15. The Travel Omen

Kavio (The Rainbow Labyrinth Tribehold)

A strong arm grabbed Kavio and pulled him to his feet. He could breathe again.

“The judgment was exile!” his helper shouted at the crowd. “You will not commit murder tonight!”

Blood dripped into Kavio’s eyes, so it took him a few blinks to see who had saved him.

“Zumo,” he said in a rough voice. His mouth tasted like blood and dust.

“I’ll walk you out of the tribehold, cousin,” Zumo said calmly. He snapped his fingers. Several other Tavaedis, all Zumo’s followers, formed a wall around them.

The crowd shouted and cursed as they passed. Some threw rocks or mud. Kavio felt the shame of his bare skin—not from the lack of clothing, but because of the ashes smeared on his chest and thighs. He held his head high instead of crouching to hide. He wondered which was worse—needing his enemy’s help to survive, or wondering what it would cost.

“I thought you threw your stone on the black mat. Why do you want to save me now, when you wanted me dead this afternoon?”

“Ah, the stone. Mother said it would look more believable that way. But I’ve already gotten what I wanted,” Zumo said.

Kavio pressed his lips together.

“This doesn’t have to be forever, Kavio.”

“What?”

Zumo motioned toward Kavio’s beaten, ash-covered body. “This. Your exile.”

“That’s not what I heard at the judgment.”

“There is one way an exile can return—if he is pardoned by a War Chief or a Vaedi. Your father can’t pardon you. People would say he’s not fair. But I could.”

“You?”

“When your father steps down, someone new will become War Chief,” Zumo said. “It would have been you. Now, it will be me.”

Kavio felt sick. “Congratulations.”

They reached the big wooden gates at the edge of the tribehold. Many guards stood there, enough to stop the crowd. Slowly, the mob gave up and wandered off.

“If you serve me faithfully, I would let you return to the Labyrinth as a Zavaedi again,” Zumo said. He sounded like he thought he was offering a gift. “I mean it.”

Kavio laughed. He looked Zumo up and down with contempt. “Never forget—I know what you really are, Zumo.”

Zumo’s face twisted with hate. And fear. “No one would believe you.”

“Don’t worry,” Kavio said, a bitter smile on his lips. “I know. That’s not the point. The point is, I know the truth. And I’d rather live in exile forever than serve a man who lives a lie every day.”

“Be careful, Kavio. Death might still find you.”

“It finds all of us in the end, doesn’t it? Goodbye, Zumo.”

Outside the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold, no mobs waited, and no enemies cursed him. Fields full of sweet-smelling maize stretched around him. The tribehold sat on a flat mesa inside a wide canyon, carved by a river. Small stone walls and water channels broke the fields into pieces. Willawisps blinked softly under the night sky.

He decided to walk until dawn before stopping. He had no sleeping mat, no bag, no water, not even a weapon.

When the moon rose, he started watching the valley for a journey omen. He hoped, maybe foolishly, for something noble—like a nighthawk or a cougar. But no living creature crossed his path.

Then he found the shed skin of a snow snake—white, glowing in the moonlight, as long as his arm, and perfectly whole. Snow snakes were rare. They lived in the mountains but came down once a year to shed their white skin and mate in the desert.

A poor omen, he decided. Still, he kept watching the valley, hoping for a cougar.

He had walked most of the night when he heard footsteps beside his own. He tensed.

Mother stepped out of the maize rows. The moonlight made her shine white. He felt foolishly happy to see her. He was surprised—but not really—to find her here, where the planted fields gave way to the wild forest.

He walked faster to meet her, but when he saw the pain in her face, he stopped. He did not hug her.

She hadn’t forgiven him.

Inside, he ached. He remembered her harsh words from their fight. You can’t even do this one thing for me!

He remembered lifting toddler arms to her, yelling, “Fly with me!” And how she used to sweep him up, her wings lifting them both into the wind. Father had hated it. They always fought afterward. To stop the shouting, Kavio had stopped asking her to fly.

He remembered how, when he was seven, she sewed him his first dance costume—made of spider silk, parrot feathers, cowrie shells, and rainbow stitches. He had torn it in front of her. She had never sewn him another.

Bit by bit, over the years, he had pushed her away. It was the cost of pleasing his father.

He wanted to say: I’m sorry.

To say: I love you.

To say: Fly with me.

But what came out was hard and cold, like falling stones.

“Before the trial, you told me to look for the Vaedi, that humankind would die if I didn’t. I can go now.”

Mother’s pearl and turquoise bracelets jingled as she shrugged. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“You said it was so important, I should flee like a coward instead of face my trial. You really don’t remember?”

“I thought they would kill you.” The smell of ripe corn floated from the fields. Mother’s nose wrinkled. She had never liked corn. She only ate it after marrying Father. “I must have made up wild stories to save you.”

Why had he expected anything else? She would never change.

“This is the last time I’ll see you, Mother.” He stood tall. He didn’t scratch the dried mud on his body, though it itched like crawling flies.

She ruined the moment by crying.

She hugged him, sobbing into his chest. He patted her shoulder gently. He realized he had been looking forward to her quest. It had given him purpose, something to do during exile. But now, in his mind, he tore up the idea of finding the Vaedi, and all the other strange things she had told him. Lies. Spider silk and parrot feathers.

As he walked away, the mud didn’t itch so badly anymore. Her fierce hug had rubbed off most of the dust, leaving only a stain behind.