Read Online Wild Blood (Book 7) by Anne Logston - Free Book Online Page B

left, it was Rowan, as Eldest of the clan, who led Val to the edge of the village and showed him the new hut that had been built on the ground for him, Moon Lake fashion, as Val had never favored the hanging bowers preferred by most of the Inner Hearts. Val’s belongings, the carvings he had made and the hides he had prepared, his weapons and clothing, had been moved into the hut, and by tradition a fire had been laid but not lit. A skin of wine and a single small cake had been placed by the fire pit so that Val could, as an adult, offer food and fire to the Eldest of the clan. When Val would have drawn out the rock he used to strike sparks from his dagger, however, Rowan laid her hand over his.
    “Every member of this clan,” she said gently, “has the duty—and the right—to use his Gifts in the service of his clan.” She smiled. “And you were never very deft with stone and steel in any wise.”
    A great tension vanished somewhere in Val, and he laughed with his adopted mother, focusing carefully on the tinder until it burst into flame. How they had all cried out and fled from the hut, Val no less frightened than the rest, the first time when his untrained Gift had caused a cold fire to blaze up so furiously that it had burnt off most of the thatched roof! How wonderful, too, that now he could laugh at the memory.
    Rowan stayed only long enough to share the small cake and a sip of wine, as tradition required; then she left Val to himself to gather his thoughts, lowering the tent flap behind her as she left. By custom, other clan members would leave gifts outside the door during the night, small tokens to make his new hut more comfortable—warm furs, carved wood bowls, pottery vessels, and the like—but they wouldn’t disturb him unless he raised the tent flap, signifying that visitors would be welcome, or called out to invite them into his hut.
    Val lay down by the fire, his mind too full of the day’s events to let his weary body relax, and listened to the shuffle of feet and the soft murmur of voices as objects were laid on the ground outside his tent. Nothing forbade him from admitting visitors, although custom excluded children from his first night as an adult, but Val left the door flap closed and remained silent. Feeling unaccountably shy and awkward in his new status after all the ritual and formality, Val was glad enough to sit quietly in his hut, though he would have welcomed Lahti’s merry company to distract him.
    Through the smoke hole Val saw the sky darken as the sun set. He could smell the odors of the feast his entire clan was sharing, and his stomach rumbled. Yes, there was the smell of roasting boar among the other appetizing aromas. If he’d only cross the short distance of clearing to the fire pit, someone would have saved him the boar’s heart and other choice portions, as tradition demanded. He stayed where he was.
    The moon was rising. Soon a woman would come to his tent to give him the greatest gift of adulthood, his initiation into the delights of coupling. But who had Lahti chosen? Mira, the young tracker who so often accompanied Val and Lahti on their hunts, less than a year out of childhood herself? Ilea, who had initiated more young men than any woman in the clan, and who loved to boast of it? Might Lahti, thinking of the arguments among the elders, have made an uncharacteristically circumspect choice and selected a woman known to be barren, or past her childbearing time?
    Light footsteps approached, then hesitated outside, and a slender hand lifted the edge of his door flap. Val’s heart pounded, and he was amazed to feel his hands trembling as he recognized Doeanna, Lahti’s mother’s mate’s younger sister. The Owl Clan woman was as tall as Lahti, but reed-slender and pale where Lahti was wiry-muscled and dark. Doeanna’s long pale braid was beaded and coiled on her head, as befitted her age and stature, but her large, dark eyes with their perpetual wondering expression