“Kirit,” said Lord Radas. “Remember what I told you. She’s not one of us. She must be killed, so we can remain safe. We need your strength added to ours.”

She turned the mirror to reveal her own white face and blue eyes.

“In their actions, we see the truth of what they have become,” said the girl. “You are not Guardians, seeking justice. You are demons. I will not be one of you.”

She reined her horse around.

Marit tugged on Warning’s mane, ducked as the mare opened a wing, and jumped up belly-down over the saddle. Yordenas grabbed at her, and she kicked hard, connecting with flesh, hearing him grunt and stumble backward. Lord Radas’s arrow jabbed her shoulder, but Warning, once she knew she was going to get her way, nipped and kicked to force a way to the entrance. Kirit crossed the threshold and clattered down the ramp. Marit cleared the door as the other horse took wing, bearing west-southwest over the Lesser Istri.

What if it had been Hari, instead of Kirit? Eiya! Would he have resisted, or joined the others and betrayed her? Killed her?

Spreading her wings, Warning leaped into the sky while below the hundreds gathered in Justice Square shouted and wept, their voices rising as if it was their cries that lifted her.

51

In the settlement, men and women ringed the council square, weaving a song to accompany the bridal couples who walked a circuit of the seven altars to present offerings to the gods.

A garland of flowers.

A handful of rice.

Nai, wrapped in se leaves.

Silk as your banner.

Build a house! Build a house!

Walk this path into the next day.

Flowers were hard to come by in the Barrens, even during the rainy season, but the reeves on training sweeps had discovered the lush valley hidden deep in the foothills mentioned by the envoy. With so many marriages waiting on a proper feast day, and every person in the settlement dreaming of a festival to interrupt the steady grind of labor, Mai had asked the reeves to fetch the appropriate offerings and assigned a propitious day after consultation with holy priests from the temples in Olossi.

She stood on the porch of the house with Anji, fanning herself as they watched the procession wind away from the benches. Twenty-seven couples in turn offered spikes of purple twilight-stupor at the flat boulder sacred to Hasibal. Bright red blooms of blood-star and falling-shields woven into necklaces draped the stone walls of the Thunderer’s enclosure. They strewed petals beneath the Herald’s gate, a path from west to east. The procession, accompanied by the singers, continued down to the market square.