Other memories elbowed forward. Mac Gillen, the renegade officer who’d carried her off, had, in a peculiar twist of fate, saved her life. She’d killed him and had taken his horse. But they’d waited for her at the pass and chased her down the long slope into a canyon, until a bolt had flung her from her horse. She’d managed to kill one more, but the poison was spreading, she was growing weak, and they were closing in. And then…

When she closed her eyes, she saw a familiar face, lit by torchlight, sculpted by pain, a landscape of high cheekbones, long straight nose, intense blue eyes, framed by fair hair.

Han Alister. He’d intruded into her personal nightmare somehow. It didn’t make any sense. She’d left Han back in Oden’s Ford. As far as she knew, he was still there, thinking she’d abandoned him.

She shivered, remembering the burn of his hands against the cold, spreading stain of poison, and the power that bled into her, thawing the frozen places.

She’d fought with him. She’d tried to escape into oblivion, but he’d followed her, breached her defenses, and…and what? They’d intertwined, joined together like fire and ice, and he’d sheltered her from the insidious cold.

She’d never felt safer—she’d never felt more alive than when she lay dying in Han Alister’s arms.

There was something—something about her ring. He’d taken her ring from her. She lifted her hands, and the wolf ring was right where it belonged, on the forefinger of her right hand.

So maybe it had been a dream, she thought, disappointed. She’d meant to die with his face before her, and she’d hallucinated the rest.

That should have been reassuring, but all she knew was that now she felt empty. Bereft. Alone as she’d never been before. There was something else—something lurking in the back of her mind. Something she didn’t want to remember.

Raisa pushed up on her elbows, suddenly aware of a raging thirst and a crashingly bad headache. The women by the fire must have been watching, because two of them rose, setting aside their needlework, and came and knelt next to the pallet.

One of them was her grandmother, Elena Demonai, Matriarch of Demonai Camp. The other was Willo Watersong, healer and Matriarch of Marisa Pines Camp. Raisa had met her at the renamings and other feast days during her time fostering at Demonai.

Both women were dressed in white—white woolen shawls and white-cured deerskin shirts and long full skirts. Worry shivered down Raisa’s backbone. White was the color of mourning among the clans.

“Granddaughter, it’s good to see you open your eyes,” Elena said. “You’ve slept for three days.”