Yari lit a torch and cursed. A path led up a steep incline. The red that Awa had spied was a flame bush glowing in a sunlit opening. Isra waved everyone off their barge. Bal leapt ashore and helped unload supplies. Two other barges bumped land and more torches were lit. Light didn’t help Awa figure out where they were. Cold, hungry people tromped on elephant-skin stone and grumbled. Awa gathered Yari’s books and stumbled off the barge. They had more books than usual, brought from a secret cache for the ceremony.

“Quit pouting,” Isra whispered to Yari. “Sprites have gone out scouting since the gorge—why not let a few cross over early?”

“You insisted they were ready to scout, not me,” Yari replied.

“But you led them into danger,” Isra said. “You risked their lives.”

“You brought Jod into the enclave and he has your heart.” Yari frowned. “Jod draws spirit from elsewhere. He could end up a lapsed Elder.”

Like Father? Jod was a pain, but not—“Someone who knows us and hates us and works against who we are?” Awa blurted this.

Isra put a hand to vie’s lips, crossing fingers then flicking them in the air to say, “Just between us.” Clumsy hand-talk. Vie gestured at Yari, “Better to find out Jod’s true spirit before he sits in a circle of Elders.”

Awa headed back for a second load of books. She would never tell Jod that Yari had doubts. In fact, she never spoke to Jod. He brushed her off like dust from his boot on the way to fussing with Bal. Jod and Bal fought over anything. Jod was bigger and stronger than Bal, and thought he was smarter than everybody, but Bal was more skilled. She used his strength and arrogance against him.

Jod’s Aido cloth always unraveled—he was a worse weaver than Awa and never carried shade with him. Bal could disappear in bright sun, like Isra, Yari, and the best Elder shadow warriors. Jod called Bal’s skill cheating. Isra broke up fights between them before Jod suffered inglorious defeat or called in Cal and Neth for an ambush. Jod claimed ambush by his friends wasn’t cheating.

Yari thought most fights were a waste of spirit. Vie scolded Bal for letting Jod bait her and Jod for letting Bal make him itch and steam and lash out. Bal never picked a fight with Jod. She just never backed down when he picked one with her. Bal being Bal made Jod want to fight. Why was Bal to blame?

Awa rehearsed a speech to argue with Yari: We have to stand up for who we are. She was always arguing in her mind with Yari, never face-to-face like Isra. She caught her foot on a root and tripped, Yari’s books slipping from her arms.

“Let me help you,” Jod said, rushing toward her.

“I can manage.” Awa scowled at him, suspicious.