smoke. . . . Climb this smoke. . . .” They circle the hearth once as the flames catch and travel over the branches. The chanting stops, but the drumbeat quickens. They circle faster and faster, their steps becoming leaps, the flames climbing higher, billows of smoke rolling outward and under the roof. I pull in a deep breath of soot and a wave of nausea crashes over me. The beat of the drum grows louder, faster, louder still, my heart races and my head swims, until I slump against the bearskin on the ground. My eyes fall shut, but instead of darkness, the fire’s glow presses against my eyelids, surrounding me in white light.
Then all at once, the drumming stops. My eyes open. Ela and Yano are gone, leaving only Chev beside the towering fire. I sit up groggily, as if waking from a dream.
“Friends,” Chev says, raising his hands, “the Divine continues to make this a prosperous clan. We thank our visitors from the north, from the clan of the Manu, especially Kol, who with his skill and strength has slain the man-killing cat.”
As these words echo in my head, my younger brothers, Kesh and Roon, pat me on the arms and make a scene of congratulating me. “Quit showing off,” I say under my breath. “It’s bad manners.”
“Kol,” Chev calls. “Come take your place at the head of the line.”
I search the periphery of the crowd until I find my brother Pek. He looks back for a moment—I know he’s seen me—but then he turns away.
All his life he’s out-hunted me. Now when it really matters, I’ve come and shown him up.
As I try to shake off the feeling that I’ve let my brother down, a girl of about twelve comes up to me and takes me by the arm.
“Kol?” she says. “I’m Lees. Chev is my older brother. They wouldn’t take me along when my siblings visited your clan, but I’m happy to meet you now.”
Lees looks like a miniature version of Seeri—her face is crowded with wide eyes and a broad smile. She rounds up my family—all except for Pek, who I see across the crowd has joined up with you and Seeri—and steers us into line ahead of everyone else.
After a short time under Lees’s supervision we each have a mat containing bison meat, roasted water parsnips, and a small portion of the meat from the cat so that we may each take in a bit of its Spirit’s strength. But making our way back to sit, we are stopped frequently by members of your clan who introduce themselves and wish me well. Everyone is friendly and polite, but I can’t shake an eerie sense of disconnection that started when I first saw the masks—a disorienting sense of being outside myself, looking in. It’s as if the Spirit of the cat still claws at me, as it makes its way to the Land Above the Sky. I cough, and the acrid taste of smoke fills my mouth.
At last, Lees leads us to a place to sit, right beside her brother Chev and her sisters—you and Seeri. Pek is beside Seeri, and although I attempt to take the place on the opposite side of him, Lees takes it herself and I find myself seated between your brother and my father.
Sitting beside Chev, I notice his demeanor is subtly changed. Maybe it’s because we are in your camp. An aroma of sweetness wafts from his breath, and a skin lies on the ground beside him. Is he already drinking mead? A large knife made of a heavy point hafted to a bone handle rests to the right of the skin. Surveying the group seated around him, Chev lifts the knife and with it skewers a piece of bison and stuffs it into his mouth. He turns toward me and a hazy lack of focus clouds his eyes.
His cheeks flush red as he smiles at me.
“Let me introduce you, our visitors from the north, to one of my oldest friends, Morsk.” He stands, and with the knife he points to a man of about his own age seated directly across our small circle from Seeri and Pek. “He is Seeri’s betrothed.”
My mother’s eyes blink rapidly before her head spins toward Pek, who looks away. My father swallows hard and then coughs into his fist. Like the day we were all introduced in the meadow, a taut silence fills the space between us. And like that day, I