Towards the Cold

The air crept into her lungs, dry and frozen, and Kerera briefly wondered if it was the presence of the outsiders that made it such.

She could see them clearly from the threshold, twelve figures that almost seemed small in the shadows of their riding beasts, those scaly creatures she deemed hideous at first sight. The preparations were coming to an end. The spears that never dared to spill her people’s blood were now attached to the saddlebags, and those departing were talking in hushed voices, though with her hearing she didn’t even need to try to discern the sounds of their foreign tongue, the creaks and hisses, which reminded her of snow under one’s feet and the whispers of cold wind foretelling winter. Everything she despised. Everything that wasn’t home. And everything she was now set on journeying to. 

She breathed in once more — the air itched in her chest, so unlike yesterday, when the steppe was calm and nothing could tear her away from her sisters, — and took a step towards the gathering.

That’s when she saw it. 

The thirteenth figure. 

They were standing aside from the others, alone, huddled in thick parka, as if the velds of Kharnalath were no less cold than the tundra from which they came, and they were in no hurry to saddle their ugly beast and leave The Howling Lands. An outsider among the outsiders. 

She hesitated a moment and changed her course.

Her footsteps were quiet as ever, but ga’ath still turned to her as she approached. Their eyes squinted, and the scales on their rigid face colored blue. She struggled to remember what the change meant.

“Serera,” the stranger hissed, the sound of her name distorted in their mouth. Recognition, then. 

She didn’t risk a smile, knowing it would be all teeth, and instead raised a hand to quickly cover her eyes, a common ga’athe greeting, you’re like a blinding sunlight reflected from the icy crust. The ga’ath watched her drop her palm, and there was no change of hue to their cheeks. Instead of returning the gesture, they said:

“You know the ways of my people.” 

“Some,” her lip quivered on a snarl, as memories came flooding in. Her mother’s hands tracing the edges of a map etched into the floor of The House Of Howls in Kharmelath, her calm voice stating, a leader must know her enemy, her body, unmoving by the hearth, so unmistakably dead. In the end, with all her wisdom she didn’t know who her enemy was. But Kerera would be wiser. “You know our tongue.”

“Some,” they huffed, and she sensed that the sentiment behind those words matched her own. “But I see you know me not.” 

She paused, hating the way she had to tilt her head up to look at them, and considered. Admitting ignorance would be admitting defeat. But who could they be? Ga’athe rarely sent ambassadors to the wolves, and she was certain she remembered them all, the way they never entered the caves, preferring to sleep under the stars, the way their faces were always bleak and blank, and only the slight redness to their scales betrayed their apprehension. That was when Kerera wasn’t even ten summers old. Then ga’athe stopped sending people all together, and the war began.

The stranger standing before her looked nothing like a peacemaker. But there was something in the way they stood, something she almost remembered, a shadow of a shadow.

Before she could grasp the thought, the ga’ath bowed in a way that was customary to the steppe and spoke:

“I am called Veiss.” A male, then, if the name given wasn’t a fake one. He waited for her to nod and continued, “It is I that murdered your brother.”

The hair lining her cheeks stood on end, and Kerera heard herself growl. There was no love between her and Ehrarh, but he was still family. There was no love between them, but she would still tear his murderer apart.

Veiss’s face remained motionless, though cool green slowly spread beneath his eyes, a tear-like pattern parallel to the slit of his nose. Amusement? She would cut his throat! Her hand was already reaching for a weapon, when—

“Your knife will not harm me.” The ga’ath’s voice was quiet. “Neither will your teeth, should you turn.” 

That’s when the memory finally became clear in her mind. Yesterday’s night, chill and frost creeping in, a tall silhouette of an intruder in the common hall, her brother rising to meet them halfway, sword in hand, as she ushered her sisters outside, away from the coming fight, for she knew Ehrarh could handle it. He had two lives to spare. 

But this stranger had taken them both. 

And the words he had spoken then, she remembered, were the same she had just heard.

Trying to slaughter him now wouldn’t do her any good, when his companions would ambush her, rendering her attempt wasted in seconds. Trying to slaughter him now, when his coming actually did her a favor. Trying to slaughter him, instead of offering thanks for saving her life, for she knew Ehrarh wouldn’t let her meet her twenty-fifth summer, a summer when she would grow into someone who could challenge him. Would challenge him.

Her grip on the bone handle lessened. 

A wise hunter knew when to wait. 

Veiss kept his eyes steady on her as she changed her mind, and the green on his cheeks deepened, spreading down to the thin line of his mouth. “For what it’s worth,” he extended a gloved hand, “I’m sorry.”

Kerera stepped forward and let his fingers curl over hers, “Don’t be. Ehrarh was a danger to your people as much as to mine.” 

The handshake was cold. She wondered if ga’ath understood that this was no truce, that her vengeance was not abandoned. Only delayed. Then he was holding her hand no longer, and the absence of that touch felt like sunshine on her skin. 

“You’re quick to forgive me.”

“We’ll be traveling together,” she pulled on the strap of the bag which contained all her belongings, all twenty four years of her life. “No need to make the road harder by holding on to past grievances.” 

The ga’ath didn’t look like he believed her. Then again, he didn’t look like anything, his face completely expressionless and gray now that the color has left it. 

“Will it be your first time that far from home?” 

So, they were making small talk now. Kerera resisted the urge to sneer. She could do that. She had to. Even though it was the last thing she wanted. Keep it together, girl, she told herself in what sounded suspiciously like her mother’s voice, you’ve shown enough weakness already. 

But now she had to find the right words to confess that, yes, she’s never ventured far. That, as kheara, she was forced to relegate her hunts to the nearest tracks. That the thought of leaving the well-known part of the steppe, let alone leaving the steppe all together, made her uneasy. Made her weak. 

Yet, she was the one who spoke up last night. She was the one who agreed that the peace talks would happen and that they would occur far from The City of Wolves, just like ga’athe wanted. That she would negotiate on behalf of her people, which meant leaving her sisters behind and following he who murdered her brother into the snowy wasteland that was Ga’atha.

“Was it yours?”

His face remained still as an immediate response followed, “Yes.” 

“You weren’t,” she licked her lips, careful now, don’t betray too much of yourself, “scared?”

“I thought your people believed mine to be incapable of fear.”

Was he mocking her? Kerera clenched her fists, crushing the desire to lunge forward, bury her teeth in the milky white scaly skin of his neck, half covered by the fluff of black fur and still so vulnerable, so open. She was better than that. 

“My people also believed you to be incapable of slaying our leader. Clearly, we were wrong.”

The ga’ath breathed sharply through his nose what must’ve constituted a laughter among his kind and said, “I was terrified to go. But I couldn’t let my sister’s murderer walk free.” 

“Ehrarh never laid a finger on a ga’ath girl,” she heard herself bark. Veiss remained patiently impassive:

“It was on his orders.” His tone was even, and she shivered despite herself. Who could be so calm when talking about such hurt? If one of her sisters fell to ga’ath hand, Kerera would be howling with grief, beside herself with hatred. She would leave no snake standing. 

Though Ehrarh was dead, and here she was, conversing peacefully with his killer. Maybe she wasn’t his favorite sister, she thought bitterly. 

“I hope you know,” he was obviously searching for the right words and struggling to find them, “I harbor no ill will towards you. I know you were a prisoner in your own home.” 

“How are you so sure?”

“You agreed to leave, didn’t you?” The green was back, spreading in uneven streaks down his face. “No one who’s truly happy agrees to leave their home.” 

And wasn’t he right? A strange hopelessness gripped her heart and squeezed as she considered arguing, denying the truth. The truth was, every day she spent locked up in Kharmelath seemed like torture. Every time she went out to hunt in the company of her brother’s men she considered running away, and her sisters’ fate was the only thing that made her reconsider and comply, made her return every time. Most days, traversing the familiar paths, she felt torturous despair, when her gaze accidentally caught the way the withered grasses wavered on the horizon. Most days she forbade herself to even think, will I ever see what’s out there? 

What’s out there? 

Now she would be the one to find out. She allowed herself a shaky breath, and the spasm in her chest eased somewhat. 

The ga’ath seemed oblivious to the change. He was now looking away, watching his people mount their beasts. Each long creature comfortably sat three, and there were five of them, more than enough for all the riders, but one remained riderless nonetheless. Kerera squinted, first at the creature, then at its apparent owner by her side. 

Veiss nodded, confirming her suspicion, then gestured at the snake-like beast. “It will be an honor to travel with you.” 

She didn’t even try to conceal her disgust. “I will turn and travel that way.”

“The road to Ga’atha is long. You will tire.”

She stared him down, which, considering the height difference between them, was no small feat. His scales flared with color once more, vivid and green, then faded as he conceded, “As you wish,” and went towards his kin, leaving her to stand on the edge of the settlement alone.  

If she were to truly transform her body into that of an animal, she would have to be calmer than the Snakeland’s wastes, so she tried to gather her thoughts, pile them together — her sisters’ refusal to say goodbye, her fear of losing her way, forgetting her place, never wanting to come back, — and put them aside. Empty her mind. Until there was nothing left but a traitorous whisper of her cowardice, saying, it’s not too late. It’s never too late. You could still refuse. 

But then, she had already decided. She pushed it deeper down and closed her eyes. 

It was time to go.