Shadow Weaver Book 2: Song of the Naga

CHAPTER 2

It is June, and the midnight sun will not leave the sky for another two moons. It is with us day and night, rising to the apex, then descending northwest to loll on the horizon for several hours before rising again.

The baby was born close to midday, so as I head back into the forest to where I spend most of my time with the horses, my stomach growls.

I use a knife to scrape off the tough outer bark of a pine tree down to the softer white pulp. Then I peel a little off and chew to suck out the juices. The white pulp has a bitter taste. It's stringy and doesn't fill me up, but I'm not ready to return to the longhouse.

I spend some time brushing Dancer, the mare the Prince bought me. Then I move the horses to where there is some grazing at the forest edge.

I cannot relax. My parents have never said how soon after the baby's birth they intended for us to leave. Perhaps Ma will want to stay and help Sara a little. But Pa is ready to go.

I pick up the blunt wooden sword I have carved and move into the fighting stance of the Carucan Elite training. Days after we arrived here and I could not sleep, I found Tug in the valley, practicing the fighting art.

Night after night, I came and watched him. Once I could move about without crutches, I came and practiced, keeping my distance, copying him as best as I could. Alone in the woods, I made myself a wooden sword.

I go through the basic stances now, emptying my mind of thought, imagining I am a bird on the wind, my movements precise, swings and lunges fluid. I try to do what I see Tug doing—making the breath and body one with the sword. I know what it feels like to do it well because I have found memories of Tug at sixteen years old before his father died and Lord Strik stole his lands. He spent a year training in a fort not far from his father's home. Like the Prince once trained, Tug also trained to become an Elite Commander.

It is Pa who finds me. I am so immersed in the moves, and an intense feeling of being in the forest, fully present and aware of my body, that I only sense his mind when he is close enough to see me through the trees. Aware that he is watching me, I stop.

He takes it as a signal to come closer. By the look in his eye, he disapproves of my sword training. But I have practiced throwing knives until my arms ached since I was four, and he never complained about that.

He approaches, scratching his chin. He's looking for a way to start a conversation that might offend, without offending me. I pinch my lips together, telling myself I do not want to argue. But it's as though everything we say is at crossed purposes these days.

Pa gestures to my wooden sword. "May I?" I pass it to him. He goes through several basic moves, swinging the wood blade to the left, and stepping forward with his right foot. Then he repeats the same move on the opposite side.

I've never seen Pa wield a sword. He did not carry one when we were living in Blackfoot forest.

And though I can enter minds and see the pasts that people have lived, I stopped scouring my parents' memories when I was eight or nine. It had seemed too invasive of their privacy.

"I joined the army when I was seventeen," Pa says, swinging the sword for an imaginary block above his head, "regiment four, under Baron Sifet. That's how I met your mother. We were posted at Nebraska."

"A town," Pa continues, "almost as beautiful as your mother." Nebraska is the wealthy port town where Ma grew up. Pa stops going through the six basic fighting moves and inspects my handiwork on the wooden sword. "Whitewashed houses up a hillside overlooking the sea. The sea in the south is a thing to behold. You'd love the sea."