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“Thonolan was born to Willamar’s hearth,” Marthona said, “born of his spirit, too, I’, even when he was a baby Is he still traveling?”

Ayla noticed again an indirectness to the questions Marthona asked, or sometimes didn’t ask but made clear nonetheless Then she recalled that Jondalar had always been a little disconcerted by the directness and frank curiosity of the Maht The people who called themselves the Mammoth Hunters, the people who had adopted her and whose ways she had struggled so hard to learn, were not the sah the Clan referred to all the people who looked like her as the Others, the Zelandonii were not the Mae that was different She would have to pay attention to differences in the way the Zelandonii did things, if she wanted to fit in here

Jondalar took a deep breath, realizing this was the time to tell his mother about his brother He reached over and took both of his mother’s hands in his “I’m sorry, mother Thonolan travels in the next world now”

Marthona’s clear, direct eyes, showed the depth of her sudden grief and sadness over the loss of her youngest son; her shoulders seemed to collapse from the heavy burden She had suffered the loss of loved ones before, but she had never lost a child It seemed harder to lose one that she had raised to adulthood, who still should have had the fullness of life before hi to htened her shoulders and looked at the son who had returned to her

“Were you with him, Jondalar?”

“Yes,” he said, reliving the tirief afresh “It was a cave lion … Thonolan followed it into a canyon… I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen”

Jondalar was fighting for control, and Ayla rerief overwhelmed him while she held hiuage then, but no language is needed to understand grief She reached over and touched his ar in the moment between mother and son It was not lost on Marthona that Ayla’s touch seemed to help He took a breath

“I have so to his traveling pack He took out a wrapped packet, then, thinking about it, took out another

“Thonolan found a woman and fell in love Her people called themselves Sharamudoi They lived near the end of the Great Mother River, where the river was so big, you understand why she was named for the Great Mother The Sharamudoi were really two people The Shamudoi half lived on the land and hunted chamois in the iant sturgeon in the river In the winter, the Raroup had a family of the other they were tied to, mated in a way They seemed to be two different people, but there were a lot of close connections between them that made them each a half of one people” Jondalar found it difficult to explain the unique and complex culture

“Thonolan was soto become one of them He became part of the Shamudoi half, when he mated with Jetamio”

“What a beautiful name,” Marthona said

“She was beautiful You would have loved her”

“Was?”

“She died trying to give birth to a baby ould have been the son of his hearth Thonolan couldn’t stand losing her I think he wanted to follow her to the next world”

“He was always so happy, so carefree…”