The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance) (37 page)

Netya did not know whether to feel flattered or unnerved by the den mother's appraisal. She did not even know whether to completely believe what she was being told. "Then, I suppose I am glad to have earned your respect."

Adel snorted. "You have a long way to go before you earn that. There is potential in you to become something more than Khelt's bed warmer, but potential on its own means little. You would not have made it this far without my help."

"It was my choice to stay, and my choice to take those herbs."

"Was it? Or did you need a hand to guide you?"

Netya bit back her response and forced herself to breathe and think again. It was painful to admit that everything Adel was saying might be true. When she was angry at Khelt she could at least cling on to her own sense of self-righteousness, but what did she have now? In her heart she knew that Adel had been cruel to her, disingenuous at the very least, but all she had to fall back on were her wounded feelings. Had the den mother's cruelty really been born of some twisted kindness? And, more worryingly, would Netya's time with the pack have been worse without it?

If not for Adel's offer of the herbs, would she have spent long nights awake agonising over whether to use them or not? Would the possibility of being in control of her future in such a way even have occurred to her? The den mother's gift, regardless of whether she chose to use it or not, had forced her to think about things she had previously never considered.

Her perplexity must have registered on her face, for it drew a look of cold satisfaction from Adel.

"The most important skill of a seer is to question these things, and open her mind to possibilities that are not seen by others. It does not matter whether you believe I guided you down the right path or not, only that you consider why I did it. The world is a complicated thing that few see for what it truly is, and the realm of the spirits even more so. These are all things you will learn as my apprentice."

"I still do not know why you chose me," Netya said. "The others say you have never taken an apprentice before. Why am I the first?"

Adel looked at her, studying the dark-haired girl with the eyes of a master craftsman appraising the stone that might one day be chipped into a tool unlike any other. "I considered taking an apprentice many times," the den mother said, "but these women are not of my pack. They have all grown to think of the spirits in their own way, and I cannot unmake a lifetime of learning. You have heard the visions Brae and the others pronounce as if they were proof of the future, glimpses into things far beyond the knowing of any person."

"I have, but many visions do not come to pass," Netya said. "Everyone understands this."

"No," Adel said sharply. "That is the way of thinking you must abandon if you are to learn from me. The wisdom of the spirits does not come from premonitions of the future. I will never convince the other seers of this, but you have been raised apart from their way of thinking. If you are willing to listen, I will teach you."

It was with much scepticism that Netya tentatively bowed her head. The den mother's own unique teachings, whatever they turned out to be, were certainly not what she had expected to be made privy to over the course of her apprenticeship. "Am I not to learn how to seek out visions, then?" she said.

"Any fool can witness a vision. You see them in your dreams every night, but it takes a seer to understand the wisdom that can be drawn from them. When you are ready, I will guide you to a place where you can listen to the whispers of the spirits more keenly."

"When will that be?"

"When I say so." Adel rose to her feet and walked to a rack of pouches, unhooking several of them before returning to her spot in front of Netya and hefting a flat stone slab between them. One by one, she emptied the contents of the small bags, berries and herbs and leaves. Some were familiar to Netya already, but many were not.

"First, you must learn your herbs," Adel said. "Even the simplest of minds can manage this with enough practice. Once you can tell all of them by sight and smell, I will teach you their uses, and then how to administer them. Until then you will not take any of these for yourself without permission. Many of our most powerful medicines can become poison in the hands of a clumsy apprentice."

Netya was not permitted to ask any more questions for the rest of the evening. Adel brought out her collection of plants a few at a time, making her new apprentice memorise their names before moving on to the next batch. There was little further discussion between the two of them, and every time Netya attempted to make conversation the den mother silenced her with a few sharp words, insisting that she focus on the task at hand.

Adel's strict manner was aggravating, but as the evening wore on Netya found little space to indulge her frustration as the list of plants she was expected to memorise grew longer and longer. There were so many of them, and most seemed so alike that she did not have the first clue how she was supposed to tell them apart.

Before long, Netya was so overwhelmed by the task that she could have focused on little else even if she tried. She repeated the list of plants over and over in her head, trying to remember what made each one distinct as Adel emptied the contents of more and more bags on the stone in front of her.

When it became too dark to see, she was given a brief respite to light the lamps and kindle the fire, trying not to allow the unsettling animal pelts to distract her as she repeated the list over and over under her breath.

It seemed like hours before they came to the final bag, and even then Adel claimed there were more plants she would have to learn in the days to come. When the den mother took a handful of leaves from one of the pouches and told Netya to identify it, she found herself unable. They tried again, with a different kind of plant, and once again the answer refused to come.

Each time she failed, Netya felt her cheeks burn hotter, realising that she had focused so hard on remembering the names that she had forgotten which plants they were linked to. Adel reprimanded her for every mistake, but it was the den mother's unspoken judgement that bothered Netya more. She wanted to prove she was capable of becoming a seer. Not just to her new mentor, but to everyone, herself included. Each failure, each contemptuous look from Adel, made her feel like a foolish child, an outsider, a girl suited only to warming the alpha's furs.

After a time, she managed to identify a few plants correctly, but those were mostly the ones she had already grown accustomed to gathering with Fern. By the time they finished, the night was old, and Netya was exhausted.

"Climb up and close the coverings," Adel instructed. "It may rain soon."

Careful not to slip, Netya gingerly used the natural footholds in the cave wall to make her way up until she reached the opening in the roof, peering out across the top of the outcrop until she found the section of the heavy, hide-covered frame that had been moved aside to let the light in. She almost fell as she heaved it back into place over her head. At Adel's instruction, she spent another few moments making sure the pieces of hide trailing from the edges were tucked and arranged properly, so as not to let any rain in.

Netya clambered back down, her mind feeling like stretched wool. She longed for the comfort of her furs.

"You will return tomorrow morning," Adel said. "And we will try this again until you learn."

Netya bowed her head wearily and shuffled out through the drapes, edging back through the pitch blackness of the tunnel until she found her way to the central cave. The other seers had all returned to their own private dwellings, though Netya knew only the most senior of them slept in the cave itself. A single elder dozed in the antechamber on the way out, propped up against the wall in a pile of furs in case anyone had need of the seers' services in the middle of the night.

Netya dragged herself back to her tent, finding Fern already asleep, and tucked herself into her bedding. She tried to keep running over the names of the plants in her head, but sleep soon eroded any attempt at memorising them.

Her first day of apprenticeship had not been as dangerous as fighting mountain cats, or surviving on her own in the wilderness, but it had certainly been no less exhausting.

—
29—

The Apprentice

The second day was just as taxing as the first. This time, Adel prepared a larger stone slab in the corner of her chamber for Netya to use, with many of the plants already laid out for her. As the day went on the den mother left her alone while she attended to her other duties, but every time Netya began to relax her mentor would appear again a moment later, demanding that she list off her herbs once more.

Despite how much there was to remember, Adel had been right when she said that even the simplest of minds could grasp it given enough time. All Netya had to do was fill her head with the names of all the plants over and over again until they stuck, and then connect those names to the contents of the bags around her. It was not so different from learning the language of the Moon People, and after a time she felt a familiar comfort in the routine.

Adel kept her at the task all day, allowing only two brief breaks for Netya to eat and relieve herself. By the time she was allowed to return to her tent it was well past sunset, and she had little energy to do anything but recount the first two days of her apprenticeship to Fern before curling up to sleep.

As the days went on, Netya gradually learned to recognise all of the herbs Adel had prepared for her, and when she hit a stumbling point where she could not tell one plant from another, the den mother showed her the various hidden ways in which she might identify them. Two leaves or roots that looked identical might have distinctly different smells or tastes, or subtle patterns in their size or way of growing that could be picked out by a keen eye. Certain plants, of course, were not safe to try and identify by taste, as Adel purposefully allowed Netya to learn when she began to chew on a small piece of freshly cut stem, only to spit it out a moment later when her mouth began to burn as if she had just tasted fire.

She had to endure the rest of the day with her tongue and part of her cheek swollen and stinging, but she could not deny the effectiveness of the lesson, regardless of how little it did to improve her attitude toward Adel.

After Netya's unpleasant encounter with the piece of stalk, the den mother showed her how she could peel back the outer part of that particular plant to see how it differed on the inside from its less harmful cousins.

Hour after hour, Netya's knowledge of herbs and medicine was drummed into her head. It was a relentless process, and Adel had no patience for how weary or distracted her apprentice became. One morning, when Netya slept longer than she had intended, the den mother arrived to drag her out of her furs in person, denying her even the chance to wash or eat before she was marched into the seers' cave and sat down in front of her plants again.

Only the focus of her work and her stubborn desire to prove herself kept Netya from objecting. If nothing else, her apprenticeship kept her from worrying over the problems that had hounded her for the past few months. With most of her days spent in the cave, she almost forgot that Vaya existed, and Khelt's continued absence meant that she barely spared a thought for the topics of love and motherhood.

More than a week had passed before Netya was finally allowed a day of partial rest. She entered Adel's chamber that morning to find her mentor engaged in an intent conversation with Hawk's mate, Essie, and when the two women looked up at her in surprise she could tell she had intruded on a serious matter. Before she could excuse herself, Netya recognised the distinct smell of the plants Adel was boiling over her fire, and her brow furrowed with concern.

"Do not worry," the den mother said to her guest, squeezing the woman's hand in reassurance. "Let me speak to my apprentice for a moment." She took Netya's arm and led her a short way down the passage outside, lowering her voice. "What happens within our cave is not for the ears of the rest of the pack. Do you understand?"

Netya nodded, but she was still agitated by what she had witnessed. "You were boiling the poison out of those sparrow roots."

"Yes," Adel said quietly, and her grip on Netya's arm became more gentle as she fixed her with a sombre look. "You remember what I told you it could be used for?"

"I do, but why? Hawk would—"

"He does not know his mate is carrying another child, nor shall he ever. I told him after Essie gave birth to their daughter that she might not survive a second pregnancy, but he still believes the spirits will be kind enough to give him a son before his mate grows too old."

Netya shivered. "You are going to help her lose the child?"

"It is too dangerous to let her keep it. She is very frightened, and it hurts her more than anything to deceive her mate, but it has to be done. I must stay with her all day to make sure the poison does its work."

Netya swallowed and looked to the drapes, her heart going out to the poor woman seated on the other side. It was a dark kind of magic that took away life before it even blossomed. These were the secrets the seers could never share with the rest of the pack. "I could stay to help," she said, but Adel shook her head.

"This is not something you should have to learn yet. Essie will be safe with me. Go about your own business today, and we will carry on your training tomorrow."