Wild Winds tiredly stripped and curled up on his bedroll. Snowfall fussed as she carefully covered him completely with his furs, as if he were still ill. Still dying.

“So?” he asked sleepily, pulling the blankets to his shoulders. “What do you think of Simus?”

“I do not understand,” she said softly, dodging his question and his eyes. “Why you would send me from your side.”

Wild Winds rolled over onto his back, stretching under the bedding, then relaxing with a sigh as they warmed with his body heat. “Now it’s more important than ever.” He yawned. “And you are avoiding my question. Tell me your truths.”

“He is a handsome, strong warrior, taller than most. But Simus does not trust you.” Snowfall shrugged. “He does not trust us.”

“No reason that he should,” Wild Winds said. “One night will not change that. But I am still intent on my purpose. You must contest to be his Token-bearer.”

“You have seen to my training,” Snowfall countered, her voice crackling with pain. “You will need my help with the others.”

“No.” Wild Winds looked at her. “I need your help to win back the trust we lost with Hail Storm’s actions, for he has destroyed what the warrior-priests were. Now we must rebuild what we are, and how better than to offer one of our own to serve Simus? To learn more of the man who would stand at the side of one who would bring change to the Plains?”

“He is an arrogant, over-confident wind blowing over the Plains,” Snowfall blurted out. “Over-sure of himself, and rude as well.”

Wild Winds fought a smile. “You know so much of the warrior, having watched him listen to our truths?” He tucked his chin under the blankets, hiding his mouth.

“He is all bluster and charm, with no substance behind.” Snowfall glared at Wild Winds as she knelt beside his pallet. “You are my master and mentor and I have followed your ways in the dark times,” Snowfall snapped. “Now the magic is returned, and you are healed, and you say to me, ‘leave my side.’ I feel like the rain is falling up from the ground.”

Wild Winds pulled the blanket down from his mouth, and sat up. “Sit, Snowfall.”

Snowfall sat beside his pallet.

“The dead spoke to me, when they healed me. Three old friends, who had been my skull spirits,” he said.

“You freed them.” Snowfall’s eyes were wide.

“I did, but they returned to aid me.” Wild Winds smiled at the memory of them supporting him, speaking to him once again after long years.

Snowfall waited.

“They told me three things,” Wild Winds said. “And they bade me listen and learn well. That another battle looms.”

Still she waited, silent and patient.

“‘Magic is a blade that cuts both ways.’” Wild Winds could almost hear the echo of his friends’ voices as he spoke. “‘That which was taken is restored. That which was imprisoned is now freed.’” Wild Winds sighed. “‘Embrace the old. Preserve the new.’”

“Master.” Snowfall’s tone was a gentle one. “You were ill and—”

“No.” He shook his head. “They are my trusted friends, and while the words are cryptic, they are a warning. Since that moment, I have had this feeling of dread. The dead and the power that has returned are trying to warn me, but I do not have the gift to fully understand.” He rubbed his face with his hand, his tiredness returning. “The Eldest Elder before me told me that in the ancient days there were Seers of the Plains. Ones who could foretell the future. Who knows? Perhaps those gifts will return to us as well, but how will we learn to use them?”

“You are tired.” Snowfall reached for his blankets. “You should—”

“Who else can speak words of peace, Snowfall?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

“The warrior-priests who supported Hail Storm have paid for it with their lives,” Wild Winds continued. “Keir of the Cat would think that a good start, and were he here I fear he might be tempted to kill us all. But Keir’s Warprize seems more open to us.” He thought back on his meeting with that young woman, and nodded. “And I believe that Simus and Joden, the would-be Singer, would also consider our truths.”

Snowfall’s face had fallen back into its usual, impenetrable mask. But he could see that she was considering his words.

Wild Winds sighed. “This has all been too much, too soon. We will speak of this—” Another yawn caught him off guard.

“Sleep,” Snowfall commanded. “We will speak of this later, Master.”

“We will,” Wild Winds said firmly before he closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off.

 

 

Snowfall set herself the task of cleaning the outer tent, gathering dishes and piling up the gurtle pads. She was far too wound up for sleep.

But as even as her hands moved in familiar tasks, her thoughts raced like galloping horses, ranging over the Plains.

She’d been so proud to be selected as warrior-priestess at her Rite of Ascension, so many years ago. Proud to learn the power of her gifts, and how to use them with the limited resources the land offered. Wild Winds had explained, taught, encouraged her and Lightning Storm together.

But the powers of the warrior-priests had been in sharp decline for years and were continuing to fade as the small amount of power in the Plains was being consumed.

That aspect of being a warrior-priestess never sat well with her. The arrogance adopted by most, and the deceit of the true extent of their powers. Given that she was still in training, she’d had limited contact with warriors. Only those that had their full upper-body tattoos walked freely within the Tribes and were permitted to go to war. But still, her training was to conceal, to hide, and never show weakness or emotion.

She glanced at the colorful designs on the tops of her shoulders, and ran a hand over the green and black vine pattern. Would they ever be completed now?

The camp around her was settling for the afternoon, with many seeking sleep. Over by the tent of Simus of the Hawk, a hunting party was forming. The wind brought their words to her ears, talk of a herd of deer close at hand.

Snowfall bent over the washing tubs, using sand and hot water to clean the mugs and bowls they’d used. She could feel those warriors’ eyes upon her, regarding her suspiciously. No special gift of power was needed to feel their confusion, and the weight of their mistrust.

Would one of them come forward, to talk to her? Why would they, when all they had known of warrior-priests was contempt and disdain?

Even before the Sacrifice, Wild Winds had asked her to seek out Simus of the Hawk and serve him as Token-bearer. The fact that he would be entering the Trials this Spring had long been known. Wild Winds felt that it was important that Simus come to understand warrior-priests, since he felt that the mind and heart of Keir of the Cat was filled with hatred of their ways.

Was her master right?

Snowfall reached for more mugs and bowls, and scrubbed each thoroughly before setting them out to dry in the grass.

She’d no desire to leave her master. Now that the Plains was awash in the power—

She paused for a moment, letting herself see the golden glow that lay within the land, pulsing softly, like a long, slow heartbeat. For a moment she considered how one could use it to wash dishes, and then chided herself at the idea. Foolish to waste power in such a way.

Besides, washing gave her time to think. To consider Wild Winds’s position.

The hunting party mounted their horses, and set off at a trot. A weight lifted from her shoulders with their departure.

She glanced at the tent again, considering the man who slept within. Simus was handsome, certainly. Tall, muscular, dark, with a bright smile. But he knew it well, and she wrinkled her nose at his manner. Loud, boisterous, and with an arrogance of his own, much like elder warrior-priests. Snowfall allowed herself a slight quirk of her mouth. He’d expressed his interest in her body with his eyes, and she’d ignored him. She doubted Simus of the Hawk was used to being spurned.

Yet her tattoos had reacted to his presence. Snowfall winced inside. At some point she would have to share that with her master. She knew full well he’d use it to support his argument.

Snowfall sighed, and reached for another bowl. Wild Winds’s insistence that she leave his side felt like he was rejecting her. Now that the power had returned, now that they could use their gifts freely, they could relearn all that had been lost. And yet, he would send her away.

A yawn caught her off guard. Enough thought. She turned back to her work, and finished quickly. Her own tiredness was stalking her now, and she would need to wake soon enough to prepare the evening meal.

The last of the bowls done, she cleaned the cooking area, and stood to stretch. She’d enough time to catch some sleep before—

Movement caught her eye. Lightning Strike was coming, running hard. He ran up to her, with an apologetic look. “Wake the Eldest Elder. There is something he needs to see.”

“He’s weary, as are we all,” Snowfall said, frowning. “Won’t it wait—”

“No.” Lightning Strike shook his head. “It’s Mist.”

 

 

Wild Winds stood over Mist’s body, sprawled in the center of her ruined tent. His old friend had made her choices, but it struck hard to see her cold and lifeless. She’d told him that she would seek the snows, but something was wrong—

“I couldn’t sleep,” Lightning Strike said. “I thought to seek her out, since she was special to you, Eldest Elder. I found—”

“Mist.” Wild Winds knelt and reached out to take her left hand as he called her name in a ritual as old as the Plains themselves.

“She didn’t die at her own hand,” Lightning Strike pointed out in a low voice.

Wild Winds looked at the wounds that had been inflicted on her, by a sword nowhere to be seen. But as he touched her cold flesh, his skin crawled. There was a taint on her body, of a life drained with foul intent.

“Blood magic,” he whispered.

Lightning Strike and Snowfall both stiffened, their hands on their weapons. Snowfall scanned the area, her eyes narrowing.

“Mist,” Wild Winds called again, as the ritual required, taking her right ankle in his hand. “Mist, Elder of the Warrior-Priests, answer me.”

Silence, her eyes lifeless and unseeing, stripped of her tattoos.

“Mist,” he called twice again, grasping her left ankle and hand and when silence was his only answer, he leaned over her, and closed her eyes. He stood and looked out over the Plains that now contained a new danger.

“Hail Storm lives?” Snowfall asked softly.

“Hail Storm lives,” Wild Winds confirmed.

 

 

Hail Storm crawled under the cover of some low aspens, by a creek bed that ran fast and cold. He lowered his swollen forearm into the water, and hissed as it covered the angry red scratches. He looked about, fearing he’d been overheard, but the area was clear.

Curse them, curse them all: the Sacrifice, his Token-bearer, and that damned animal of theirs that had injured him so. His rage was greater than his pain, and his pain was fierce.

The four scratches ran the length of his forearm, deep and sore. He’d let them bleed, and the cool water helped leach out some of the heat, but it seemed to him that the red was moving up his arm. His fingers felt fat and swollen. It had been hard to grip the hilt of the sword when he’d killed Mist.

At least he’d been able to use her death. Drain her life force to add to his reserve of magic. And that was where the injury was the deepest. Far worse than the loss of his rank, pride, and tattoos. Far worse than his inability to summon a horse, for even that he could deal with.

Hail Storm clenched his jaw, taking up a handful of sand to scrub the pus from his wounds. The pain of his body was incredible, but not more so than what he suffered now. No. The very worst was the magic pulsing in the land, magic that he had once been able to reach out and touch. Drain. Use.

Now the power fled before him, even as he reached, faster even than the horses that avoided his presence. All he had now were the reserves he’d created from the blood magic he’d practiced.

He would have wept, but that his rage filled him with hate. For Wild Winds, for Keir of the Cat, and for any who supported them.

The water had cooled his arm, but it still pulsed with pain. He grunted, tempted once again to try to use magic to heal it. But every time he tried to focus his will to such a thing, the power would slip from his grasp, as if it opposed the healing. He’d waste no more on another attempt.

He pulled his arm out, and knelt down to drink deeply, feeling hot and dry. He’d managed to escape from the Heart without being seen, and he’d make sure to stay under cover. But he still had allies. Still had options. He’d wait for darkness, and find them.

The stars would show him the way to the camp of Antas of the Boar.

There he’d find welcome. Food, drink, rest, and aid for his vengeance.