“Aren’t you glad Suless is dead?” Her gaze was thoughtful. “But it’s hard to stamp out a religion. People still practice the old ways, hold hyenas and bears as sacred because Suless and Cherthog claimed those animals as their symbols. Men still marry off their daughters as soon as they can too. They probably don’t even remember that once the practice derived from a desire to keep girls from being offered to the witch-queen—and being sacrificed and used against them.”

“That’s barbaric. Let me guess—the sacrifices were left out in the cold.”

“Yes, to be claimed by the snow hyenas or worse. Suless ate babies. Ask anyone. I have my doubts that’s really true. The old stories never said where the witch-mothers came from. You see, Suless used to have these priestesses—witches, naturally—whom she crafted from snow and would send to marry chieftains who pleased her.”

I scoffed. “Crafted from snow?”

“Now I think she was taking all those sacrificed girls and raising them herself, before sending them back among the clans as her own personal enforcers and secret police. After all, if Suless really had been able to create witches out of frozen water, Yor wouldn’t have lost the war.”

“What happened to the witch-mothers then?” I thought of Bikeinoh’s claim that Wyrga was the last.

“Quur killed them all, of course.” She waved a hand. “Decades ago, long before you were born.”

“Yet if the witch-mothers have been gone for decades, someone had to show Veixizhau how to sacrifice me to Suless.”

“Is that who did it?” She smiled. “Now I could be wrong. Maybe you were just dumped outside to freeze to death because Veixizhau was jealous, but you said she found your maiden status interesting. Her reasons for that interest wouldn’t be the same as a man’s, so I’m jumping to conclusions. Hug the wall to the left. Whatever you do, avoid wandering too close to the cave mouth on the right.”

“Why, what’s in there?” The rays of the lantern cast long shadows into the opening.

“Death.” She pointed to a place where the cave opened into a medium-sized room. Blue smoke hovered on the ground to the opening’s right.

I straightened. “I’ve seen that smoke before.”

“Then you know how dangerous it is.” She pointed down the left passage. “This way is safe.”

I stepped to the left. I didn’t need any explanation to know to avoid the right-hand passage. I’d recognized the witch-smoke we’d encountered in Mereina.

As she walked, the cave path smoothed out and became something more finished and navigable.

“Stay left. We’re passing another dangerous cavern.”