“Of course there is! The hawk flies after the deer and before the ox.”

“Ah! A Crane, then.” With the turn of the year, she had made nineteen years.

“What is a crane?”

“The crane is a bird. She is orderly, cautious, honest, and kindhearted. Yet once Cranes have developed an opinion of somebody, it is difficult for them to change it. What is your name, lass, so I may call you something?”

“Kirya,” she said, still playing with the opening and closing of her hand, the word tossed carelessly.

“Kirya, eh?” It was a workable name; so many foreign names were simply impossible. “Dedicated to the Fire Mother at birth.”

“Not fire!” Fragile lines of confidence deepened as she frowned disapproval. “Fire is sacred to the gods. It is not for us to claim we are part of the gods.”

“How can we be separated from the land, and the land from the gods?” He had lost her. “Maybe so, yet in our country the name Kirya will be understood as partaking of fire.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a Fire-born name. If you don’t like it—eh, had you a pet name your family called you?”

“Kiri.”

“That’s a man’s name. Water-born. Yet what of this? Water-born, you would be Kirit. How do you like that?”

“Kirit.” She rolled it on her tongue as she might test the flavor of spiced barsh.

“A Water-born Crane, orderly in its nature but made adaptable by its heart of Water. Born in the Year of the Red Crane, which adds energy and intensity to your nature, and also—well, let’s leave that for another time. The Red Crane is known to be passionate in its opinions, and ruthless in its quest for justice if an injustice had been done.”

The wind soughed and the fire slumbered, popping once, ash settling. The clouds were shredding to bits on the peaks, and in the east the stars began to fade into a gloom presaging day.

Blinking, she said, “Why do you talk so much?”

He laughed. “Because I am a Water-born Blue Rat, dedicated to Ilu, the Herald. Also, there is so much to say. Here, now, let me tell you the Tale of the Guardians again. That is the best place to start.”

But she rose as the twilight before dawn, mist-silver cloak flowing around her. She paced along the rim of the height, below which the slope was so slick with rubble that a single step would send you plunging. With her head turned eastward, she scanned lands broken by furrows and gullies and the occasional tabletop plateau, that sloped to the mantle of darkness marking the distant sea. Returning, she saddled Seeing. When he realized she was loading all her gear into the saddlebags and leaving his particular things behind, he scrambled to pack.

“Kirit. Where are you going?”

The girl who had ridden into demon land to redeem her brother was not about to let one useless man’s blithering objections rein her in.