Chapter 2: The Shaman's Summons
The summons came at dawn, not with the apprentice’s pinched voice, but with a sharp rap of the shaman’s own staff against the doorframe of the sleeping hut. Teal, already awake and staring at the thatched roof, felt the sound vibrate in his teeth.
“Now,” was all the old man said, his silhouette a crooked cutout against the grey morning light.
The walk across the compound was a procession of one. Eyes followed him—curious, indifferent. He kept his own fixed ahead, on the back of the shaman’s threadbare robe. The air was cool, carrying the smell of damp earth and last night’s ashes. His mind raced, a trapped bird. The cedar water. He’d washed, but maybe the scent lingered in his hair, on his skin, a ghost of disobedience.
The hut was as he remembered: close, sacred, and suffocating. The tapestries stirred in the draft from the door, faded gods with judging eyes. The shaman did not immediately go to his potions. He pointed to a low stool in the center of the packed-dirt floor.
“Sit. Remove your tunic.”
A cold knot tightened in Teal’s stomach. Examinations were routine, but they were usually perfunctory, done by the apprentice. The shaman’s personal attention was a rare and dreadful thing. His fingers felt thick and clumsy as he pulled the rough-spun cloth over his head, the morning chill pebbling his skin. He sat, back straight, trying to make his slender frame disappear.
The shaman circled him slowly. His breathing was a soft, rhythmic whistle. He did not touch at first. His eyes, like chips of flint, scanned the new contours of Teal’s shoulders, the gentle swell of his chest, the softness of his waist. Teal felt like a map being read, his body a territory being assessed for conquest.
“The progress is adequate,” the shaman murmured, more to himself than to Teal. “The flesh accepts the guidance.”
Then he leaned in close, his nose almost touching the skin of Teal’s neck. Teal held his breath.
The shaman inhaled deeply, a long, drawing sound. He straightened, his expression hardening into something sharp and knowing. “You carry a foreign scent. Not the kitchens. Not the soap-root. Cedar. And night air.”
Teal’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum. “I… I took air last night. By the midden heap. The cedar grove is near there.” The lie tasted thin, metallic.
“The midden heap smells of rot and lime. This is clean cedar. Fresh.” The shaman’s gaze was a physical weight. “You left the compound after dark. Dael told me of your ‘thick head.’” He spat the words as if they were a bitter rind. “You walked the river path.”
There was no point in denial. Teal looked at the ground, at his own bare feet on the cold earth. “Yes.”
“For what purpose?”
“To be alone.” It was the only truth he could safely offer.
“Alone.” The shaman let the word hang, ripe with disbelief. He turned away, busying himself with a clay jar, its lid sealed with wax. “The potions work on the body. But the spirit must also be compliant. A wandering spirit in a reshaping vessel… this is dangerous. It introduces instability. Corruption.”
He cracked the seal. The smell that wafted out was different—sharper, more astringent, with a cloying sweetness beneath that made Teal’s saliva pool unpleasantly. “The nightly draught will be increased. Two cups. One at dusk, one at midnight. You will report to Kieran for the second. No exceptions.”
Teal’s vision blurred. Two cups. The one draught left him feeling hollowed out, floating. Two would be an annihilation. “Shaman, I only walked—”
“You only tested the limits,” the shaman interrupted, his voice final. He poured the new, darker liquid into a familiar cup. “This is not a punishment. It is a correction. A strengthening of the path. Your role is vital, Teal. The tribe’s future harmony depends on the domestic spheres being calm, predictable, free of the reckless urges that nearly destroyed the old world. You are to become a foundation of that calm. Not a crack in it.”
He held out the cup. “Drink. Now.”
This was not the evening ritual. This was a branding. Teal’s hand trembled as he took it. The ceramic was cold. He brought it to his lips, the smell flooding his nostrils. He drank. It burned worse than before, a slow, corrosive trickle that seemed to coat his very bones. A deep, unnatural warmth spread from his core almost immediately, a false comfort. His skin felt suddenly too sensitive, the air a rough caress.
“Good.” The shaman took the empty cup. “You may dress. Remember: the hunter Zane is a valued protector. But his world is one of impulse and blood. His path is opposite to yours. To mingle them is to invite chaos. Do not confuse his casual attention for anything but what it is—the curiosity of a wild thing for a tame one. It is not kindness. It is predation of a different sort.”
Dressed, dismissed, Teal stumbled from the hut. The compound light, once grey, now seemed overly bright, glaring. The false warmth from the potion pulsed within him, making him nauseous. He made it to the shadowed side of the storage hut before doubling over, dry heaves wracking his slender frame. Nothing came up. The potions were designed to stay down.
The rest of the morning passed in a haze. At the washing stones, the cold river water helped, shock-cutting through the chemical fog. He scrubbed tunics with a frantic, focused energy, trying to scour the shaman’s words from his mind, the feeling of the new potion from his blood. Lina joked about a lovesick wolfdog. He managed a faint, hollow smile that seemed to satisfy her.
He avoided looking toward the treeline.
Back at the compound for the midday meal, he picked at his stew. The memory of the rabbit’s rich taste was now poisoned by association. He ate in his usual secluded spot, the cacophony of the common area a dull roar in his ears.
When he returned to his sleeping hut to retrieve a needle for mending, he saw it immediately. A disruption in the worn fabric of his thin sleeping mat.
Not a disruption. An addition.
A single, smooth, dark river stone, oval and perfectly fitted to the palm of a hand. It was clean, free of grit, as if it had been warmed in someone’s grip for a long time. It sat there, plain and undeniable, against the faded wool.
He glanced around the empty hut. The other domestics were still at their tasks. His breath hitched. He picked it up. It was still faintly warm, or maybe that was his imagination. It was just a stone. But it was from the river. And it had not been there this morning.
A chance to sit here. Zane’s words by the water.
He closed his fingers around it. The solid, cool weight was an anchor. It was a message without words, a signal that could be denied if discovered. I see you. I was here. You are not alone in this.
The simplicity of it undid him more than any grand gesture could. He didn’t have pockets, so he slipped it into the small, soft leather pouch he wore around his neck, meant for a protective charm he’d never believed in. The stone settled against his sternum, a secret weight.
The afternoon wore on. The potion’s effects waxed and waned in waves, leaving him clammy and disconnected. He was in the kitchen garden, listlessly tugging at weeds, when a shadow fell over the neat rows of bitter greens.
“You look like you’ve been wrestling a ghost. And losing.”
Teal didn’t startle this time. He’d felt the approach, a shift in the air. He sat back on his heels, looking up at Zane. The hunter held a pair of fat, cleaned trout by the gills. His expression was casually concerned, but his eyes were scanning, missing nothing.
“The shaman had words with me,” Teal said, the statement leaving his lips before he could cage it. He focused on a stubborn root.
Zane was quiet for a beat. “About your evening walk?”
Teal nodded, a tight, small motion. “The cedar water. He smelled it. He… increased my draught. For stability.” He spat the last word like a bad seed.
Zane’s jaw tightened. The playful grin was entirely absent. “How increased?”
“Twice. Tonight.” Teal risked a glance up. The anger on Zane’s face wasn’t hot or explosive; it was a cold, hard thing, like river ice. It was, somehow, more frightening.
“I brought trouble to your door,” Zane stated, his voice low.
“No.” The denial was surprisingly firm. Teal looked down at his dirt-stained hands. “The trouble was already at the door. You just… showed me a window.” He touched the pouch at his neck through his tunic, feeling the stone’s outline. “Thank you. For the stone.”
A slight, almost imperceptible relaxation in Zane’s broad shoulders. “It’s just a rock.”
“It’s not,” Teal whispered.
They stayed like that for a moment, the quiet of the garden around them. The shaman’s warning echoed in Teal’s head: predation of a different sort. But the man standing before him, holding fish, his anger cool and directed outward at the source of Teal’s pain, did not feel like a predator. He felt like a shelter in a sharp rain.
“What does the second draught mean? Midnight?” Zane asked, practicality cutting through the tension.
“I report to Kieran. The apprentice. At the hut.”
Zane’s eyes narrowed, calculating. “Then you’ll be seen. Good.”
“Good?” Teal blinked, confused.
“Regular. Predictable.” A flicker of the old wickedness returned to Zane’s eyes, but it was tempered, focused. “A man walking a predictable path is a man no one watches too closely. Not if they think they already know his destination.” He hefted the trout. “Eat. Build your strength. The body needs fuel to fight off poison.”
He turned to leave, then paused. “The stone is for remembering. Which bank of the river you’re standing on.”
Then he was gone, heading toward the cooking fires, leaving Teal kneeling in the dirt with a heart that felt too large for his chest, and a secret warmth against his skin that had nothing to do with the shaman’s potions.
As dusk approached, the dread returned, thick and tar-like. He drank the first cup in the shaman’s presence, the potent brew already familiar in its horror. The false warmth spread, making the world soft at the edges.
He lay on his mat as midnight drew near, the stone a hard comfort in his palm inside the pouch. When the time came, he rose, his movements fuzzy, and walked to the shaman’s hut. Kieran was waiting, impatient, holding the second cup under the light of a single, guttering lamp. He drank without a word, the compound silent around them.
Walking back, the world tilted. Sounds were muffled. His own footsteps seemed far away. But as he passed a deep shadow between two storage huts, a low voice, barely a breath, reached him.
“Steady.”
He didn’t turn. He didn’t stop. But he straightened his spine, focusing on the feel of the path under his feet, on the weight of the stone against his chest.
He reached his hut, crawled onto his mat, and let the chemical tide pull him under. This time, as the darkness claimed him, his fingers weren’t clutching empty wool. They were curled around a promise, smooth and real, from the free-flowing river.
They were curled around a promise, smooth and real, from the free-flowing river. Sleep was not sleep but a deep, warm lake, and he drifted in its currents, weightless. There were no sharp edges in that darkness, no lurking dread. The chemical warmth was no longer an invasion but an embrace, softening the boundaries between his body and the world.
He woke slowly. Sunlight patterned his face through the hut’s gaps. For a moment, there was only sensation: the incredible softness of the wool beneath his cheek, the luxurious stretch of his own limbs, a profound and cellular quiet. The usual fist of anxiety in his chest was simply absent. He took a deep, unburdened breath and sat up.
His skin felt different. Not just soft, but receptive, alive to the brush of his own hair against his shoulder. He ran a hand down his arm, marveling at the smoothness, at the subtle, yielding curve of his own hip beneath the blanket. A strange, buoyant acceptance floated within him. The changes were not a mutilation today. They were just… facts. Pleasant ones. He dressed slowly, savoring the texture of the cloth.
The compound air smelled of clay and baking bread. He moved through the morning routines with a newfound grace, the stone a silent companion in its pouch. At the well, he drew water, the muscle working in his slender arm feeling efficient, right. Lina was there, filling her own bucket.
“You look… rested,” she said, her head tilting. “Finally sleep through the night?”
“Something like that,” Teal said, and his own voice sounded mellower to his ears. He offered a small, genuine smile that seemed to surprise her.
He was heading to the kitchen garden, the memory of yesterday’s weeds and Zane’s visit a soft blur, when a familiar heat and presence manifested beside him. “Morning.” The word was a low rumble.
Zane fell into step, his stride effortlessly matching Teal’s slower pace. He carried no game today, just a coiled length of sinew for repairing snares. His eyes were on Teal’s profile, studying.
“You look different,” Zane said, not a question.
“The draught,” Teal replied, the words coming easily. “The midnight one. It’s… stronger.” He didn’t say it was awful. Today, it didn’t feel that way.
Zane inhaled slightly, a hunter catching a scent. He stopped walking, forcing Teal to pause and face him. Zane’s gaze was intense, searching. “You smell like rainwater now. And sage blossom. Nothing like the cedar.” His voice dropped, curious, intrigued. “It’s not a bad smell.”
Teal didn’t flinch from the scrutiny. He felt a spark of something reckless, kindled by the chemical calm in his veins. “The shaman would say it’s the smell of compliance.”
“I don’t give a damn what the shaman says it is.” Zane took a half-step closer, the space between them charged but not threatening. “I just know it’s new. And it suits you.” He reached out, not touching, but gesturing toward a strand of Teal’s hair gleaming in the sun. “This catches the light different too. Softer.”
“Are you always this observant before breakfast?” Teal asked, and the light, almost teasing note in his own voice surprised them both.
A slow, genuine grin spread across Zane’s face, transforming the stern hunter into someone younger, more playful. “Only when there’s something worth looking at.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall of a hut, blocking the path but not the light. “So, this new draught. It makes you chatty, too?”
“Maybe it just makes me less afraid of you,” Teal said, the truth leaving him with a shocking lack of tremor.
Zane’s smile softened at the edges. “Good.” He pushed off the wall, closing the distance to a hand’s breadth. Teal could see the individual lashes around his keen eyes, the sun-bleached strands in his dark hair. “Because I’ve been thinking. About that predictable path.”
Teal’s breath hitched, but he held his ground. “Oh?”
“Midnight trips to the shaman’s hut. That’s a schedule. Schedules have gaps.” Zane’s voice was a conspiratorial murmur. “What if, after your visit, you took the long way back? Past the old watch stump, where the wall shadows are deepest. No one’s there after the guard change.”
The suggestion hung in the air, palpable as the new scent on Teal’s skin. The old fear tried to rise, but it was muffled, distant. In its place was a thrilling, terrifying curiosity. “The long way,” Teal repeated.
“Just walking. Talking.” Zane’s fingers brushed, almost accidentally, against the leather pouch at Teal’s neck, feeling the shape of the stone within. “You could tell me if the second cup tastes worse than the first. I could tell you what the foxes are arguing about in the eastern wood. Neutral topics.”
A laugh, quiet and real, escaped Teal. It felt foreign and wonderful. “Neutral topics.”
“See? Chatty.” Zane’s eyes crinkled. He finally stepped back, giving Teal space to breathe. The absence of his heat was immediately noticeable. “Think about it. No pressure. Just… an alternative route.”
He turned to leave, then glanced back over his shoulder, the wicked grin returning. “You really do smell good. Like a clean, new thing. It’s a shame the shaman gets the credit.”
Then he was gone, melting into the compound’s morning bustle. Teal stood rooted, touching the pouch at his chest. The stone was cool. His skin was warm. The scent of sage blossom and rainwater clung to him, a perfume of transformation.
For the first time, the idea of midnight held a promise, not just a dread. It held a voice in the shadows, a conversation about foxes, a chance to be something other than a passive vessel. The chemical calm within him wasn’t just acceptance. It was, dangerously, a kind of courage.
He walked toward the garden, his steps lighter. The sun felt warmer. He knew the other draught would come at dusk, pulling him back under. But now there was an after. A secret path. A different scent on his skin, and a hunter who noticed it, and called it good.
A different scent on his skin, and a hunter who noticed it, and called it good. The thought was a fragile bird in his chest, its wings beating a frantic rhythm against the chemical calm. He carried it with him to the riverbank, the stone a secret counterweight in his pouch. The morning’s strange serenity persisted, smoothing the edges off the world, making the cold water a crisp invitation rather than a penance.
He was kneeling, lost in the monotony of scrubbing, when a new shadow fell across his work. It wasn’t Zane’s familiar, patient silhouette. This one was broader, blockier, smelling of stale sweat and cured leather. Teal didn’t look up. He willed himself smaller, a trick that rarely worked.
“Well, look at this.” The voice was a gravelly baritone, belonging to Bram, a hunter from the eastern patrol. Bram was built like a brick wall, with a thick neck and hands that looked like they could crush rock. “The shaman’s little project. Doing women’s work suits you, doesn’t it?”
Teal kept scrubbing, his knuckles whitening on the wet tunic. The stone against his chest felt suddenly inert, useless.
Bram crouched down beside him, too close. The river should have washed his scent away, but it clung to him, pungent and invasive. “Heard you got extra lessons now. Midnight meetings. That old goat making you his special student?” He nudged Teal’s knee with his own. The contact was a jolt.
“I just take my draught,” Teal murmured, voice barely audible over the water. He shifted an inch away.
“Sure you do.” Bram’s gaze was a physical crawl over Teal’s neck, his shoulders, the damp cloth sticking to the new curves of his back. “Smell different, too. Like flowers. Prettier every day, honestly. Maybe the shaman’s onto something.” He reached out, not for Teal, but to pick up the smooth washing stone Teal had been using. He turned it over in his massive hand. “Delicate tools for delicate hands.”
Teal’s heart hammered, a trapped thing. The chemical calm in his veins felt like a lie now, a thin gauze over a raw wound. He stared at the rushing water, at the way it distorted the pebbles below. He said nothing. Silence was his only shield.
“You know,” Bram continued, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather, “some of the boys think it’s a waste. What they did to you. I’m starting to see the appeal, though. Quiet. Compliant. Real different from the girls in the compound, always yapping.” He leaned in, his breath hot on Teal’s ear. “Bet you’re real grateful to have a purpose now, huh?”
The word ‘grateful’ was a knife twist. Teal flinched, a full-body shudder he couldn’t suppress. He dropped the tunic. It floated, swirling in the shallow current.
“Aw, don’t be shy.” Bram chuckled, a low, unpleasant sound. He dropped the washing stone. It landed with a thud in the mud next to Teal’s knee. “Just making conversation. A man gets lonely on patrol. Sees a pretty thing by the river, thinks he might say hello.” He stood up, his joints cracking. The shadow he cast enveloped Teal completely. “Maybe I’ll say hello again. When it’s quieter.”
He walked off, his heavy tread crunching on the riverbank gravel. The other women had fallen silent, their earlier chatter extinguished. They didn’t look at Teal. They just watched the water, their faces carefully blank.
Teal retrieved the floating tunic. His hands were trembling violently. The peaceful numbness from the draught had shattered, leaving him exposed and vibrating with a sick, familiar terror. He scrubbed the fabric with a frantic, useless energy, trying to erase the feeling of Bram’s knee against his, the hot whisper in his ear.
He focused on the stone in his pouch. He focused on the coming midnight. The watch stump. The shadows. A voice talking about foxes. It was a tiny pinprick of light in a suddenly dark afternoon. He held onto it, clutching it in his mind with a desperation that was almost prayer.
The day stretched, taut and thin. Every distant laugh made him tense. Every heavy footfall from a passing hunter sent a jolt through him. He completed his tasks by rote, a ghost moving through the compound. At dusk, he drank the first draught in the shaman’s hut, the bitter liquid now tasting like a punishment he deserved for inviting attention.
The false warmth returned, but it couldn’t melt the cold knot Bram had tied in his gut. It just made it fuzzy, a dull ache wrapped in wool. He lay on his mat, waiting, the stone clutched in his fist. The midnight bell sounded, a dull bronze note in the sleeping compound.
Kieran was terse, shoving the second cup at him. Teal drank it down, the stronger potion a flood of chemical submission. This time, as he walked back into the night, the world didn’t just soften. It blurred, colors and sounds bleeding together at their edges. His footsteps were unsteady. The path to his hut seemed long and convoluted.
He remembered. The old watch stump. The deep shadows where the wall met the stockade. He altered his course, each step a conscious rebellion. The shadows swallowed him. He leaned against the cold wood of the stump, waiting, his breath forming faint plumes in the air. He was dizzy. He was scared. He was more alive than he’d felt all day.
A shape detached itself from the deeper darkness. “You came.”
Zane’s voice was a grounding wire. Teal swayed slightly. “I came.”
Zane was in front of him now, his features indistinct in the gloom. He didn’t touch. He just looked, and even in Teal’s blurred state, he could feel the intensity of that look. “What’s wrong?” The question was immediate, sharp.
“Bram,” Teal whispered. The name was a sour taste. “At the river. He… noticed me.”
Zane went very still. The air around him seemed to get colder. “What did he do?”
“Talked. Too close.” Teal’s words were slurred, pushed through the potion’s haze. “Said I was pretty. Said he might… say hello again. Quieter.”
A low sound, not quite a growl, rumbled in Zane’s chest. It was pure, undiluted fury. Teal had never heard anything like it. It should have frightened him. It didn’t. It felt like a wall being raised between him and the rest of the world.
“He won’t,” Zane said, the words final, absolute.
“He’s bigger than you,” Teal mumbled, the practical, fearful part of him speaking.
Zane’s hand came up then, finally, but not to grab. He cupped the side of Teal’s face, his thumb sweeping gently over his cheekbone. The touch was startling in its tenderness, a direct contrast to the rage in his voice. “Size isn’t everything, little kingfisher. I know where he sleeps. I know what he fears. And now he has my attention.” He paused, his thumb still moving. “Did he touch you?”
“His knee. Against mine. That’s all.”
The anger in Zane tightened, becoming a more focused, colder thing. “That’s enough.” He dropped his hand, but the warmth of it lingered on Teal’s skin. “Tell me about the second draught. Is it worse?”
Teal let his head fall back against the stump. The world swam. “It’s… deeper. I can feel it in my teeth. It makes everything feel far away. But right now, with you here, it just makes me not care about being afraid.” He let out a slow, unsteady breath. “That’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Zane said, no sugar-coating. “But I’m here. And I’m sober. So your danger has a keeper tonight.” He shifted, leaning a shoulder against the stump beside him, their arms almost touching. “The foxes, by the way. They were arguing over a den. A bigger one moved in down the slope. The little one was all puffed up, yapping at the moon about it. He’ll lose. But he’s putting on a good show.”
Teal laughed, a soft, blurry sound. It felt good. “That’s a stupid story.”
“It’s a true one. Life’s mostly stupid stories, Teal. The trick is finding the ones that don’t make you feel like shit.” He was quiet for a moment. “You should get back before you fall over.”
“I know.”
Neither of them moved. The silence between them was comfortable, charged but safe. Teal’s eyelids were heavy. The potion pulled at him, but Zane’s presence was a tether.
“Tomorrow,” Zane said, his voice a vow in the dark. “You won’t see Bram. I’ll make sure of it. You just keep to your path. And at midnight, if you’re up for it, I’ll tell you about the argument the crows are having with the scarecrow.”
Teal pushed himself upright, the world tilting. He found his balance. “I’ll be here,” he said, and he meant it.
He walked back to his hut, the path clearer now, his steps a little firmer. The fear Bram had planted was still there, a cold seed in the dark soil of him. But something else was growing around it, tougher, with deeper roots. It tasted of cedar water and midnight promises, and it smelled, just faintly, of a clean, new thing.