Shadowkill

1

Dinner over, her duties finally done, Matja Allina lay on her side, pillows tucked about her to help with the weight of the baby, hot water bottles spread around her, warming the aches out of her as the hot milk had warmed her inside. She was drowsing happily, sighing with pleasure as Tinoopa kneaded her back and shoulders; now and then she sang a few words to the music of the arranga.

Her grasp on the notes was sometimes shaky. She frowned when she was off, looked irritably at Kizra as if the arranga’s tuning were off, not her voice.

Kizra got the message; she played to minimize the clashes, mushing the accompaniment, shifting her fingering to follow the wanderings of the Matja’s voice. Crawl, Shadow, crawl, she sang under her breath. Her fingers faltered as she realized what her mindvoice had said. Shadow. Who… what… was Shadow? She gripped her lower lip between her teeth and forced a brittle calm over her nerves.

Ingva and Yla were sitting on the floor in a corner, a low table between them, playing a complicated game of cards but not absorbed in it. Kizra saw them looking repeatedly at their mother. She could.feel their anxiety. Confined in the room, they were confronted with her fragility and their inability to do anything about it.

The muted comfortable sounds of the Kuysstead shutting down for the evening came through the open casement; the sunset glittered crimson off the diamond-shaped panes; high overhead a hunting raptor screamed and stooped, then swooped away with its prey dangling from its talons. The wind was rising and a few clouds drifted past, high clouds pink and gold with the sunset.