Hidden Sun by Jaine Fenn

Author:Jaine Fenn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2018-09-03T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 36

I’m unravelling.

The thought came to Dej as she walked back from the stream.

Her hut-mates hadn’t said anything when she stumbled back in last night, though Lih had pointed to the mess left from dinner. Dej had tidied it up, wrapped herself in her cloak and lain down. What else could she do?

It took a long time to get to sleep, because she was still shaking, whether from cold or shock or despair she didn’t know, but she didn’t fight it. It was the closest she could get to tears.

In the morning, Lih left to deal with the last of the meat from the hunt. When she was gone Vay said, “Put him from your mind. He’s had everyone, has Cal. Probably the rhinobeasts too.”

Dej stared, but the healer turned away to rummage in one of the tiny drawers in her wooden chest. She extracted, then held out, a twist of dried green-grey stalk. “You know what this is?”

“Burnheart?”

“That’s right. Chew it slowly.”

Min had got out of her bonding by falling pregnant. Dej doubted doing the same would help her in any way now.

The sensation of unravelling, coming undone, set in as she swallowed the last of the liquorice-flavoured herb on the way back to the hut. The hollowness Min had left was unpicking her from the inside out.

She’d given away what Min called “the one-off gift the boys all want” because Cal might care, or maybe it might give her some status amongst the clanless, or even just to get some pleasure. She’d been wrong, stupid. She knew how boys – how men – were.

She still thought of Min, whether she wanted to or not. Somewhere in her head the sense of what Min had been to her had tangled with the thought of what Kir could be. Kir wasn’t mean and twisted, she was kind, and she cared; compared to most clanless anyway. And Kir was a loner, and outcast even amongst these outcasts, just like Dej. So why not be friends, just like her instincts had said when they first met? But every time Dej got close Kir pushed her away.

Even her music, her first comfort, her secret pleasure, had been reduced to an echo. Reduced, then turned into another stick to beat her with.

She had nothing left.

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