The storage room was dark and empty when the Woman with No Face picked the lock and slipped inside. A long table stretched down the middle of the room, supporting five boxes specially made to hold the skeletal remains of a human body.
She shut the door quietly behind herself and flipped on the overhead lights. The work she did tonight required illumination of more than one kind. Light so she could see what she was about, yes, but also a revelation.
The youngest of the Seven, the People’s Light, was hidden no more. Slowly, the pieces fell into place one by one, moving the People inexorably toward a time the Woman had witnessed only in visions.
Their future.
She could feel it building within her, suffusing her bones with the same illuminating portent. The stage was set, the players were in place, and she had played her part well. Their time had come, the grand finale the People had anticipated for so long. Now it was left to Abragni to choose a path from among the many spread before her, and the Light would, with the help of the Great Mother, choose the correct way.
Blessed be Ki.
The Woman scrounged through some papers scattered on a table set against the far wall and located a marker. She had so few tasks left, so few visions left to fulfill. This small task, this labeling of the Sisters, she had left as long as she could. She had followed the progress of the women and men working here, encouraging them as she could, but she had foreseen a snag only she could correct: Science would not reveal the identities of the women resting here in these simple boxes. Only the Woman could do so now.
And so she quietly opened each box and discerned which Sister was which, not through any outward marking or sign, but by her inner voice, the Mother Goddess who had guided her for so many millennia. She worked until each box was marked correctly with the name of the Sister it held.
Lilleni. Eleni. Ganenda. Bagda. Marnan.
Five Sisters dead, one revealed, and one still hidden in the shadows.
The Woman closed the boxes and set the pen aside, then stood back and gazed at the boxes as memory pushed through the remnants of visions and war and a life lived too long without the camaraderie of another human being. Yes, it was almost time. Soon, the People would confront their age old enemy and shed the hardships of the past. Soon, she could rest as she had not for so very, very long, rest and perhaps die as she had wished so many times.
That, the Great Lady had never allowed.
The Woman dug a scrap piece of paper out of the untidy pile, sketched her symbol on it, and let it flutter to the floor. Let them know who had solved the mystery here. Let them fear the Woman’s coming one last time before the end.
The Woman touched each box in turn, then slipped out of the room, leaving her sisters to the peace they had earned so long ago.
Continue reading for a preview of the next book in the series.
* * * *
Thank you for reading The Gathering Storm (Daughters of the People, Book 6). If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review for it at .
For you, the reader.
Thank you for your patience during the long lull between books.
Lucy Varna lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northeast Georgia, surrounded by her large, extended family. Visit Lucy online at or , or visit .
The Daughters of the People Series
Daughters of the People Short Stories
The Sons of the People Series
The Cullowhee Heritage Series
The Pruxnæ Series
Coming Soon
Sweet Surrender (The Pruxnæ, Book 5)
Redemption (Daughters of the People, Book 6.5)
War’s Last Refuge (Daughters of the People, Book 7)
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* * * * *
A sneak peek of …
India Furia eased the curtain aside a mere fraction and stared out the cabin’s window at snow fluttering onto the empty, graveled parking area. Three weeks, she’d been there, trapped in this An-cursed wilderness with no one for company except a herd of deer, the occasional black bear, and, when he could get away, Hiro. Seven weeks since he’d rescued her from the clutches of that goody two shoes Rebecca Upton. Seven weeks since her sister Indigo, beloved above all, had submitted to the Blade’s Son and become mortal.
Which of those was more shameful escaped India in that moment. She flicked the curtain into place and paced away from the window’s temptation.
Hiro was late.
India stopped in the middle of the living room, her hands opening and closing into hard fists at her side. It’s not like she missed him or anything. He’d barely spoken to her since the day she’d woken in Hiro’s isolated getaway, handcuffed to his bed like the prisoner Rebecca had tried to make her.
Chained like a common criminal and, worse, confined in one of the cave-like cells hidden away in the deep, dank dark tunneling through the mountain housing the Archives in Tellowee.
India shuddered, shaking off the sheer terror tightening her spine. Never would she be a prisoner, bound by duty or force to the will of another. She’d rather die a hundred deaths.
And had suffered worse escaping just such a fate.
Two seconds later, she was at the window again, peering out into the frigid, late autumn landscape. Snow frosted the grass verging the forest surrounding the mountain cabin. Intrepid cardinals flitted through the pine, flashing hints of color among the grey-green tree trunks. The world outside was silent, serene, and entirely too rural for India’s taste.
Blessed Mother, where was he?
Her cellphone buzzed against the rustic coffee table sitting between the couch and the Navajo-patterned blanket thrown over its backrest, and the fire roaring in the woodstove. This phone was the one concession Hiro had made to her many demands for more freedom, the one lifeline she had to the outside world, but only because it led directly to him.
Sneaky bastard had wiretapped the damn thing. No matter who she called or texted, no matter what she did with it, he would know.
And that’s what she got for sleeping with a former Delta Forces Operator and current co-owner of a growing personal security business. For all she knew, he had bugs tucked into every nook and cranny of the cabin and was, even now, listening to her pacing back and forth across the oak floors in her socked feet.
The phone buzzed again, yanking her out of her growing irritation. She strode across the room and snatched it up, thumbed into the first text message she’d received, and stopped cold.
Finish it.
Satisfaction flooded into her. She deleted the message, dropped the phone onto the table. The drone of an approaching vehicle fluttered at the edge of her hearing. She crossed to the window and lifted the curtain, spotted Hiro’s SUV, and allowed herself a small smile.
Her little interlude with the Blade, and then with her rescuer, hadn’t alienated her as she’d feared. The job she’d left unfinished was waiting for her, and she fully intended to see it through, come Hell or high water, or any force that bitch Rebecca Upton chose to throw at her.
India dropped the curtain and stepped back, affecting an impatient expression for the man who had, for a brief time, been her lover.
Let the games begin.
to receive a notice of the release of
Redemption (Daughters of the People, Book 6.5).