“Chaska, Ashaun, Osha—come here a second,” Ysabet called quietly from the shadow of the basalt cleft.
The three women left the snow sketch and walked over. When Chaska saw the milky mineral sap crusted along the moss-cloak bindings on Pip’s antlers and the way the creature was wedging its brow against the freezing stone, she stopped short and let out a low breath.
“Why didn’t it tell us the pressure was building?” Chaska asked, reaching into her pack for a handful of dry clean moss from their spare pouch. “We could have wrapped an extra dry layer over the splits before we climbed into the glare.”
“Because every time Pip tells us its head hurts or its shell feels a current, we immediately ask it to find the safe road, or catch the falling bird, or ground the lightning,” Ysabet said. She sat down slowly on a flat stone beside Pip, wincing once as her left ribs pulled under the linen wrap, and rested her good left hand palm-up on her knee.
She looked straight at Pip’s two amber eyes.
“Listen to me, Pip,” Ysabet said in a plain, unhurried voice. “I am sorry. Ever since Little Harbor and the storm-crow bridge, we’ve acted as if anything your body can feel is a tool you owe the group. You thought if you told us your antlers were hurting in the snow, we would make you lead us through the avalanche chutes or force you to decide between Chaska’s ravine and…
