The Shadow Behind the Stars by Rebecca Hahn Page A

aren’t allowed to follow, I think you can let me climb one hill all by myself!”
    Xinot said, “What’s thisabout not being allowed to follow?”
    â€œOh,” said Serena, “I told her what you said about feeling penned in by all these people.”
    â€œPenned in!” said Xinot. “I never said that. I sound like a sheep.”
    â€œYes, you did. You know you did.” Serena was beginning to look harried, and I grabbed the moment.
    â€œIf Xinot can feel penned in, then so can I!” I said, and started up a nearby hill.
    â€œOf course you can,” said Serena, hardly paying me attention now. “You can catch us up along the road. Go safe!” And she turned again to smoothing Xinot’s ruffled feathers.

    It wasn’t far. A few hills, around several copses of trees. No crop fields grew near her cave; it was a wild area, with brush and bushes and rocky streams. There was a large, flat stone in the valley just to the south of her place; it was scattered with brass coins and some wilted blue flowers.
    I paused before it. I thought of sweeping them off, these meager offerings. But then I pulled my cloak tighter around me to hide my anger, and I climbed the final slope to the entrance of her cave.
    â€œWho goes there?” The voice came almost at once, drifting on a chill breeze down the winding passageway.
    I stepped in toward it. One turn, two, and the cave opened out into a large round chamber. I’d no need to blink away the sun; I saw in the dark as well as any owl or lion, and still I could not see all the corners of this room.
    She sat in a sort of chair made of cave rock in the center, her hands placed flat along its rough arms, her feet flat against the earth. Her hair was long, and it hung down free over her shoulders as mine usually does. She must have rushed over to this seat as she heard me entering and positioned herself where she’d seem the most akin to our magic.
    â€œWho are you?” she said. “What do you seek?”
    Now I saw how a clever jutting of rock hid another tunnel, off to the left. She’d have an actual home in there, with a bed and a place to cook. If the offerings out in the valley were any indication, she lived much better than most dwellers of caves.
    I didn’t come any closer than the end of the entrance tunnel. It was cold here; I didn’t mind that. It reminded me of the wintry days on our island, when the wind scratched and bit. I breathed in this misty place, and I felt my fury at this woman growing.
    â€œThere was a girl,” I said, as calmly as I could manage.
    The oracle tilted her head at me, and I hated its haughtiness. “There are many girls.”
    â€œYou gave her a prophecy.”
    â€œAs I do.”
    â€œNot like this one. You gave her three words. The first was beauty . The second was clarity .”
    I stopped, and she said, “Beauty, clarity—a good fortune.” There was no uncertainty in her voice. There was no fear of me, or of what she had done, or of the power she had played with so cavalierly.
    If I had wondered before, I knew now. Any true oracle would have known me on sight.
    â€œNot the last word,” I said. “It was something that made her parents look at each other with fear.”
    There was silence in the cave. “What does it matter to you?”
    â€œIt matters,” I said. “I will not go until you tell me that third word.”
    â€œWill you not?” She stood; she came a few steps closer, and she squinted at me. I looked back at her, not straining at all to see the gray hairs on her head, the slight limp as she walked.
    After a long moment, she turned, and she went back to her chair again. She sat tall in it, and her dark dress melted into the stone and earth and cold.
    â€œI will tell you,” she said, and she was offhand, looking somewhere over my head. “There is no reason not to. The girl isn’t around to