Ouroboros Spine ugguanik ⏞⏟

THE FOURTH SONG

ah.

she wheeled.

i wish i had the tea that eases the head, she told the inner spirit. it flicked her tongue to her own dry mouth, and she felt it in slow confusion.

you would not drink it. you have not even had enough water.

is sialuk ready for these things? have i made her ready too soon?

you were wife to the seal hunter at her age.

why she did think of him now? but his name rolled to the front of her mind, a mossy stone clambering down an incline.

see; you have not forgotten. let him go now too, daughter.

tears sparkling again — always — in her eyes.

we do not ask if boys are ready to become men. they do not ask us when girls are ready to become women. they trust us to know. you are firstmother. she will be in your place, and her daughter after. you speak the secrets in your circle so that they know when to spread their wings.

the black bird.

yes.

their song would come late that night, and this time it was not words at all. kukutux only shrieked and keened the marrowdeep pain the crushing rocks had placed inside her spirit, how in all she had lost, and how it had been repeated again. and she allowed anger close enough to warm her through the cold night; "let it go, sialuk" — for this was how they grieved. it was another sort of death song.