Welcome back to my post-apocalyptic novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! If you’re new to the story, please don’t be surprised that it’s paywalled. (See this post for tips on how you can now read the novel for free.) The Prologue and first three chapters are free, and you can start reading them here. The previous chapter, “New Plans,” is here.
The last chapter wrapped most things up, with Ada answering Jun’s questions and satisfying Sila’s concerns about the Great Sleeps. But Sila left Jun with a nagging question about the one last thing to make her happy, which will be answered here.
KITRAN stared at the crowd gathered for the pledging ceremony, a thing he hadn’t witnessed in many years, not since he’d stopped going to the Rendezvous. But this pledging was being held in the village. Just one of a thousand things that were different now. Two people from the same village pairing off, and the Wise Women blessing it, in the first place. And the two of them bonding with a third. That had never happened, as far as Kitran knew, yet there they were, the huntress, her newborn swaddled in a sling on her chest, Jun holding her hand on one side, and Ori, one of the girls who’d been following the huntress around all last spring and early summer, holding her hand on the other.
They all looked so happy, it didn’t seem fair. It seemed there was enough love to go around for everyone else, and some got more than their share. But none for him. And the huntress herself, looking so smug and satisfied, like a ferret that had robbed a bird’s nest.
And off to one side, there was Mar Gan, beaming like an idiot. No longer shunned. He’d tried talking to the old hermit once or twice. And people thought Kitran was crazy!
The ceremony ended and the drinking began. He turned away in disgust, tending to the squirrel he was roasting over a little fire in front of his ramshackle hut, shutting out the sounds of merriment.
Everything had changed back in the fall, when Jun and the huntress had returned from wherever they’d been—out beyond the Howling Forest, if what people said was true. They’d made it through, somehow. The Wise Women never would have allowed them back if the Goddess, Ada, hadn’t come with them.
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