Her mouth opened, and closed. The smooth lines of her face cracked as she hunched her shoulders. For the space of a breath he thought she would scream, or faint. Then she moaned, a low sound of despair, the worst cry in the world for being so weak.

“She lost her mirror, so she is dead. Don’t make me remember her.” Although she trembled, she could not release the mirror. It would swallow her, and she would awaken in truth.

How he hated himself for what he had done, even knowing he had no choice.

The trembling in her hand passed into her body, a palsy shuddering through her. Grief is an anvil on which you are beaten, beaten, beaten. We cry for many things, but there are sorrows that lie beyond tears. Sometimes it is easier to look away, and when you are forced to recognize the hammer as it descends, all you can do is wait for the impact that will shatter you.

“Let her stay dead!” she cried.

The hammer fell.

PART FOUR: GIFTS

In the Western Grasslands Beyond the Hundred (Four Years Earlier)

21

ONE NEVER KNOWS what gifts a stranger brings.

“There’s nothing of interest in our lineage or possessions or grazing lands to cause a man of his tribe to wish to marry into ours,” said Kirya to her cousin, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she was sorry she had said it that way.

Mariya dabbed at teary eyes with her free hand. Three tiny beautiful beaded nets were cupped in her other palm.

“Nothing besides you, I mean,” added Kirya hastily. She looked away, toward the eastern horizon, measuring the curve of the sun’s back as it rose.

“He didn’t have to give me this gift,” said Mariya. “He told me his aunt would speak with my mother at the confluence.”

“Mari, be practical. In our entire tribe we have nine hands of sheep, four hands of goats, and five horses. Three proper tents. He’s born to a daughter tribe of the Vidrini lineage. Who are we to even think of bringing a son of that lineage into our tents? We can’t possibly pay the marriage price. We’ve no son of our own tribe old enough to make a marriage across the lines in exchange, if they would even take one.”

“You don’t know anything about his tribe, or his mother and aunts. Or what they want.”

Kirya took the beaded nets out of her cousin’s hand and twisted them onto the tails of Mariya’s three dark braids, a seal binding the loose ends. “There, you look very pretty.”

Mariya unhooked her polished bronze mirror from her belt and regarded her blurry reflection with a frown, a piece of vanity that made Kirya sit back on her heels. “Mother will scold me,” she said, heedless of the impiety of admiring her looks in the holy mirror.

“She scolds everyone. We’d best get moving, or we’ll miss our chance.” She took the mirror out of Mari’s hand and hooked it back on the belt.