Chapter 63: The Matriarchs' War Council
He woke to a hand shaking his shoulder, not gently. The grey light filtering through the hut’s smoke hole spoke of late afternoon. He’d slept the day away, a deep, drugged sleep that left him gummed-up and disoriented.
“Aidan. Get up.” It was Maren, her face set in lines of uncommon severity. “The Lead Matriarch calls. The elders are gathered.”
The furs were empty except for him. He could hear the low murmur of female voices outside, a sound that lacked its usual rhythmic domesticity. It had an edge.
“What’s happened?”
“The runners from the Ilima returned. With more than thanks.” She tossed his clean tunic at him. “Hurry.”
The central meeting hut felt different. The usual smoky calm was charged, the air tasting of tension and bitter tea. The elders—seven women whose faces were maps of wisdom and harsh seasons—sat in a semicircle on woven mats. The Lead Matriarch, Greza, was the still point at their center, her knotted hands resting on her knees, her eyes like chips of flint.
Aidan stood before them, feeling absurdly young and foreign. Kioni and his other wives were seated along the wall, witnesses. Kioni met his gaze, gave a minute, steadying nod.
Greza spoke, her voice a dry rustle. “The Ilima oracle has spoken. The blessing you gave was potent. All four sisters quicken with child.”
A ripple went through the elders. One, named Yara, let out a soft sigh that sounded like relief. Another, with a scar bisecting her lip, frowned.
“This is a strong bond,” Greza continued. “A debt. But their oracle is not satisfied. She has seen… imbalance. A residue of untended need among their other women. She demands you return.”
Aidan’s gut tightened. “Return?”
“To perform a cleansing. A ritual for their entire female population of bearing age. To ensure the blessing’s stability and… to share the favor.” Greza’s tone made it clear this was no request.
The scarred elder, Evike, leaned forward. “It is a trap. A polite one. They will drain him to a husk and send the husk back. It is how the Ilima wage war without spears.”
“If we refuse,” Yara countered softly, “they will wage it with spears. Their young men are restless. A denied oracle is a spark in dry grass. They will say we hoard the resource.”
The word ‘resource’ hung in the air. Aidan felt it land on his skin, cool and impersonal. He was the resource.
“I just left there,” Aidan said, and the words came out rough with sleep and a rising dread. “It was… intensive. Doing that for dozens?” The sheer logistical exhaustion of it hit him, a tidal wave of imagined labor. His body, still aching from the journey and Nalia’s use of him, throbbed in protest.
“It is not a matter of your comfort,” Evike snapped.
“It is exactly a matter of his state!” Kioni’s voice cut through from the wall, clear and sharp. All heads turned to her. She stood, not defiantly, but with a straight-backed authority that silenced the room. “He is the vessel. If he is drained to uselessness, the resource is gone for everyone. For us. For any future need. You break the tool, you have no tool.”
Greza’s flinty eyes narrowed. “You have a thought, Kioni. Speak it.”
Kioni stepped forward, into the circle’s energy. “He goes. We cannot refuse without spilling blood. But he does not go alone as a sacrifice to their hunger. He goes as an emissary of the Mwanga, with protectors. I will go. And two others.” Her gaze swept to Leela, who nodded fiercely, and to Sable, whose analytical calm was its own form of strength. “We go as wives. As witnesses. To ensure the ritual is performed, but with respect. To ensure he is fed, rested, and not… overworked beyond his capacity. We monitor the demand. We enforce his limits.”
A murmur of debate rose among the elders. “The Ilima will not like outsiders interfering in a sacred rite,” Yara cautioned.
“It is not interference,” Kioni said, her voice dropping into a pragmatic, almost cunning register. “It is wifely duty. We tend our husband. They cannot deny us that. And our presence reminds them he is not just a well to be drunk dry. He belongs somewhere. He returns somewhere.”
The strategy was brilliant. It was a shield woven from custom itself.
Greza studied Kioni for a long moment, then her gaze shifted to Aidan. “Can you do this? With them? Not just the physical act, but the weight of it? You will be a cornerstone holding up two tribes.”
Aidan looked at Kioni, at Leela’s fierce loyalty, at Sable’s cool calculation. He thought of Nalia’s desperate grip, of the terrifying, awesome power of being the source of such hope. The dread was still there, a cold pool in his stomach. But underneath it, coiling through the fatigue, was something else. A dark, burgeoning sense of capability. Of being essential.
He wasn’t the shy junior accountant anymore. He was the guy who could do this. Who did do this.
“I can do it,” he said, and his voice didn’t shake.
Greza gave a single, slow nod. “Then it is settled. Prepare. You leave at dawn.” Her eyes held his. “Do not let them break our tool, Kioni.”
“We will bring him back,” Kioni said, “ready for use.”
The council dissolved into a buzz of planning. Aidan stepped out of the hut into the slanting afternoon light, his mind already racing ahead to the trail, the Ilima camp, the endless line of hopeful, demanding faces.
Kioni came up beside him, her shoulder brushing his. “You okay?”
He let out a long, slow breath. “They want a cleansing ritual for fifty women?”
“At least.”
“Jesus.”
“He is not here,” Kioni said, a faint, grim smile on her lips. “Only you are.” She squeezed his arm, a pragmatic, grounding pressure. “We will manage it. In shifts. Like any other work. But first, you eat. Then, you rest. The oracle here will want her confirmation tonight. You are not leaving this compound without reminding everyone where your primary duty lies.”
Aidan looked back at the meeting hut, at the elders still talking, at his other wives now gathering around, their expressions a mix of anxiety and resolve. The path was set. Again. His body would ache, his mind would blur, but he would do it. And a part of him, the part that had grown in the dark, fertile soil of this impossible life, was already stretching awake, intrigued by the sheer scale of the demand.
He was the tool. The vessel. The cornerstone.
And he was starting to love the weight.