Chapter 6: The Kinaaldá Begins
Dawn came as a gray scratch of light through the doorway. Lusa lay on the woven rugs inside the kinaaldá, the earth floor cool against her spine. Nizhoni had positioned her, her head to the west, her feet to the east, her body a bridge between darkness and the coming sun. The old woman said nothing more, only placed a hand on Lusa’s belly for a moment, her palm surprisingly warm, then left her alone with the humming silence.
The space was smaller than a grave. The curved walls, woven from reeds and plastered with clay, pressed in on her. The scent was overpowering—piñon resin, cedar, dried sage, and beneath it all, the deep, mineral smell of earth and stone. Time dissolved. The distant ch’íí from the ceremony had ceased, leaving only the whisper of wind through the turquoise beads hung in the doorway.
Her mind spun, a dizzy carousel of fear and a strange, defiant joy. A child. A shape being formed inside the cradle of her bones. Mara’s child. The clarity of it was a blade, clean and sharp. She touched her own lower stomach, the skin still soft, waiting.
A shadow blotted out the weak light.
Mara slipped through the bead curtain, the turquoise stones clicking softly like teeth. She filled the cramped space, her breathing loud in the stillness. She knelt beside Lusa, her eyes wild, scanning Lusa’s face in the gloom.
“She made you lie here?” Mara’s voice was a raw scrape.
“Facing east,” Lusa whispered.
Mara’s gaze dropped to Lusa’s body, outlined under the simple skirt and blanket Nizhoni had provided. Her hands came out, hovering, trembling. “I’ve been going out of my mind. Thinking about what you said. About what she said.”
“It’s true.”
“I know.” Mara said it with a finality that sounded like grief. Her trembling hand finally settled on Lusa’s knee, then slid up her thigh, pushing the rough wool of the skirt upwards. The cool air touched Lusa’s skin, raising gooseflesh. “I can’t… I need to know you’re still here. That this is still us.”
Lusa understood. This wasn’t just desire. It was a claiming, a verification in the only language they had left. “Then know me.”
Mara made a broken sound. She bent, burying her face in the juncture of Lusa’s thigh and hip, inhaling deeply. Her tongue, hot and broad, licked a stripe up the inside of Lusa’s thigh to the very heart of her. Lusa jerked, a gasp caught in her throat.
“You’re wet,” Mara murmured against her skin, her breath puffing on the slickness. “Already. For me.”
“Always for you.”
Mara didn’t need more invitation. She pushed Lusa’s thighs apart with a firm, reverent urgency and lowered her mouth.
Her tongue was relentless. It speared into Lusa, fucking into her with short, desperate thrusts, then flattened to lap at her entire sex, devouring the wetness that had gathered there during her long vigil. She was noisy, hungry, her lips and tongue working with a fervor that was almost prayer. Lusa’s hips lifted off the rug, seeking more, her head pressing back into the hard earth. She bit down on the meat of her own hand to keep from crying out, the taste of her skin and salt filling her mouth.
Mara’s fingers joined, two of them sliding in alongside her tongue, stretching her, curling. She found that spot instantly, a knowing pressure that made white light flash behind Lusa’s eyes.
“Come for me,” Mara growled, her voice vibrating against Lusa’s clit. “Come in this holy fucking place. Let it know who you belong to.”
The orgasm was ripped from her, violent and silent. Her body arched, rigid, every muscle locking as the pleasure detonated, wave after wave crashing through her cunt where Mara’s mouth and fingers worked her, drinking the rhythmic pulses of fluid that followed. Mara didn’t stop until Lusa was a shuddering, oversensitive wreck, until the last tremors had subsided into weak twitches.
Then Mara crawled up her body, her own face glistening with Lusa’s release. She kissed her, deep and open-mouthed, sharing the taste, the salty, musky proof of what they’d done. Lusa could taste herself on Mara’s tongue, a potent, intimate tang.
“This child,” Mara whispered, her forehead pressed to Lusa’s, their breath mingling. “This baby we made. It will know only this. Only love. However fucked up and messy it is. Only love. I swear it.”
Outside, faintly, the women began to sing again. A low, harmonizing chant for the dawn, for new beginnings.
Mara pulled back slightly. Her eyes, still dark with passion, caught a glint of metal in the dust beside the rug. The witch’s silver dagger. It lay there, cold and perfect. A tool for cutting, for severing. For sacrifice.
Mara looked from the dagger to Lusa’s belly, then back to Lusa’s face. A new fear, cold and entirely different, dawned in her expression.
“What is that for, Lusa?” she asked, her vow of love suddenly fragile in the dense, scented air.
Lusa followed her gaze. The singing outside seemed to swell, filling the silence her answer didn’t.