Kaye paused to catch her breath and listened closely. The world around her was fog and any harsh breathing, or even her own heartbeat could make her miss the deer’s steps. She waited, then, hearing nothing, resumed her pacing as quietly as she could.

  She had missed her first shot. The thought of leaving without her prey brought hot shame to her face, but she was managing to keep it at bay, for now. Following a hurt game into the White Death and coming back out with its carcass was necessary for any Nagra that wished to step into adulthood still a hunter. It was Kaye’s first attempt, and she had gone out of her way to choose a date where she would be alone so there could be no suspicion of help.

  She also wanted to do things right before leaving.

  A crunch brought her round. Northward, she guessed, but it was hard to say for sure with fog so thick it blocked her view of the sky. Whatever direction that was, she moved towards it, steps like a fox and an arrow nocked.

  The deer’s silhouette came within view, a vague outline against the mist. Kaye raised her bow and took the shot in one single breath.

  The creature jumped with a start when the arrow cut into its neck, darting away. Another arrow was in the air the moment it disappeared from her sight and Kaye knew she had hit it when the loud railing was cut short.

  She dashed towards it, saw the second arrow jutting from the opposite side of the animal’s neck, high and almost at its jawline. Its low cries were interrupted by harsher, deeper grunts.

  Hunkering down she unsheathed her bone dagger and with a two-handed grip stabbed at its side, reaching all the way to the heart.

  Their gazes locked. Kaye was close enough to see the horizontal iris, the long lashes. She felt as its movements slowed down, stopped, and the deer seemed to be staring at her through empty lenses.

  Kaye almost fell back, suddenly realizing she had stopped breathing. She had expected that killing a larger animal would be easier on her mind. Her first kill had been far messier and happened in between sobs, at least she knew that this one didn’t suffer as much. In her past life she could barely bring herself to even imagine an animal’s suffering, but still…

  She took another deep breath, her exhaling misted into the fog. It wasn’t easy. There had been no tears this time, but her heart was still heavy.

  When Kaye was nine for the second time and her father — her second one — made her kill a rabbit, he had placed his hands on her small, trembling arms and told her to always keep in mind that the animal would be properly honored. Hide could become clothing or a bag, horns and bones could become trinkets, needles and gifts, flesh was food, blood for paint, fat for preservatives, the eyes for rituals where a shaman could see what the deer saw and any leftover scraps for starving animals. Thus, the animal’s life would be completed, until it would be returned to the earth and could be born again. It would also happen to them, and to the ones that would come next.

  Born again.

  She lowered her gaze. The deer was still staring up at her.

  Slowly, Kaye turned left. If she had indeed been walking north, then left would be west, where the star of her life had fallen fifteen years ago. Beyond the White Death where the Godsnake lies, where meteors fall every year. It was said that the star fell close enough for tremors to be felt, but she did not believe that part. Her hair and eyes were green as the star had been and her family and all the Nagra had no idea what that truly meant, but she had no gift of prophecy like some said she would one day awaken to. Most of what they said was embellishment. Not that she blamed them.

  Reaching for the rope in her pack, Kaye set about binding her prey’s legs.

  The deer was not fully grown-up yet and Kaye’s body was strong for a fifteen-year-old, but the journey back was still excruciating. Before walking into the White Death, a hunter was provided with enough food to last four days, but finding the prey after two was hard. Kaye found hers in the first and not that deep into the fog, but still had to sleep alone for one night before stepping out of it.

  Judging by the sun she could tell it was the middle of the afternoon. She had left at a spot farther down south than she had entered and had to walk up the road for the better part of an hour before spotting the banner, planted on a stick driven into the ground for her to locate herself.

  Figures turned as she approached and soon one of them was running as fast as he could despite the limp on his left leg.

  When Kaye released the ropes the only thing that kept her from falling was Gairin, her father.

  “What was that? Less than two days! Did you kill it in the first?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her voice muffled against his chest. “Keep holding me or I’m going to fall.”

  Though Kaye couldn’t see him, she heard her uncle Hogog barking a laugh. “Now that’s a hunter, wait until all the boys hear about that. She put you to shame.”

  I put you all to shame, she thought about saying but decided against it. She would be leaving soon after all, better to let them bask in it.

  It was a long moment before she pulled away from her father. His gray hair was as much of a mess as it had always been, but from the bags under his eyes it was evident that he had trouble sleeping while she was away.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Kaye simply continued to stare at him.

  “What am I saying? Of course you are. Come.”

  She followed them towards the campfire, ignoring her uncle messing with her hair as she stared at Gairin’s back. He was old, his shoulders sagging. It didn’t take long for uncle to have to help him, saying something about how he shouldn’t run. Noticing things like that, like the way her mother’s hands trembled always made the same questions rise in Kaye’s mind. It would be hard on them, she knew, but it would also be hard on her, had been so for many years now.

  There were moments long ago when she felt like a stranger, would even say she had been a stranger. Memories of her old life back on Earth were slow to come and she didn’t remember everything, not more than a thirty-year-old could remember about their own uneventful childhood.

  With each passing year Kaye had learned to love her second family more. They never knew about it and never would, of course. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t in fact a genius, if there were other reasons why she learned to walk and talk before any other child of the Nagra did. If it gave her family something to be happy about, then that was enough.

  The sweet scent of charred meat made her stomach growl and Kaye had to stop herself from running ahead. She almost burned her tongue when biting into the bird’s juicy leg.

  Hogog was staring with his stupid smirk and Kaye jokingly threw the bone at him when she was done. He pretended to be hurt, reaching for his ribs and leaning back. About a decade younger than Gairin, he seemed even younger since his hair was still black, he stood tall and boasted a beard that accentuated his jawline. Their eyes were dark brown, even her mother’s. Only Kaye’s were green.

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  “You should catch some sleep,” her father said. “We’ll wake you up to start working on the deer.”

  “It will be too late then.”

  Gairin shrugged her worries off. “We’re in no hurry. We’ll have to finish tomorrow morning anyway, then we go back.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Are you well?”

  “Just tired.”

  “More the reason, then.”

  She nodded. Her uncle simply shrugged.

  Kaye stood up; her vision darkened for a moment. She gave them a smile before making for the tent and fell asleep as soon as she lied down.

  Her father was standing by the hospital bed, but it was the wrong father. Gairin, not Frederick. Jane opened her mouth to speak and was sure she managed some sound, but saw no reaction from him.

  They were supposed to be having a conversation in that memory about her father’s work. Construction work, his second job, not hunting — he never had that job.

  Kaye didn’t remember opening her eyes, but she was awake and worrying. The dream had been so brief she couldn’t have slept for more than an hour or two.

  It wasn’t surprising that she saw Gairin in the dream. After all, she hadn’t seen Frederick in fifteen years, but that did not stop it from feeling wrong. Her dreams were often weird, either because she dreamt of concrete houses, cars and skyscrapers but woke up staring at leather tents, wooden frames and straw roofs, but also because the two worlds would mix.

  It was becoming less common in recent years. Life on Earth somehow felt like both something she was still to surpass and something that happened so long ago it was fading from her memory. She couldn’t forget about Frederick, not when he exhausted himself on two jobs to pay for a treatment he barely earned enough for and she still died on him. There was not a day that she did not think about her father — the first one — and wondered what he was doing, if fifteen years had also passed for him. She hoped so. Hoped he had moved on, found new people. New meaning.

  Outside, Kaye could hear Gairin and Hogog talking, just far enough that she couldn’t understand the words. For a moment she considered sleeping some more but found her mind too active and stood up.

  They turned as she left the tent. Judging from the faint smiles on their faces, she gathered that they weren’t talking about anything important.

  “Sorry, were we too loud?” her father asked.

  Kaye shook her head. The sun was starting to disappear beyond the White Death. They had about an hour of light, at most, which would have to be enough for something.

  “I want to start on the deer.”

  Hogog stood up and gestured for her. She followed. Gairin stayed on the boulder he was sitting at but turned around so he could watch.

  The deer lay on the back of their small cart, wrapped in cloth.

  “Why didn’t you hang it?” Kaye asked as she pulled the cloth away to reveal the body.

  “You didn’t ask,” Hogog said.

  The deer’s eyes were still open. Somehow, they seemed even emptier, like glass.

  Kaye sighed. He was right. This was her hunt, after all. She should have done it herself or asked before going to sleep.

  Kaye touched the body, feeling it limp, the stiffness after death already gone. Ideally the animal was to be hanging with its chest open to keep the insides fresh. It was also better to deskin and butcher in a row, but now felt like the right moment and she didn’t want to have much work to do tomorrow morning knowing that sleep would elude her tonight.

  She pulled the deer closer, untied its legs and produced her skinning knife from her bag. Iron with a curved edge, not made by the Nagra but bought in Kakinse.

  “Let’s talk,” Kaye said as she pressed the knife against the animal’s belly.

  “How was it?”

  “Tracking it was easy… somewhat easy, but the killing not so much. I didn’t cry, before you ask.”

  “You’ll get used to it, but what I meant was the White Death. How was it?” Hogog turned to Gairin as he said that, but Kaye kept her eyes on the deer. She had cut a deep wound from right to left starting at its chest and was passing the knife through it again, deeper.

  Kaye thought back to how her breath would mist into the fog. “Scary,” she admitted. “If I was hunting something smaller or a deer that wasn’t wounded, then I’m not sure I would have caught it. At least it would take longer, maybe even the four days.”

  “Did you see anything?” Hogog asked.

  She gave him a quick glance before turning back to the deer. “Was I supposed to?”

  “Most do,” Gairin said from behind her. “See things, I mean.”

  Kaye worked the skinning knife between the deer’s hide and its meat, holding it in place so it wouldn’t slide or hurt either part of the animal too much. A knot started to form in her stomach as she revealed more of the creature’s rib cage. It was hard not to stare into the hole she had opened.

  She took a deep breath. Her father and uncle had supposedly followed the green star into the White Death, but if that did happen then they didn’t like to speak about it. “Did you see anything? When it was your time?”

  “I saw a black horse,” Hogog answered.

  “You’re not old enough to be hallucinating now, imagine back then.”

  He gave her a faint smile. “I remember seeing it, but it made no sound as it moved or seemed to bay, which was how I realized it was an illusion. That and the fact that there are no horses around here.”

  “What about you, father?” Kaye asked as she gestured for her uncle to help her. He took his position at her side and slowly but surely continued to work on removing the hide, staining his fingers with blood. Talking made her hand steadier than she expected.

  “No, not me.”

  “Don’t you think you should have warned me of this?” Kaye asked.

  “And have you walk into the White Death scared shitless?” Hogog joked.

  “Some say they see a lot more if they know it’s coming,” Gairin said, “even things they thought about before. You also need courage to leave the cradle, so we figured it was better not to tell you.”

  “Did you know about it, uncle?”

  “No, but I was lucky. The illusions are why most people fail in their first years. They see something they shouldn’t, something that they believe has nothing to do with the rite, so they flee.”

  Kaye nodded. The act of skinning the deer fell into a mechanical motion, the knot in her stomach unwound a bit, but it was still there.

  She thought back to the White Death. Had there been something she missed? From the moment Kaye entered, to letting the deer run, almost crawling her way, trusting herself to follow the hoof-marks, the snapped twigs. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. The closest thing to strange was that her mind was on the reason for the hunt instead of on the hunt itself, but Kaye imagined every hunter felt the pressure of succeeding, some more than others.

  “Were you scared?”

  “A little bit,” Hogog admitted, “Alright, maybe more than a little bit. I failed that year but not in the next. I don’t think the horse was the reason.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t flee like a scared rabbit, and I saw it again the next year. Even shot at it. The arrow went right through.”

  Why would you shoot something as big as a horse?

  “What about the others? Do they talk about it?” Kaye asked.

  Gairin answered, “Some do. There is no rule for or against it. Garned saw two bulls in his first year, one in the second and none in the third.”

  “You got that backwards,” Hogog said.

  “No, I didn’t, you’re remembering it wrong.”

  “No, you are. He saw none in the first, one in the second and two in the third.”

  “I can always ask him,” Kaye said, hopping on top of the cart to turn the deer around.

  “Chief Yorog saw a snake,” her father said.

  “The chief is old and says he saw something different every year,” her uncle retorted.

  “The first stories were always about a snake.”

  “No they weren’t.”

  “And how would you know that? I’m the older brother.”

  “I know because you told me,” was Hogog’s answer.

  They went silent for a while. The way they talked about it, it sounded as if there was no meaning to the visions, but the future chief seeing a snake was interesting considering that their god was one. Perhaps that had even played into it. If it meant something, even if it was for the people seeing it, would they think her even more special if she didn’t see anything? Well, if the chief himself changed his story, then it must be nothing.

  “What?” her uncle suddenly asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You make that face when you want to say something.”

  “What face?”

  “That one.”

  Kaye took her bloody hands off the deer for a moment. Something else came to her mind.

  She turned to her father, “You said I need courage to leave the cradle. Speaking of that…”

  “Don’t worry about that, Kaye. You will be an adult after Chief Yorog’s ritual. You’re coming to Kakinse with us.”

  “Wait, you’re coming as well?”

  “I’m not that old.”

  “Yes you are,” her uncle intervened, “but you’re as stubborn as you’re old. Don’t even waste your time on this one Kaye, I’ve told him enough times. Did you know that he once pretended he was staying in bed and we realized he was following us like prey halfway through?”

  She didn’t know and laughed at that. For a moment Kaye simply stared at Gairin, then pretended to accept defeat and turned to the deer again. She was actually worried about his health, but with Gairin along it would also be harder for her to flee. Her father was much more protective than her mother — who either stayed with the others in Korok’Kan or didn’t even leave the village. Her uncle would be with them, but he gave her more freedom. There would be other Nagra too, although those she could deal with easily. Kaye had never been to Kakinse and it was known that most Nagra struggled with their first time in a city, but she wouldn’t have that problem.

  Still… Kaye took a deep breath, sure that her father and uncle took it as a sign of her struggling now that the deer was mostly muscle and fat. No need to hurry, I’ve waited for fifteen years and we’ll stay there for months. There will be plenty of opportunities.