Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon by Sue Harrison Page B

let you live, though most girls would have been left to the wind spirits." 

      A few days before, if her father would have spoken to her for such a long time, Kiin would have kept her eyes lowered, her head bowed, but now she saw the uncertainty in the man, and felt the strength of her own spirit, pressing against the walls of her heart, pulsing with the beat of her blood. And so she did not look away, but kept her eyes open, locked with his eyes, so his spirit knew she was growing strong. 
    "Yes," she said. "I will stay in Kayugh's ulaq." And she said the words without stammering, as though the decision was her decision and nothing to do with what her father wanted. 
    Gray Bird raised his chin and thrust out his chest. "You will bring food to us," he said. "When Kayugh or your husband or your husband's brother takes a seal, you will ask for a share for your father," he said. 
    Kiin stood and moved a step closer to her father. She straightened to her full height and realized that she was nearly as tall as he was. Anger smoothed her throat, pulled her words into long lines that flowed easily from her mouth. "If you need food," she said, "I will ask Kayugh." 
    Her father smiled, and the smile tightened his thin lips and made the string of hair that hung from his chin tremble. He nodded. 
    But then Kiin added: "I will not have my mother starve." 
    Gray Bird blinked, and for a moment, the muscles of his arms tensed and he raised one hand, but Kiin did not move. Let him hit her. She would show Samiq the bruises, tell him to lower the price he had offered for her. Perhaps then she could become a wife more quickly, without waiting through one summer and maybe another for the skins to be gathered. 
    But then she heard the call from the beach, the high trilling of women's voices, and her father turned away and climbed from the ulaq. 
    "They have seals," he called down to her, and Kiin was surprised he would tell her. 
    She waited until she was sure he had time to walk to the beach, then she slipped into her suk and climbed from the  ulaq, pausing at the top to count the ikyan. Yes, all the men were back. Samiq's and Amgigh's ikyan were towing seals. 
    The hunters had taken four fur seals. Big Teeth and First Snow had killed one together, both men's harpoon heads in the seal's flesh. Samiq had one, as did Kay ugh and Amgigh. Qakan had taken nothing. 
    Chagak, Crooked Nose and Red Berry began butchering, but Blue Shell and Kiin waited. They held their women's knives in their hands, ready but unable to help until asked. Otherwise, it would appear that they claimed a kill for their ulaq. But soon Chagak turned toward them and gestured toward the seals Amgigh and Samiq had dragged up the beach. 
    Kiin smiled, and for a moment let her eyes meet Samiq's eyes, but to her surprise, he looked away and said gruffly, "You should take Amgigh's seal." 
    She turned from Samiq and she let herself smile into Amgigh's eyes. What did it matter which seal she took? she asked herself. They were brothers, and a wife to one brother was often considered second wife to the other, cooking for both, sewing for both. 
    She began cutting, working quickly to separate the hide from the carcass until she was ready to call the other women to help her turn the seal and continue the skinning. 
    When she looked up she realized that Amgigh had stayed beside her. "Give the flipper meat and fat to your father," he said, then left to join the men as they inspected their ikyan for tears or gaps in the seams. 
    The flipper meat and fat—the best part—to her father? Kiin watched Amgigh walk across the beach, and her stomach suddenly twisted as though she had eaten the most sour of lovage stems. Why had Samiq told her to skin Amgigh's seal? Why did Amgigh give a gift of meat to her father? Surely she was not to be bride to Amgigh. Samiq was the older of the two brothers. Besides, Samiq had made her the necklace. 
    She clasped the beads at her neck and