Curfew and no men of the Swarm had entered the brothel all day. Nasreen tarried behind the other prostitutes to see if her desert prince would appear, but he did not.
By the time she returned to the dormitory, Aisha was already in the baths. Her back and lower abdomen had been achy all day, but the flow of blood had slowed. The hotter pools soothed her. Nasreen immediately headed for the same pool. The smell of sulfur surrounded them in the steam.
“Are you feeling alright? Did you have pain today?” Nasreen asked. “Some women have pain with their courses. The hot water will help.”
“It does,” said Aisha. “I didn’t feel very well all day. I slept most of the time.”
“Good. The blood is a renewal of your womb so that it may bring forth life one day when you are ready and if you wish it,” said Nasreen. “Usually, the pain will only last for one or two days, and then you will be fine.”
Aisha nodded, letting the heat of the water seep into her joints.
“Did you finish reading the scroll?” asked Nasreen.
“Yes. It was strange,” said Aisha. “The story was full of people I had never heard of before – did you know that the Moon is the Lady’s mother?”
“That makes sense,” said Nasreen. “The Moon governs our courses, after all. We have cycles, and she has cycles. But I have never heard it said that the Moon is the mother of the Goddess!”
“And the man named Thought is supposedly the father of all of us in Adyll!” exclaimed Aisha. “At least according to this story, he is. He has a half-brother named Desire, who is like the devil we hear about in the scary stories they tell of the Lady’s captivity. That is what the scroll was about – her captivity in the desert. But in this story, she turned her children – seven girls and seven boys – into golden eagles so that they could escape him. Then they came back to feed her in her cage. She was pregnant with the first Queen Mila while she was in captivity.”
The words came out in a torrent, and louder than she intended. Nasreen looked around the baths, hoping no one had heard them. If a woman, or anyone for that matter, was caught speaking of the Lady, it was cause for public torture, and possibly death. No one was close enough to overhear, and their words were muffled in the steam.
“Shhh…” said Nasreen. “We must quiet. Start from the beginning.”
Aisha lowered her voice. “Alright. In the beginning there were two brothers, whose mother was the Earth. One was fathered by the Day, and the other by the Night. Their names were Thought and Desire…”
“Which was the son of the Day, and which was Night’s?” interrupted Nasreen.
“It doesn’t say which one is which… just that they were half-brothers,” said Aisha.
“Huh… maybe they didn’t know?” asked Nasreen. “Never mind… keep telling the story – I haven’t heard a good story in a long time. Is it a love story? I love those.”
“It is a love story,” said Aisha. “It is all about love. But it is also sad.”
Takri awoke in the forest to the smell of smoke. He found himself lying against a tree trunk next to Jacu. Both of them were covered in rough woolen blankets. A fire crackled a few feet away, at its heart the burning skull he saw bobbing through the woods ahead of the witch's lullaby. Next to the fire Lod lay sleeping. His leg was wrapped in clean bandages as were his hands.
"I know you're awake, young Narim." said a grey figure across the fire. "Come, make yourself useful and fetch some water from the stream to the north."
Takri rose and took the waterskin offered to him by the old Oracle. It is better to be polite than to be among the dead was a saying among his people. This was a good example of that teaching - the oracles were half-mad with visions. It would be best to treat the old woman with respect than burn like the skull in the fire.
"Of course, grandmother," he said and headed off into the woods.
"You do know where north is, don't you?"
He stopped and turned back to the old woman. She pointed in the opposite direction. "The stream is that way, about 200 paces. You will hear it before you see it."
Takri changed direction and headed into the forest to look for water.
"Don't veer from the path!" he heard the old woman call from behind him. "Her veil covers the forest to confuse the Locusts."
Ten steps from the campfire the fog closed upon him along with silence. He could see the path ahead of him, but to either side only grey darkness, not even a glow from the campfire where he left his friends. He kept moving forward, keeping his eyes on the path ahead.
The howling wail of a hunting horn split the silence. For a moment, he hesitated.
Do I follow the call of the Swarm? There is safety there among those murderous bastards. And then I will see Nasreen. If I return without the others, what will they say? If I tell them we were separated in the fog, they would believe me.
He kept walking, hearing the stream before the call of the horn broke through the fog again.
I can't leave them. And to choose to run from an oracle is a fool's choice.
Finding the stream, he dipped the skin into the cold water. When he pulled it out, for a brief moment, he saw a reflection in the water of a golden-haired maiden smiling back at him.
"Takri," giggled a familiar voice. Once again, he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. Whirling around, he saw her grinning at him mischievously.
Zarinya, the youngest of the three oracles. He recognized her instantly from the equinox at the temple years before. Her face had grown thinner since that day, and she carried herself with more confidence than when she uttered the last line of the prophecy, The strigoi-viu comes. Now it seemed she could see inside Takri's heart, and she found him wanting.
"They are coming, Takri. Take them to her. There is a prophecy to be delivered."
The hunter's horn sounded again, followed by the sound of hooves splashing through the brook. When Takri turned back to the oracle, she was gone.