The majority of the morning passed in fits and starts as I faded in and out sleep, unable to fully relax in Grandmother’s presence and the familiar sensation of being trapped in a tent under a keen gaze. That changed when the tent flap was pushed back and a woman stepped in. It took me a few moments to place her. Voni, the older sister of Tenne and one of the lower ranking Pack huntresses. She was on the bulkier side with normally focused eyes and a ponytail of fine dark hair pulled so tight that I was surprised she didn’t have a constant headache from the strain. Levain and I had helped her with the birth of her second son and she had come to the store once to treat a hacking cough, but she never asked for help with headaches. Her eyes and hair weren’t so severe now. Voni barely glanced in my direction before blearily wandering from Grandmother to her tools and back again.

Grandmother had shifted so that she fully faced the tent entrance with her tools spread out on a small rug. The rug was woven with a wide open eye in its center with a border of deep blue and yellow stars around it. I had to sit up and shift to see Grandmother’s bone shard in the top left corner, the offering bowl in the top right opposite of it, a shallow bowl with a small amount of yellow powder in the bottom left corner, and a folded piece of cloth in the last. A pine branch, no bigger than a child’s hand, was the only thing placed directly on the eye. Grandmother had also lined her own eyes with yellow and a streak of it ran down her nose and over her chin.

This was one of the private ceremonies before it was time to call the whisper women and light the funeral pyres then. I sat still, hating that I didn’t know what to do. By their very nature these ceremonies were between the closest kin of the dead and Grandmother—I had no place to ogle the proceedings. But it also didn’t seem appropriate for me to disturb them both by getting up and passing both of them to leave the tent. I was in the middle of deciding whether I should lie back down and pretend to be asleep when Grandmother swept a hand towards me.

“Do you wish for the blessed marked one to leave or stay, mourner?”

Voni couldn’t seem to draw her attention away from the yellow powder and her hand brushed her side when she spoke, “Whatever the goddess wills.”

Grandmother gestured to the cushion opposite her. “Then sit.”

Voni knelt on the cushion.

I swallowed and did my best to blend in with the background, fervently wishing Grandmother had sent me out of the tent before Voni arrived instead of framing things so that I had to stay. I might not have participated in a Mourner’s Ritual before but that did not mean I should watching one now. Grandmother wanted me here but I couldn’t think of why. I had no stake in this ceremony.

Grandmother let her hands rest back on her knees. “Why do you come to me?”

Voni bowed her head. “I mourn and wish to remember.”

“Who do you mourn?”

“My sister. My niece.”

“Why do you mourn them?” Grandmother’s questions were cold and unyielding, Voni’s answers brittle.

“They were lost to yesterday’s storm.”

Grandmother nodded. “The goddess watched and found them worthy of rest.”

Voni swallowed audibly and asked, “Do they go to the Ever Dark or the Silver Forest?”

Grandmother slipped her prayer needle from her belt and pricked her forehead before pricking both of her wrists. She closed her eyes and spoke, “This lowly blood speaker seeks knowledge. Will Tenne and Yalin of the Gabbler Shore Tribe find shelter in the shelter in the Silver Forest?”

After a few moments the blood trickling down her forehead and wrists blackened and flaked away. Grandmother met Voni’s gaze. “As long as they both complete the Last Offering their souls with ascend to the Silver Forest.”

Voni visibly relaxed and bowed her head again. “I thank you and the goddess for this knowledge.”

“What do you offer in return?”

Voni held out her wrists over the offering bowl. “Blood.”

Grandmother ran her prayer needle over the other woman’s wrists. Voni only had to let a few drops of blood from each wrist fall into the bowl before Grandmother tipped it back and drank them.

“Heliquat, do you accept this offering I drink in your stead?”

The blood on her lips blackened and flaked away.

Grandmother held out the bowl again. “I will need more blood for the marks.”

Voni pulled out her own prayer needle and gave her more blood. Grandmother reopened her own wrists as well and let her blood mingle with the other woman’s in the offering bowl. Then she sprinkled the yellow dust on top of the blood.

Grandmother set the offering bowl in the eye’s center on the rug with the pine branch resting on the bowl.

Grandmother tipped her face up. “I ask one last boon to help this mourner remember those that passed before and hold your aspect close. Please grant me the power to give her a mark that will not fade to time or weather, that this mourner may remember always and never stray from you.”

The eye on the rug seemed to blink and in that instant the shadow cast by the twig seemed to curl around the bowl and Grandmother hissed as the dots on her wrists snapped open into wide unblinking eyes. In the next instant the twig was gone and the offering bowl held a golden yellow ink rather than blood and dust.

A chill ran down my spine.

Ink wasn’t rare, but it did take long hours to harvest it from cloud fish and then refine it into something lasting and usable. The ink was always black or gray as well, never the color of mourning. Some of the terror of watching the goddess’s procession pass by scrambled in my chest at seeing the minor miracle.

Voni untied her belt and set it carefully down next to her before lifting up her shirt to expose her ribs on the left side—a place easy to keep private and view when she wanted to remember. She already had four yellow flames inked there to remember those she had lost. Grandmother put her prayer needle away and picked up her bone shard to begin the first new flame. From there the process was much like when Rawley had done my apprentice mark.

It only took Grandmother a quarter of an hour to do each small flame and when she finished she did something else new. She snapped her fingers and, instead of a yellow-orange flame, a red flame appeared on her finger. She brought it close to Voni’s side, even as the woman tensed, and the spark of fire got absorbed into the first flame mark she inked. The mark shimmered red before returning to the bright golden yellow. Grandmother repeated the fire process and then the eye markings on the insides of her wrists snapped back into the normal dots.

Grandmother addressed Voni as she lowered her shirt and tied her belt back into place. “The goddess’s fire will numb the pain and keep impurities from entering the new markings as they heal so that you may continue to do your work and honor the goddess. Do so and in time you will join those who already rest in the Silver Forest.”

Voni crossed her arms, wrists facing out, resolute. “I will remember.”

“Good.” Grandmother smoothly gestured to the tent flap. “Then go.”

After Voni left Old Lily bustled in and set about cleaning and getting Grandmother’s tools back in order so that she would be ready for the next Mourner’s Ritual. Grandmother shifted to me.

“So, what did you learn?”

I stared at her for a long moment, not sure what to say, before I remembered that an answer was always better than silence. “I shouldn’t watch a private ritual.”

Grandmother snorted. “Not without permission.” She raised her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

“The goddess can do more than I ever realized.”

“You’d be a fool not to know that.” Grandmother’s gaze cut into me. “It was a reminder, child. You might be blessed by the goddess, but what She can grant She can just as easily take away.”

“I know that.”

Her smile wasn’t kind. “You will in time.” She waved away what I was going to say next. “Go join the others outside the tent. Another mourner will be here soon and if once wasn’t enough, watching more times won’t make a difference.”