The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) by Emily June Street Read Free Book Online

there?”
    “I’ll walk. It’s spring and the weather grows fine.”
    Atanurat frowned. “Alone? It’s not safe.”
    “Of course not alone. You’ll come with me.”
    “What if they pursue you?”
    I contemplated the idea as I threw my sealskin cloak over my head. “They will know where I’ve gone. If I can get to the Ikniq settlement before they do, at least the Kaluqs will have to face the Ikniqs and explain themselves. It is not right that the Cedna lives here in Kaluq. I belong there, with the Fire People.”
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    W e made good time across the tundra. The flat landscape stretched west past the Kaluq camp, dotted with clumps of green tuttu moss and lavender saranaki blooms. Rare patches of purple saxifrage gave Atanurat and me a treat to eat when we found them. Sunspots emerged on my cheeks, though Atanurat’s darker skin remained unblemished—to my envy.
    Atanurat had more experience than I did with travel, and he made me drink too much water when we came to a stream, “to stay hydrated.” He never fatigued, always keeping a steady pace. When we reached the river where we would cross to turn north, Atanurat carefully assessed the remaining ice cover.
    “It’s solid,” he said when he returned from his scouting mission. “Or solid enough. We’ll run fast. You first.”
    The race across the waning ice terrified me. As Atanurat urged me forward, an ominous cracking rang out—the spring-thin ice suffered beneath our weight. I winced as I ran, trying to quell the distressing airlessness that rose in my chest.
    “Don’t think of it, don’t think of it,” I whispered as I ran, but I could not push down the memory of my mother’s helpless panic beneath the cold water. I could not die breathless in frigid water. Any way but that.
    Atanurat’s soft footfalls echoed in my skull. The ice groaned.
    When Atanurat called, “There! We’re across!” I exhaled and collapsed against the snowy bank, gasping as my vision blackened.
    Atanurat did not even pause—he simply gathered me onto my feet and pushed onto the white plain above the river. “We must not stop.”
    Nitaaraq, the largest Ikniq community, rested at the base of Gante’s fire mountain on the northwest coast, thinly veiled from the shore by birches and low willow shrubs. An ice sheet wound five fingers down through the community. I only vaguely recalled the layout of the camp from my childhood.
    Atanurat and I went down to the gathering house and huddled together while we waited for someone to see us. Custom dictated that we wait there.
    Eventually three children spotted us and dashed away.
    By the time we had risen, brushed down our clothes, and exited the gathering house, a woman approached. She stood as tall as I did, and her hair had been dyed yellow by birch juice. A single braid made a dry stalk running down her back. She was familiar to me, a figure from both my early childhood and my mother’s memories.
    “Who are you?” She folded her hands into the crooks of her elbows as she stood before us.
    “I am the Cedna of the People. I am returned to live with you again. This is Atanurat of the Kaluq Clan. He is my escort.”
    The woman drew her brows together. “Who are you?” she asked again, her words a cold gust in the crisp morning.
    Atanurat gave me a reproachful look and made the proper formal greeting. “I am the unmoving stone that is Her blood,” he intoned.
    “I burn with the heat of the world, fed by Her fire,” the woman said, bowing. “I am Esteriaq Ikniq Iksraqtaq. Come with me.”
    Deep down I feared that the Ikniqs would reject me, but Esteriaq welcomed us and said she would gather the clan to listen to me speak.
    The Ikniqs harbored their own grudges against the Kaluq Elders. The Kaluqs had robbed the Ikniq clan of their power when they dragged my mother and me off to the Kaluq caverns. Without the Cedna the Ikniqs were forgotten in their northern fastness.
    That evening a fire blazed, huge and furious, in the camp