Chapter 37: Cracks
On the seventh day of training, someone got hurt. Not hurt killing wolves. They hadn't fought real wolves yet. They were killing straw targets. It was a sixteen-year-old hunter from Frost Wolf Clan. Named Einar. He slipped while practicing the sideways thrust. His own wooden stake stabbed into his calf, two inches deep. Blood surged out at once, soaking a wide patch of his trouser leg red.
Violet crouched down and pressed down on his leg. Blood welled up through her fingers. She turned her head and shouted. "Shaman! Where's the shaman?"
The shaman wasn't there. The Shadow Clan people hadn't arrived yet. There was no medicine on the training ground. No bandages. Nothing to stop the bleeding. Violet tore the hem of her own robe and wrapped it around Einar's calf. Pulled it tight. Blood still seeped through, but slower.
"Get him into the shade." Gray Bone directed two men to carry Einar to the base of the city wall. Violet stood. Her fingers were covered in blood. She looked at her hands and remembered that night in Thornveil Gorge. She had stopped her own bleeding the same way. Torn skirt. Mud and grit. Blood. The difference was, that night no one had helped her. Today someone lay on the ground waiting for her to save him. But she couldn't. She wasn't a healer. She only knew how to tie bandages. How to cinch a dead knot. How to say "get him into the shade." She didn't know how to mix herbs. How to stitch wounds. How to stop someone from hurting.
Leon walked over and handed her a waterskin. "Wash."
She took the waterskin and rinsed the blood from her hands. The bloody water soaked into the earth and spread into a dark red patch.
"You need the Shadow Clan people." Leon said.
"I know."
"When are they coming?"
"Tomorrow. I'll go push them tomorrow."
On the way back to camp, Einar didn't make a sound. He bit his lip. Bit through it. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Violet walked beside the stretcher and looked at his face. Sixteen years old. Ten years younger than her. What was she doing at sixteen? Attending high school in Manhattan. Studying for the SAT. Thinking about which university to apply to. He had never gone to school. Didn't know how to read. Only knew how to kill wolves. He had killed six Thorn Wolves. Each one bigger than the last. He had told her this. The first day of training. He said, "The sixth one was the biggest. Taller than me." She had asked, "How tall are you?" He had said, "Don't know. Never measured." That conversation she had never mentioned to anyone. She didn't know why she would mention it. But she also knew she hadn't forgotten it.
Back in Water City, Einar was carried into an empty house. Someone went to find the Shadow Clan people. The shaman wasn't there. No one else in the Shadow Clan camp could stop the bleeding. Violet stood in the doorway and watched Einar lying on the bed. His face pale. The blood on his lip already dried. He smiled. Showed teeth stained with blood. "It's nothing." He said. "Didn't stab deep."
Violet looked at him. Didn't stab deep. The wood hadn't gone through. If it had been iron. If it had been a wolf's fang. If it had been the beast tide. She clenched the waterskin in her hand.
"Tomorrow the Shadow Clan people will come." She said.
"Come teach me how to stop bleeding?"
"Come save you. Next time you won't have to lie there waiting."
Einar smiled and closed his eyes. Violet turned and walked out of the house. The sunlight was harsh. She squinted and saw someone standing on the city wall. Leon. He didn't come down. She didn't go up.
In the afternoon, she went to Shadow Clan. Not to push. To receive.
She brought two empty carts. One to carry medicine. One to carry people. The shaman stood at the camp entrance. Behind him stood twenty Shadow Clan people. Men and women. Old and young. Each one carried a leather satchel on their back. The satchels bulged. She didn't know what was inside. She didn't ask.
"Shadow Clan people. Twenty." The shaman said. "They can stop bleeding. Mix herbs. Dress wounds. Take them and use them. Return them when you're done."
"Before I return them, they'll live in Water City."
"Live where?"
"The empty houses beside the granary. Close to the well. Easy water access."
The shaman turned his head and looked at the people behind him. Their faces held nervousness. Excitement. Fear. He turned back and looked at Violet.
"They've never left the woods."
"They're leaving now."
The carts traveled a full day. By the time they reached Water City, the sky was dark. The twenty people got off the carts and stood at the city gate, tilting their heads back to look at the walls. Eight generations they had lived in the woods. They had never seen a wall taller than a tree.
Violet led them to the empty houses beside the granary. The doors were open. Dry grass spread inside. Fire pans lit.
"Stay here tonight. Tomorrow, you follow the Self-Defense Force. They train. You watch from the side. If someone gets hurt, you save them."
A young woman raised her hand. "We don't know how to fight."
"Don't need to know how to fight. Just need to know how to keep people alive."
The young woman lowered her hand.
---
Night. Violet sat on the steps outside her small house. The egg moved against her chest. More often than yesterday. She took the egg out and placed it on her knees. The cracks on the shell were clearly visible now. Running from the top all the way to the base. Like a web. The thing inside was moving. Every movement widened the cracks a little more.
Leon walked over and sat beside her. He looked at the egg. "About to come out?"
"Soon."
"Are you afraid?"
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid that after it comes out, you won't know what it is."
Violet turned the egg over and looked at it. The patterns on the shell glowed faintly in the moonlight. Dark purple-black. Like dried blood.
"Even if I don't know what it is, it's still mine. Left by Seraphina. Entrusted to me by Cassian to raise. Whatever it is, I'll accept it."
Leon said nothing. He reached out and touched the eggshell lightly with his finger. A new crack split open on the shell. Very thin. Very short. But audible. A faint crack.
He pulled his hand back. "I didn't use force."
"It's coming out on its own."
The two of them sat together and watched the egg. The cracks widened bit by bit. The thing inside was moving. Thump by thump. Like knocking on a door. It knocked a long time. Finally a small hole broke open in the shell. A tiny paw reached out through the hole. Pink. Wet. The claws very thin, nearly translucent.
Violet held her breath. The paw pulled back in. Silence for a moment. Then the shell split in two from the middle. A small, wet creature tumbled out and landed on her knee.
Very small. Smaller than her palm. Soaked through. Fur plastered to its body. Color impossible to tell. Four limbs curled up. Tail coiled. Eyes closed. Two small protrusions on its head. Not horns. Bone. Not yet grown out.
It shivered.
Violet scooped it up and pressed it to her chest. It was very cold. She cupped it in her palms and warmed it bit by bit. Its breathing was weak, but steady. In and out. Like the heartbeat inside the egg.
"It's alive." Leon said.
"Alive."
"Do you know what it is?"
"No."
"What are you going to name it?"
Violet looked down at the small, wet creature in her hands. Its fur was slowly drying. Not dark purple-black. Silver-gray. The color of moonlight behind a cloud. She touched its head with the tip of her finger. It stirred. Turned its face toward her finger. Opened its mouth. Made no sound.
Made no sound.
"Mute?" Leon asked.
"Don't know. Maybe newborns don't make sounds yet."
She placed it back into the eggshell. The shell had split in two, just right for a small nest. It curled up inside. Its breathing slowly steadied.
Violet carried the eggshell into her house and placed it beside her pillow. Leon stood in the doorway. Didn't come in.
"What's its name?" He asked again.
Violet looked at the small silver-gray creature and remembered a line of poetry she had read a long time ago. The poem was written in a language she couldn't understand, but she knew its meaning.
"Moon Silver." She said.
"Moon Silver?"
"Yes. Gray fur. Like moonlight."
Leon stood in the doorway. Moonlight fell on him. He was wearing his old coat. A hole worn through the shoulder. He had stitched it himself. The stitches were rough. Violet glanced at that hole. Looked away.
"Sleep early." He said.
"You too."
He left. Footsteps fading farther away. Up to the city wall.
Violet lay down and watched Moon Silver. It turned over inside the eggshell and faced her direction. Its eyes still not open. But it knew where she was.
She reached out her finger. It clasped her fingertip with both its small paws.
Very cold. But held on tight.
---
End of Chapter Thirty-Seven
Moon Silver has come out of the egg. Very small. Silver-gray fur. Two small bone protrusions on its head. It can't make a sound. But it can clasp her finger with its paws. Very cold. But holds on tight. Violet watches it and remembers the words Seraphina left before departing. "You kept an entire Water City alive. You can't raise one child?" She doesn't know if she can raise it. But she knows that from today on, she's not just Water City's leader. She's also a child's life. The beast tide draws closer. The walls are still growing taller.