Strange New Eyes

Chapter One - Letting

"This blood is not his alone. Your rivers have no end."

"This blood is not his alone. Your rivers have no end."

"This blood is not his alone. Your rivers have..."

"... no end," chanted Aysel in unison with the other mourners. She closed her eyes against the smoke. This was the sixth time in the past cycle she had stood with eyes burning as the body of a friend had slowly been consumed by fire, but she hadn't gotten used to it. She didn't think she ever would.

She opened her eyes again and immediately caught the gaze of the boy's mother, kneeling in front of her son's charing body. Her trembling mouth tightened as she glared at Aysel. The woman's eyes were ringed with the same dark circles as Aysel's, speaking of the same sleepless nights; beneath her thick cloak, Aysel knew her arms were be covered with the same crisscrossing scars. The real difference was that her son was dead, while Aysel's brother was still alive. For now.

Aysel turned away from the funeral. She had chosen a place in the back of the crowd so she could leave without disturbing the ceremony if the need arose, and based on the way her stomach was knotting, the need was rapidly arising. She couldn't help but picturing Elkin wrapped in pure white cloth and set ablaze as his own mourners chanted around him and his own family wept by his side. It was time to leave. Aysel pushed past the few people behind her, forming her lips into the familiar words: "This blood is not his alone. Your rivers have no end."

The wind grew harsher as Aysel stepped out of the crowd around the fire, and she drew her cloak closer to her. Smoke flavored with pine wood and burning bone blew into her face, stinging her nose and clouding her vision, but her feet knew the way back down the trail stamped into snow better than her eyes. It took her under the archway in the village's inner circle, hung with the trophies of successful hunts.They blew in the wind as she passed as if they were mocking her, swishing together above the low chanting of the mourners. She walked beneath them quickly, not wanting to see them, and quickened her pace through the snow until she at last reached her home.

The cabin was dark and warm as it always was, lit only by the small altar candles over which her father rocked and murmured. Aysel's mother looked up from where she sat next to Elkin, stroking his fevered forehead. She looked down again without saying a word. The only noise in this house was her father's hushed prayers.

Aysel slipped off her cloak before slowly walking to the bed where Elkin slept. His full lips were gently parted, as if he was going to speak, but all the came out were shallow, steady breaths. "Has there been any change?" she asked her mother quietly.

"His breathing seems a bit stronger... but he still won't wake. It can't be good for his mind that he's been asleep so long."

"Maybe you should get some sleep as well," Aysel suggested, eyeing her mother's exhausted expression and trembling fingers.

"Not yet," she replied, now tracing circles on Elkin's sweat-streaked face. "I want to try one more time tonight."

"Aydin," said her father, rising from the altar. "Not again. It's dangerous for you to lose so much." His voice was hoarse and scratchy from the hours of whispered prayers to the Ancient Ones, and like her mother, his eyes looked sunken and his cheeks hollow. "Let me, or... Aysel?"

"Of course." Aysel gazed down at her motionless brother. Although she didn't know if he could hear her or not, Aysel whispered in his ear, "We're going to find a way to make you better."

Very gently, Aysel opened his mouth. His lips were chapped and dry as if he'd been out in the cold, but she knew that he hadn't left this bed in a cycle. She longed to see him awake and outdoors again.