You look, you think, Oh, just an old woman, so you talk, talk, talk, and all the while her wormy white roots sink into you. Look at you now, like a fat grub from under a rotting log. You will never be a warrior. And you will ever belong to her. She will puff you up full with her magic, and when you are full, you will do whatever her magic makes you do. Or maybe you have already done it. Has the magic turned you against your own people?” He laughed triumphantly and pointed a crooked finger at me. “Look at you! I didn’t need to kill you. Better to leave you alive. Think. Is there a better revenge on your father? Fat one! You belong to the Dappled People now.

You’ll never be a soldier. Your father put iron in me to kill my magic. But I had enough magic left in me to give his son to my other enemy. I had enough magic to make my enemies become the enemies of each other.

Long after I am dead, you will fight and kill one another. The corpses you make will pile up at my feet in whatever afterlife I am banished to.”

I cannot describe how his words affected me. I had expected him to profess ignorance of everything I said. I hadn’t wanted him to admit that somehow we had shared that dream, and that he recalled as clearly as I did what the Tree Woman had done to me. He had just confirmed my worst fears. A terrible cold welled up inside me. I crossed my arms on my chest and held myself tightly, afraid I would start shivering. The last walls inside me were breaking; it felt as if cold blood were leaking inside my gut.

I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering. My heart thundered in my chest. Then, out of that turmoil, a terrible black calm emerged in me. I spoke in a soft voice I scarcely recognized.

“You still lost, Kidona. You lost to her and you lost to me. I went to your Dancing Spindle. I am the one who put the iron in the Spindle’s path. I am the one who destroyed the Plains magic. You can no longer draw on its strength. I made you an old man. It is done, Kidona. Done forever. You cling to shreds and threads, but the fabric is gone. And I come here tonight to tell you, I am the one who tore it from your people and left you cold and shivering in the dark. I, Soldier’s Boy of the People. Look at me, Dewara. Look at the end of your magic and your folk.”