Winterbirth Read Free Page A

faces were touched by the glow of the embers, lighting their cheeks a little. He knew them, but it was an irrelevance here and now. On this morning they were one; they were the will of the place, of Dyrkyrnon. In the background, all but beneath the reach of even his acute hearing, a dolorous rhythm was being chanted. He had never heard the sound before, yet knew what it was: a truth chant, a habit borrowed from the Heron Kyrinin. They were seeking wisdom.
    'Sit,' someone said.
    He lowered himself to the ground and crossed his legs. He fixed his eyes on the firepit.

    'We have sat through the night,' said someone else, 'to give thought to this matter.'
    The youth nodded and pressed his thin lips tight together.
    'It is a heavy duty,' continued the second speaker, 'and a sad burden that we should be called upon to make such judgements. Dyrkyrnon is a place of sanctuary, open to all those of our kind who can find no peace or safety in the outer world. Yet we came together to determine whether you should be turned out, Aeglyss, and sent away from here.'
    Aeglyss said nothing. His face remained impassive, his gaze unwavering.
    'You were taken in, and given comfort. You would have died at your mother's side if you had not been found and brought here. Yet you have sown discord. The friendship and trust you were offered have been repaid with cruelty. Dyrkyrnon suffers now by your presence. Aeglyss, you shall leave this place, and have no discourse with any who make their homes here. We cast you out.'
    There was a flicker of response in the youth's face then: a trembling in the tight-clenched jaw, a shiver at the corner of his mouth. He closed his eyes. The peaty smoke was thickening the air. It touched the back of his throat and nose.
    'You are young, Aeglyss,' the voice from beyond the smouldering fire said, a little softer now. 'It may be that age will teach you where we have failed. If that should be the case, you will be welcome here once more.'
    He stared at the half-lit faces opposite him, a cold anger in his look.
    'You came to us out of a storm,' said a woman, 'and you carry the storm within you. It is beyond us to tame it. It is too deep-rooted. When it is gone, or mastered, return to us. The judgement can be rescinded. You belong here.'
    He laughed at that, the sound harsh and sudden in the still atmosphere. There were tears welling up in his eyes. They ran down his cheeks but did not reach his voice.
    'I belong nowhere,' he said, and rose to his feet. 'Not here, and therefore nowhere. You are afraid of me, you who more than any should understand. You talk of comfort and trust, yet all I see in the faces around me is doubt and fear. The stench of your fear sickens me.' He spat into the embers. A puff of ashes hissed into the air.
    Aeglyss cast about, trying to find someone in the enveloping darkness of the hut. 'K'rina. You are here. I can feel you. Will you deny me too?'
    'Be still, K'rina,' said someone.
    'Yes, be still,' Aeglyss snarled. 'Do as they tell you. That is the way of it here: tread softly, always softly.
    Disturb nothing. You promised to love me, K'rina, in my dead mother's place. Is this your love?'
    Nobody answered him.
    'I loved you, K'rina. Loved!' He spat the word as if it was poison on his tongue. He could not see through his tears.

    'I only wanted . . .' The words died in his throat. He sucked a breath in. 'This is not fair. What have I done? Nothing that another might not do. Nothing.'
    The shadowed figures made no reply. Their obdurate will lay between him and them like a wall. With a curse that almost choked him, Aeglyss turned and strode out.
    After he had gone, there was a long stretch of quiet. Almost imperceptibly at first, then louder, there came the sound of stifled sobs from somewhere in the shadows.
    'Save your sorrow, K'rina. He is unworthy of it.'
    'He is my ward,' stammered the woman.
    'No longer. It is for the best. He has too much in him that is wild and cruel. We cannot free him of it,