Bird finally dropped the subject. She rinsed off his hands and wrists and used the hem of her skirt to dry them. Pulling a small jar from her pocket, she uncorked it and smeared something onto the silver with her fingers.

He tried to pull away, but she had a tight grip on his wrist. “What’s that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Polish,” she said, rubbing the silver with a dry rag until it shone. She rubbed polish onto the other cuff. Han submitted, though he didn’t really want to call attention to them these days.

“Are you coming to my renaming feast?” Bird asked abruptly, her eyes still focused on her work.

He was surprised by the question. “Well, I’d planned to. If I’m asked.” It had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be. Bird’s family was prominent among the clans, since she was niece to the Marisa Pines matriarch. Bird’s coming-of-age would be celebrated with a huge party, and Han had been looking forward to it.

She nodded once, briskly. “Good.”

“It’s still a month away, right?” For Han, a month was an eternity. Anything could happen in a month. He never planned more than a day or two ahead.

She nodded again. “For my sixteenth name day.”

Finally letting go of his hands, Bird dropped her own into her lap. She extended her bare toes out from under her skirts, studying them. She wore a silver ring on her right small toe.

“Have you decided on your vocation?” Han asked.

Among the clans, boys and girls to the age of sixteen were expected to train in all skills, from hunting and tracking and herding and use of weapons to weaving and metalworking and healing and singing.

At sixteen they were reborn into their vocations and began apprenticeships. Everyone was required to have a trade, though clan notions of a trade were more flexible than in the city.

For instance, storytelling was a trade.

When Han realized Bird hadn’t answered, he repeated, “Have you decided on a trade?”

Bird looked up at him. “I’m going to be a warrior,” she said, giving him a steely eye as if daring him to object.

“A warrior!” He blinked at her, then blurted, “What does Willo say?”

“She doesn’t know,” Bird said, digging her toes into the rug. “Don’t tell her.”

Willo might be disappointed, Han thought. Having no daughter of her own, she probably hoped Bird would follow her as matriarch and healer. Even though Bird wasn’t exactly the nurturing type.

“How many warriors does Marisa Pines need?” he asked.

“I want to go to Demonai,” Bird said, hunching her shoulders.

“Really?” Bird was aiming high. The Demonai warriors were legendary fighters and hunters. It was said they could survive in the woods for weeks on wind and rain and sunlight. That one Demonai warrior was a match for a hundred soldiers.