Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

the women jumped up and said, “Ryo! There you are!” and I forgot every other concern.

“Etta!” I exclaimed. “How did you come here so fast?” But I added at once, before she could laugh at me for asking something so foolish, “You were coming around the lake already.”

My sister laughed at me anyway, as she took my hand and pulled me toward her fire. “So, yes. I knew you would come eventually, Ryo! Or I thought you would! Who could resist the puzzle the avila woman brought us? But even though everyone was puzzled, no one guessed she might be a sorcerer! How fortunate we have a sorcerer of our own as a friend!” She threw a swift, brilliant smile toward Aras, who was sitting beside another fire a little distance from this one. He was watching us and smiling. Sometimes, not often enough, his curse showed him something easy and pleasant. I did not begrudge him that, especially since my pleasure at meeting Etta would mask other things I was not so comfortable sharing.

My sister was going on cheerfully. “I have gone back and forth all this season! You have been slow, but of course it is a long way, so I suppose I am not angry you have only come now.”

By this time we were at the fire. Etta deftly slipped the cord holding the marmots from my hand and gave them to another woman, an inGeiro cousin of ours, who took them with a murmur of pleasure. Birds and fish from the lake are both good, but the marmots were young animals, fat with summer, a welcome addition to our meal.

“Come sit with us,” Etta ordered me. “Your Lau are comfortable at our mother’s fire. I like your Geras. He will be glad you came back. I think he worries about you, Ryo.”

“Geras worries about everyone,” I told her. “He is responsible for many men when he is in the summer country, so he has the habit of worrying for everyone.”

“Yes, I could see he is that kind of man. Here, sit. You know Iro.”

I did, of course, though not well. We had met now and again. I would hardly have said I knew Iro inGeiro. I knew a good deal about him, however. I knew he was Rakasa’s brother, the son of a singer and the inGeiro warleader. I knew he had nineteen winters and I knew he wanted to marry my sister. I could hardly fail to understand many things about a young man like that. When last I had seen him, he had worn silver armbands, showing off prizes he had won so that my sister would see he was strong and skilled. Now he wore one armband, and my sister wore three. That told me something as well.

Iro was a tall young man—tall for an Ugaro, a little taller than I was—sturdily built, with strong bones. He had shifted from sitting to kneeling as we approached, and when I looked at him, he lowered his gaze and bowed. A man has every reason to be very polite to the older brothers of a young woman whom he hopes will look upon him with favor. If I disliked Iro, his courtship would be difficult, even if Etta favored him—and if I truly set myself against him, she might decide she did not favor him after all. In his place, I would certainly have been polite.

Darra inKarano had no living brothers. But even if she had many brothers, her father was the male relative whom a young man would have to impress.

I set all those thoughts aside. “Iro inGeiro,” I said. “I hope your mother is well and your people prosper.” I sat down, accepting a skewer of fish someone handed me. Etta sat down beside me and stole the skewer from my hand. The woman who had given it to me laughed and gave me another, and a bowl of the salt we make from wood ash when other kinds of salt are less easy to come by.

Iro answered, “My mother is well, and our people strong because of our alliance with the inGara,” which was the most polite answer he could give. He said nothing else, waiting to see what topic I might wish to offer.

Obviously there was only one topic that interested anyone. I said, “You have probably met this avila woman. I hope that when you consider that meeting now, you find nothing in your heart or mind that concerns you.”

“I have met her,” Iro said seriously. “And I have thought carefully of that meeting. I find nothing that concerns me, but it is hard to decide how much confidence to set in that feeling now that we know she is a sorcerer. But your Lau says he sees nothing in anyone’s mind that concerns him, so that may be reason for better confidence.”

That was a careful answer. Careful in at least two ways. I took the pieces of fish from the skewer and ate them slowly, pretending to think of nothing but that. Etta got up and brought me another skewer, this one with slivers of meat from one of the marmots. Then she sat down next to Iro, so close there was no space between them, and waved her own skewer at me. “You should trust Aras,” she told me. “He is not a cautious man by nature, I would never say so, but I do say he is taking great care now. He says this avila woman is not dangerous. He says he thinks the curse is different for her people.”

Etta was probably right. We had already come nearly a full day from the Tarashana woman’s small camp, and still nothing in my memory seemed wrong to me. I said, “In two more days, if Aras says the same thing, I will be more certain he has been cautious enough.” I paused.