Free Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey

“I was born to the Maghuin Dhonn. We are the folk of the Brown Bear, and the oldest magic in Alba runs in our veins—”
    The old woman smiled, her bright eyes disappearing in a nest of wrinkles. “Yes, that’s definitely more like it!”

NINE
     

     
    O ver the long winter months, I spun out my story—my true story, the one I had told to Bao’s mother and sister, with a wealth of detail added to it. And Grandmother Yue was right, no one took it amiss. There was little else to do, and Batu’s family was glad of the distraction.
    I was glad, too. It gave me a sense of purpose during those early days when I was more hindrance than help in the camp. Bit by bit, as Checheg showed me how to prepare salty tea and cook in the Tatar manner, I felt myself become more useful. During Grandmother Yue’s prodigious naps, we communicated with gestures and the few words of Tatar I began to acquire. As Checheg’s belly grew ever larger, I sensed she was increasingly grateful for my aid.
    After meals, I told my story, eking it out slowly while Grandmother Yue translated.
    Unlike most folk I had encountered, the Tatars did not find it strange that the Maghuin Dhonn worship the Great Bear Herself. They simply nodded, accepting it as a matter of course; and I found myself grateful for that simple acceptance.
    Like folk everywhere, they marveled at the opulence and licentiousness of the D’Angeline lifestyle. Although I couched the details in discreet terms for the benefit of the children, Batu and Checheg were shocked to learn that the King of Terre d’Ange not only wed a courtesan, but allowed her to take lovers.
    “Heh!” Grandmother Yue cackled with delight. “I say good for her!”
    Some details, I chose to withhold. Reckoning they would find it too unlike their customs to understand, I didn’t tell them that Jehanne had seduced me quite thoroughly, only that she had rescued me from Raphael’s deadly ambition.
    Everyone agreed that Raphael was a right scoundrel, but they reveled in the tales of the fallen spirits we summoned and how they tricked Raphael and his companions. Checheg and Batu’s daughter, Sarangerel, especially loved to hear about the spirit Caim, who had eyes like an owl and antlers with a bird’s nest caught in them. According to lore, Caim could bestow the gift of communicating with all living creatures. He tricked Raphael and the others by teaching them the language of ants, which was composed wholly of scent. They gave up before the spirit Caim moved on to crickets.
    It was a time of peace, but it was also a time of prolonged yearning, that endless Tatar winter. The warmth and kindness everyone extended to me made me miss my home. Gods, I missed
having
a home. I missed my taciturn, oh-so-familiar mother in Alba, and the lovely, gracious father I had discovered in Terre d’Ange. I missed my sparkling lady Jehanne, with whom I would always be a little bit in love. I missed Snow Tiger, whom I had come to cherish in a very different way.
    I missed the dragon, my splendid friend.
    And always, always, always, I ached for Bao’s presence. I could sense his
diadh-anam
burning like a beacon, near enough that I could have ridden there in ten days were it not for the deadly cold. I ached to be reunited with the missing half of my
diadh-anam
. That was a constant. And it frustrated me, not only because I could not go to him, but because I could not sort out in my confused heart what was real and what was the result of the binding Master Lo Feng had laid upon us.
    I knew where my feelings began and ended. They began with a sneaking fondness for Master Lo’s magpie, the proud, stubborn peasant-boy with whom I had bickered and quarreled for so long, before we fell into bed with one another and began a thorny love affair. They ended with Bao walking away from me, leaving me alone and bereft, the spark of my sundered
diadh-anam
burning steadily inside him.
    It was the missing parts in between that confused me.
    There