1716 IIA
Life is a breath, so brief, so small
The forest hears and keeps it all
Her song will fade, yet still it clings
Glimmering light on wounded wings
…
That is how the song went—at least as I recall it. Her voice was sweet, honey to my ears. With the rhythm of the river, the forest seemed to bow in reverence. The sounds would echo from the trees, filling the hills and valleys. Beasts were brought to peace when her harp was strummed. From the moment I could hear, I was learning to sing and thrum beside her. When I was young she laid a necklace around me with an emerald wrapped within a cage of scorched twigs, hardened by the great flame. She taught me that the forest might one day remember me as its son.
My mother, Amala, carried wonder as light in her voice. She could tell tales so vividly that even smoke from the fire leaned in closer. She spoke of the world before the Flood of Flame: cities of glass where the sun was caught in every window, rivers that ran silver, and trees so vast that villages were carved into their hollows. I never knew if she had truly seen such places, or if she spun them for my sake. Real or not, I did not care, for they carried me through the hard seasons. They were warmth when the hearth was ash.
But she was not all softness. My mother could scold with a sharpness that bit deeper than frost. If I lagged on the hunt, she did not slow. If I asked a question twice, she would flick my ear and mutter that I should learn to listen with more than my mouth. Yet, in the same breath, she would ruffle my hair or hum me to sleep, her hands smelling of twigs and the smoke of our fire. Love, I learned, could be both stern and tender.
When she hunted, I followed. Stride for stride, shadow for shadow. She took only what we needed—never more. "Never more," she said, always twice, as though to hammer it into me. "If you take more, the forest will take from you. Remember that, boy." Once, when I brought down two hares instead of one, she made me carry both back alive to release them. I was angry, ashamed. But that night she laughed, her laugh startling the owls from their perch, and told me the forest would remember my mercy longer than it would my hunger.
The most important thing she left me was her nightly words, seared into my memory in her tender voice.
"Remember my son, power is not gained through strength, but through mercy given."
Only in recent times she faltered, though she tried to hide it. Once, I saw her stop halfway down the trail, pressing her palm against her chest as though steadying something broken inside. She smiled at me when she caught me staring, but it was a smile that masks pain. I think now that I should have known.
Autumn was brief, and winter came too soon. Winds bent the trees to and fro. The winter bit harder than most. Game grew scarce. Days turned cruel. My mother fell ill. She lay in a fevered sleep, fighting death, while our yurt stank of sickness.
I slept long and hard, hoping when I awoke, life would be different. That it would be easier. That she would be healthy. That my stomach would not long for food.
Morning air cut like a blade, sharp with thawing snow. It carried the taste of iron, of something left too long in water. Falling from the branches above, each drop struck the snow with a hollow tick, steady as a clock. Fractured in the icicles—shards of dawn's light, cold and merciless. My breath came forth white and thin, gone before I could hold it.
Closer to my mother I pressed. Her skin was colder than the frozen earth beneath us, her ribs jutting like stones through soil. I took her into my embrace, as if a child's warmth could turn back winter itself. Each shallow rasp of her lungs was a blade pointed to my stomach. If I left, she might die. If I stayed, we both would. The thought coiled tight inside me, heavy, unbearable. Fire lit within me—if there was a god why would he let us endure all of this?
I leaned close, ear at her mouth, holding my breath. A thin exhalation brushed my cheek—weak, wheezing, but still there. Relief allowed me to breathe again. For one more day, she fought.
I sat with her, for as long as I could bear, until the silence twisted words from my mouth.
"Mother…what if I'm not strong enough to find food?"
Her lips cracked open. Breath rattled, but she whispered almost silently,
"A blade is not strong until…it has met flame and hammer."
Her voice was rasp. The words burned, lifting me even as they broke her. My joy withered as her body convulsed, coughing blood that speckled her lips. She shook, chest rattling hollow, until at last she lay still again. For a moment, I thought she had spent the last of herself just to utter those words.
With a small cloth I wiped the blood from her face. My spirit begged me to stay, but I knew better.
Before I left, I prayed for her.
"Koutso, Great Bear, may you grant my mother health, for her body is weak. She may not live…to see another sunrise. Give me strength to find food, that life taken might give life. May it be!" Tears fell as I spoke.
I strapped my quiver across my back. Picked up my bow, with oak darkened by my hands, polished smooth. Stepping out, I fastened my mask. I wore the skull of a young stag—my first kill. Its eye sockets were filled so only narrow slits remained, for cutting the glare of snow. When I wore it, I felt the forest move with me. Whether it was courage, or the red deer's lingering soul, I could not tell.
Outside, the forest swallowed me at once. Smoke from our hearth rose in a thin thread, vanishing into the pale sky. Silence stretched ahead. My footsteps crunched, but the trees themselves stood mute, as though watching.
I moved south, seeking anything—rabbit, squirrel, even a songbird. Hunger gnawed like teeth, but it drove me.
Antlers from my mask, curled and budding above my brow, brushed against branches. I stopped and found scat on the ground, it was at least six days old. Twice I followed tracks into thickets that had no end. Once I thought I heard wings, but it was only frozen boughs creaking. The silence pressed until my ears rang with it.
At last, the forest veil was torn, a crest rose jagged before me, its spine clawing east and west as if the earth itself reached for heaven. From its crown I might see for miles. Hunger had drained me, each step a weight to my burden yet, I made for the crest.
The slope was treacherous. Shale and ice slid beneath my boots, stone cutting my palms. My breath rasped thin. I saw a place only a few steps ahead of where I was, that I could stop and scout from. I reached for it but my foot slipped and I dangled over the drop, death yawning wide. By fury alone I hurled myself onto an outcropping. I lay gasping, ribs stabbing with each breath.
Dragging myself to a knee, I looked back. The forest stretched endlessly. White, gray—far within it a single thread of smoke. Too thin. Too small. It was insulting. Rage rose like bile in my throat; my jaw locked, fists clenched. No life but that of my mother's and mine, could endure this bitter cold. Only us. Nothing else had survived—nothing else deserved mercy?
"Koutso," I whispered, then shouted, "how could you abandon us?"
The words cracked into the sky, my breath venting from my mask like steam.
"You are our god—yet we starve! Are we not faithful? Do you not see us? Not hear our prayers?"
The cry tore itself from my marrow, echoing hollow across the frozen trees. Only now did I feel tears freezing as they fell from my face.
Then—a shriek split the heavens.
A snow vulture soared above me. Its wings carved the air, each feather tipped with frost-light. Its cry filled my chest until my rage was ash. Its eyes—golden fire—fixed on me, stripping me bare. Mother had always said when there was a vulture there would also be death. When one appeared, you must follow.
The vulture turned, arrowing south. Without thought, I followed.
I leapt down the crest. Shale slid beneath me, rocks slicing my arms. I slammed into a tree, the breath blasted from me. Pain flared, but I staggered up. I would not wager my mother's life against flesh.
The forest thickened. The bird dipped into the trees, vanishing. I ran, heart hammering. At last I reached the place it had descended.
No vulture. Only a coyote carcass. Fresh. Its flank ripped wide as if by claws too large for this world. Steam rose from its blood, copper-sweet in the air. My stomach twisted, but hunger drove me to kneel. I gripped its leg and tore. Tendons snapped, bone cracked. I gagged, and could not look into its eyes. Still, I wrapped the limb, praying no scavenger would follow.
Then a growl shook the forest. Deep, resonant—nothing of bird or man.
Branches rattled. Snow shuddered loose. A shape slid between the trees, fast, deliberate. For an instant, pale eyes glowed, ghostlike, from the trees. Terror locked my body.
Then instinct broke me free. I fled.
Behind me—purring. Low, rolling, horrible. Echoing, thick with joy. Bones cracked in its maw as it fed on the coyote. I ran until the sound fell away.
When I reached the crest again, the suns were sinking. One burned gold, serene; the other red, raging. Their light mingled in a blaze across the sky. For a breath I stood, awed. But my mother's face rose in my mind. I turned away.
I descended, body broken but still moving.
"Run," I commanded my limbs. And they obeyed.
I was nearing home, for the forest seemed to know me. Branches bent, snow softened, as though it welcomed me back. I was its son. It remembered me.
At last, home. I stumbled inside and dropped beside my mother. Pain racked me, but I forced myself upright to tend the fire. Ash cleared, wood set, sparks struck—until flame bloomed, heat spreading like mercy.
I melted snow in a turtle shell, tore meat from the coyote leg, boiled it with the last of our herbs. The broth rose, rich and wild, filling the hut. My hands shook as I lifted her, spooning it to her lips.
"Mother," I whispered, "Koutso has sustained us another day. May this give you strength."
She swallowed. Color touched her cheeks, faint but real. Her lips moved, soundless almost, but I caught it: thank you.
Tears pricked my eyes. Relief broke over me, too heavy to hold. I lay beside her, her body warm again. At last, sleep took me, deep and merciful.
I stretched as the twin suns rose over the horizon, their arcs spilling pale light through the gaps in the timber walls. My body still belonged to the night, heavy with the fog of dreams. My eyes resisted me, lids sticky as if stitched closed by unseen threads. I forced them open, blinking until the dim beams sharpened into the familiar shapes of our home: the small hearth cold, the single stool toppled on its side, the mat where my mother had slept empty.
Empty.