Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 62 of 66

The gate closed behind them and the crawler's cabin folded around Rebecka in crystal light. Thunder set the bundle on the table between the benches. Twelve arrows spilled from the wrap, red-fletched, star-forged, humming loud enough to feel in her teeth. Aiyana stepped back from the table. Storm braced a hand on the wall and watched the arrows the way a man watches a snake. "They don't know you yet," Aiyana said. Rebecka reached for one. The hum climbed. When her fingers closed on the shaft, the arrow bucked in her grip and slid free, clattering to the floor. She tried a second. The fletching turned in her hand as if the arrow wanted her wrist. Her bow, strapped across her back, gave a low warning note she had never heard from it before. "They were made for a bond," Thunder said. "The broker kept them wrapped in salt cloth so they'd stay quiet. Off the cloth, they choose." She had killed three men on a rooftop to bring these arrows out of that shop. If she could not draw them, she had bought nothing. She knelt on the crawler floor and laid all twelve in a row. The hum flattened into one steady tone. She thought of her brother, seventeen, dead on the floor of the homestead. She thought of Ninka behind the new dome. She spoke to the arrows the way Makani had taught her to speak to bindings, plain and out loud. "I am Rebecka Evertrue. My father hid your kind for me. Someone ran and left you behind. I came and got you back. You are mine now, and you will not harm my people." Nothing moved. The hum held. She pulled the small knife from her boot and cut her left palm across the base of the thumb. She pressed her hand flat over the shafts. Blood ran down the fletching. The arrows drank it. The hum dropped to a low whisper and stopped. A shape formed at the far end of the cabin. A lioness with a coat of stars stood between the bunks, quiet, her breath cool as night air. She was not the ancestor. She was older than that. She walked the row of arrows once, touched each fletching with her nose, and looked at Rebecka. "Draw one," the lioness said. Rebecka drew. The arrow came to her hand steady. She nocked it against her bowstring. The bow did not sound its warning. The arrow sat quiet, waiting. The lioness dimmed and was gone. The pantry cabinet at the cabin's back stood open where it had not been open before. Bread, water, clean cloth, a folded shirt for her cut hand. Rebecka wrapped her palm. She gathered the arrows into her quiver one by one. Each one settled without sound. "Home," she told Storm. He put the crawler in gear. The northern buyer would come for what she now carried. She meant to be waiting.