandchildren will know them, but not you."

Nascha almost smiled at that. And who says I will live to have grandchildren, you who wove the world? "And they won't have anyone to guide them," she said, and her voice faltered. "No older spiritwalkers to train them."

The goddess nodded slightly. "All that you are will need to be recorded and left for them."

"We can do that. Leave teaching stories behind."

"Stories, and the loom." Spider Woman's words were calm, but they held a power in them, something ancient.

Nascha caught her breath. "I wish my mother had lived. She could have woven the story so well."

The goddess raised her eyes and looked Nascha full in the face. The power of the goddess's presence was just beyond the edge of Nascha's ability to understand it. "But now, that will pass to you."

Me. Oh. She swallowed, trying not to look disappointed. She had spent so many hours at the loom, and almost every moment had wanted to be elsewhere. She had learned what she could, and she had talent, but the loom never spoke to her like it did to her mother. Shadi had heard the loom's voice, waking and sleeping.

But this was Spider Woman, who had given the People the gift of weaving, and so Nascha swallowed down her feelings. "I know how, and I can do it," she said.

"But you hate it," the goddess said. "I know."

Nascha hung her head. "Not to be ungrateful, but I do. I'm the one who can do it, and it will need to be done. So I will thank you for your gift, and the teaching my mother taught me."

Spider Woman's voice was gentle. "If you wish to pass it on to Sakhyo you can, but it will a long time before you see her again."

"I'll start it, at least. If nothing else, if I die, the pattern may die with me, so I need to record it."

"It takes a spiritwalker to record what you do," she said. "You can maybe explain it to her."

This all requires me to live long enough to see her again. I am not so sure. "I might. But if it's going to be a while until I see her, I should take this on now."

The goddess looked at her and Cheveyo for a long moment, pressing her lips together as if she were deciding something. Then she hitched the pot she was carrying higher on her hip, just as if she had been one of the women in Nascha's home tribe. "Then they are stopped. It will be four hundred seasons from today when another spiritwalker will answer the call. You will be gone before that happens, make sure you teach them all that you know."

Nascha drew in a long breath. She was clinging to Cheveyo's hand tightly, she noticed, and his hand was holding hers so hard that it almost hurt. "I will. Thank you, very much."

"Go now, find Moki and have him tell you about the Spider Woman blanket." Without bothering to see their reaction, Spider Woman turned and walked away, fading.

Nascha was shaking slightly, and her stomach was still clenched. "I really, really hope that was the right decision," she said softly.

"If not, too late now," Cheveyo said. He let go of her hand and put an arm around her.

She leaned into him. "You're right. And I'm going to have to make a small loom. And find some wool."

Her lover's mouth twitched in a smile. "Wool I have, and a small loom."

"I didn't know you're a weaver," she said, startled.

"I'm not. No idea how to use it."

She almost laughed. "Let me guess. You had this idea a while back that we might need them."

His arm tightened around her, and then he released her. "Twenty seasons ago, I saw an owl weaving a tapestry that had a picture of me on it. I traded for the wool and a loom with some Navajo. I have carried it ever since, looking for the owl." Cheveyo smiled, a bit ruefully. "I think that would be you. Come out back into the real world and let me get it for you. You might be in for a shock."

Nascha gave him a dubious look, but stepped out into the real world. The other spiritwalkers had gone, leaving Nascha and Cheveyo's horses in the scant shade afforded by some of the nearby rock formations. She could hear them as a background murmur in her mind; they had gone to find a place to camp.

Cheveyo walked to his tall black mare, and pulled the packs off his back. His horse eyed him with amusement. He dug into one of the packs, coming up with a pair of wrapped packages. One of them was a bag tightly packed with carded wool. The other, he unwrapped and without comment handed to Nascha.

"I didn't know the woman I traded with until the day I met you," he told her. "These were hers. Her name was Shadi."

All she could do for a moment was looking between him and the loom she held in her hands, utterly astonished. "This belonged to my mother?"

"Yes, it did."

Her eyes were full of tears as she ran her hands along the edges of the loom. Yes, this had been her mother's; she could feel it in the marks on the wood and the way it curved to meet her hands. It was a simple open frame with pegs, but underlying the simplicity of it was decades of craft and practice, bringing this small loom into the realm of the sacred. This was a tool that, used with the right hands, would make things of beauty.

Nascha felt overwhelmed. The day that her family had died, the tents had been burned, and her mother's looms had burned with them. She didn't even think that the skinwalkers had bothered taking any of the weavings. That this small thing survived... "I think I might almost be happy to start weaving again, on this," she said quietly.

"I think you will," Cheveyo said, and there was such a look in his eyes of happiness and gratitude.

She set the loom down carefully, and pulled Cheveyo close, hugging him hard and kissing him. "Thank you, Cheveyo. How on earth did you convince Shadi to part with one of her looms, by the way?"

He chuckled, and she could feel the vibration of the sound in his chest. "It wasn't easy, and she is a tough bargainer."

"Yes, she was. What did you end up giving her?" she asked.

"Do you remember twenty seasons ago, just about everyone in your family and extended family getting new clothes from deerskin, and new buffalo hide blankets? That was me."

She gasped, and then laughed. "I remember that! I loved the dress my mother made for me. I wore it until it was really far too short." The deerskin had been marvelously soft, a pleasure to wear even on warm days. "No wonder Shadi was so pleased with herself."

"Too bad you don't have it. That would be worth seeing you in," he said, smiling. "She thought I was crazy, so did I."

"It got made over into clothes for Nastas." She let out a breath, thinking about the day her mother had told her that she had gotten far too tall for that dress. She'd protested, but her mother had insisted. "Crazy, but it's a good thing you followed that vision."

"I usually do. Sometimes it takes many seasons for me to understand them. That had to be one of the strangest."

"I'm sure. An owl, weaving. It makes sense, in retrospect," she said thoughtfully.

Cheveyo stroked her braided hair. "Try telling that anyone else," he said.

"What, they don't believe you?"

He snorted softly. "Would you?"

She thought about it for a moment. "At this point, I would. Before I got to know you, I'd probably have thought you were a bit crazy."

"It's why I don't really tell the rest where we are going," he said. "They would likely believe me but it's best not to say, 'I need a loom so an owl can weave'."

"Probably." she said, and smiled. "I can see why Adoeete said that you were meant to be a shaman."

He raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. "Why do you say that?"

"Shamans see things the rest of us can't, and I think they don't tell the rest of us about those things because it would be hard to believe them. But you ended up a spiritwalker instead."

Cheveyo nodded. "Maybe someday I can just be a shaman. I think that would be easier."

"I hope you live long enough to find out, love. I really do," she told him.

They were standing now in the shadow of the stone; the sun was going down, the light going orange and turning the colors of the rocks around them to flame. Nascha heard one of the horses snort and stomp, and the swish of tails brushing away flies. The wind had died, and it seemed like the whole world had fallen quiet.

"I hope you will come with me," Cheveyo said.

Nascha smiled up at him. "I will, if I live to see the day."

"Good." He paused, and when he spoke next his voice sounded very careful. "I don't know Navajo tradition, but by Apache tradition we are already married, just without the ceremony."

"It takes a bit more than that in my tradition, but I'm willing to go with Apache tradition, here. My blood family is mostly dead, and I'm a widow." There would be no marriage basket, no ceremony before their families. That life, and those traditions, were no longer hers, as much as it hurt sometimes to admit it.

Cheveyo's voice was still careful. "How long is your mourning time?"

"Widows don't often remarry, and when they do they're generally young, like me. The mourning period is as long as it takes for the heart to heal."

He stroked her hair again, moving his hand slowly. "Has yours healed enough for me to call you wife?"

Nascha thought about it, giving the question all of the consideration it deserved. The thought of Tse was no longer an open wound in her. It was not entirely healed by any means, but she no longer felt like her love for Cheveyo was a betrayal of the young man she had loved and lost less than a season into their marriage. The promises she had made then were the promises of a child she no longer was.

"It has," she said finally, and meant those two words with her whole being.

Cheveyo's eyes were lit with a deep joy. "Nascha my wife has a good feel to it."

"I like the sound of that," she said. "Cheveyo, my husband. That one sounds good, too." The words were strange, but also strangely comfortable. I do not want anyone else. Only you.

"She feels good to touch too," he said, and his hands were roving over her, familiar by now and unexpectedly beloved. Her hands were roving too, sliding up under his shirt, and they undressed each other and then pulled a blanket out from Cheveyo's open pack to lie on.

They had most of a day and a night before the others would leave without them, and they put that time to good use. Being so near where spiritworld and this world overlapped, their lovemaking was filled with strange silent things, places where their bodies and spirits seemed almost to merge around the edges.

They only slept a little that night, and the next morning went to join the others.