Blood of the Gods

Book 2: The Ascension Cycle

by David Mealing

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

The battle is over, but war lies ahead in the second book of the epic fantasy trilogy that pits humans against gods in a contest for the fate of the world.

The battle for the city is over, but the aftermath of a revolution is never simple...

Sarine begins to experience visions, ones which make her dragon familiar sicker every day. Erris pushes toward conquest and the need to expand her territory and restore her power. And, exiled from his tribe, Arak'Jur apprentices himself to a deadly master.

Faced with the threat of a return to the days of darkness, the heroes begin to understand the depth of the sacrifices required from them. To protect their world, they'll have to stand and fight once more.

Read this second book in this gripping, vibrant, and imaginative addition to the epic fantasy canon for readers of Brandon Sanderson, Brian McClellan, and Miles Cameron.

The Ascension Cycle

Soul of the World

Blood of the Gods

Release date: August 21, 2018

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 736

Sample

The Belle and Brine

Market District, New Sarresant

Music drifted through the tavern’s windows and into the street. Would-be drunks and revelers nodded to her as she approached, a row of red faces eyeing her as she walked through the cold spring air. She did her best to ignore them, pressing on until the signage above the tavern door was clear: a painted girl, half-naked and staring at a single wave meant to stand for the sea. The Belle and Brine, and she’d waited for sundown precisely for the cover of a crowd in case the next few minutes turned to violence.

“Anything?” she asked in a whisper directed toward her collar, though she knew Zi could be anywhere, or nowhere, and hear her all the same.

No, her companion thought back. An ordinary night.

She nodded, and stepped back as the tavern doors swung wide, revealing a man in a soldier’s coat and a woman clearly more sober than he was holding him by the arm. Sarine stepped aside, letting them pass into the street, and wove around them before the doors could shut, admitting herself into the common room.

The music redoubled as she crossed the threshold, five players on an elevated stage and ten times as many nodding heads and drumming on tables in rhythm to the tune. No smells of meat or spices from the kitchens, only pipe smoke, sweat, and the tang of beer, wine, and ale, but those were enough to fill any space left between the music and shouted conversations carried on over top of the players’ work. A few eyes tracked her as she moved through the press, but nothing to suggest they knew her, by sight or by description. She’d have Zi’s warnings if any among them tried Red, the kaas’ gift to move quicker than she might have seen, but she snapped a Life tether in place all the same, feeling green motes drawn into her to sharpen her senses as she moved toward the bar.

Taking an empty seat by herself drew attention from some of the men sitting along the counter, though it took leaning forward and a beckoning gesture to bring the barkeep.

“Wine?” he asked, already reaching for a bottle and glass.

“No,” she said quickly. “Lodgings. For me, and for a few trunks of personal effects.”

“This is a tavern, not a boardinghouse.”

“I have it on good authority you’re lodging an associate of mine.” She lowered her voice, leaning in. “Along with a store of books, scrolls, and the like. Am I mistaken?”

The barkeep’s doubt blossomed into a scowl, and a glance toward her hands. Any number of patrons might have worn the same white gloves, even indoors, but her question would have prodded him toward suspecting the very marques that were present on her skin. Binder’s marques, blue and silver, tattooed over scars to signify her skill working with leylines and the noble blood, or the noble patronage it took to afford them.

“Fuck off, my lady,” the barkeep said.

“Zi?” she said, this time not bothering to direct it to her collar.

Yellow light flashed at the edges of her vision, then green.

Yes, Zi thought to her. Green’s been used here. His thoughts are bound.

Her heart thrummed. “Can you—?”

Already done.

“Let’s start over, then,” she said. “Lodgings. My friend. And more important—the books and scrolls.”

The barkeep’s scowl had melted, though evidently even Zi’s Green couldn’t entirely erase the man’s look of suspicion and doubt.

“That’s right,” the barkeep said. “Upstairs, behind my offices. He rented the room some weeks past. Made a bloody right sty of it, as I see it. Papers and other such nonsense everywhere.”

So, a he. The first confirmation she’d had that the kaas-mage she was tracking was a man. By now a few of the other patrons at the bar had taken notice of her exchange with the barkeep, though Gods send they thought no more of it than an exchange of business or information.

“Just as well he’s come back,” the barkeep was saying. “Bloody time he clean the place. I’d as soon have my quarters back, praise the Exarch for a little sense.”

“He’s here now?” she asked, feeling a tinge of fear. Even the little Yellow and Green Zi had used would serve as a beacon if the man was close enough to have his kaas give warning.

Blessedly, the barkeep shook his head. “Haven’t seen him tonight, but at least he’s in the city. Bloody well vanished for weeks after he took the room, though. Had half a mind to dump the whole lot of his effects in the sewers and keep the coin. Come to think on it, I’ve not an inkling why I didn’t do it.” He frowned. “Bloody well should have done.”

“I’ll have the key, then,” she said. “If it’s locked.”

“’Course it’s locked,” the barkeep said, fishing on his belt for a ring and producing an iron key. He hesitated for a moment, staring at his hand with a frown before another soft pulse of green light saw him lay the key on the counter.

“Thank you, good master,” she said, snatching up the key as quick as he set it down. “Veil’s blessings on you and your establishment.”

A grunt served for a dismissal, and she scanned the room to be sure no eyes had lingered overlong on the exchange as she headed for the stairs. The gray clouds of Faith beckoned, but too many eyes would have seen her vanish to risk it. Instead she made do with common skulking, trying to appear nonchalant as she bounded up the steps, finally within reach of the tomes and scrolls she’d been tracking since the morning after the battle in the city. Zi appeared coiled around her wrist as soon as she’d climbed to the top, though unless he’d wanted them to see him, so far as she knew he could stay hidden from others even in plain sight. But then, her companion’s oddities were his own. His metallic scales seemed to glint a mix of blue and red in the lamplight, and he’d fixated on the door behind the desk, and on the iron keyhole that stood between them and what had to be on the other side.

She tried the key, felt a click, and the door swung open.

She’d found them.

Piles of books lay stacked above her waist, with some even higher, stacked atop bedstands, tables, and chairs. Even the better part of the bed was covered in scrolls and tomes, leaving only a small corner scarce wide enough to sleep on, and a narrow walkway between the bed frame and the door. The rest was all books, loose papers, and tight-wrapped scrolls, enough to have filled a chamber ten times the size of the barkeep’s bedroom. And so they had, up until she’d come to their former home only to find it empty after their owner vanished.

Reyne d’Agarre’s library.

She ducked back into the office to grab a lantern, careful to be sure the oil was secure in the pan, and kept it raised as she waded through the stacks toward the bed. A thousand years’ knowledge, stored in a chamber half the size of her uncle’s kitchen, and it would have taken a small army to cart the contents out of d’Agarre’s manor in the hours between the battle and the morning after. Yet that was what had been done; in the moment, she’d been afraid the books had somehow ascended with him, but a few inquiries had confirmed that looters and worse had been at the manor almost as soon as the battle commenced. A simple thing to reason that one of d’Agarre’s people must have been charged with moving the books, and with Zi’s help they’d followed the trail of Green here to the Belle and Brine.

She thumbed open a volume left on the bed: Histories of Pre-Essanic Gand, by Jean-Trant Theorain. An inkwell and quill lay beside it, with scrawled marks in the margins suggesting that whoever had rented the barkeep’s room might still be engaged in some manner of research. A chilling thought, given where Reyne d’Agarre’s studies had led him. But a more thorough sweep of the room gave no obvious sign of the books at the heart of d’Agarre’s collection: the ones he’d called the Codex, displayed on plinths at the center of his library. No room for plinths here, and no luck in finding them among the volumes set aside near the space cleared for sleeping. With a sigh she cleared a bedside table and set the lantern down, casting enough light to work by as she settled in cross-legged on the floor to begin scanning through the stacks.

“Too much to hope you can sense d’Agarre’s Codex among the others?” she asked Zi. He’d taken up a spot at the edge of the bed, lolling his head and tail together over the side while the rest of him lay coiled like a snake beside Theorain’s Histories.

No, was all he thought.

It might have earned him a glare, had there been any point. Instead she turned her attention on the books, transferring one stack to the next as she picked up each tome and scanned its contents. Connections to the Grand Betrayal earned a quick discard, as did Principles of Mathematics in Bhakal Herblore. Some were written in the Sarresant tongue, and those she discarded easily, though more than a few required Zi to translate, and those sparked hope in the brief moment before their words became clear. The Codex had been written in a tongue unlike any other, and what little she’d seen of it had been declared pure nonsense by Zi the moment she scanned its pages. But, nonsense or no, d’Agarre had claimed that the book guided his every step; it stood to reason getting her hands on it would help her make sense of exactly what had happened during the battle, and what might be coming next.

Another stack transferred from one pile to another, and the thrill of victory began to ebb.

“They have to be here,” she said to Zi as much as herself. “But if you can’t help find them, this is going to take—”

Green.

She froze.

Once, she might have ignored it, dismissed the word as one of her companion’s quirks. But she’d come to recognize the colors as warnings, announcements of the same powers Zi conferred on her, wielded by other kaas-mages. Green meant one of them nearby, using the gift of soothing emotions, twisting thoughts.

By instinct she snapped her eyes shut, revealing the network of leylines running beneath the tavern. She tethered the red motes of Body first, feeling a rush of strength in her limbs, then ran a line through a gray cloud of Faith, vanishing from view. A flash of panic when she looked at the bed, and the freshly transferred pile of books she’d left obstructing the walkway to the door. No time to reorder them. The kaas-mage would know she’d been here, which meant the books—and d’Agarre’s Codex with them—would be gone if she left. Now that she was here, she couldn’t back down. Whoever d’Agarre’s underling was, she had to face him.

She left the lantern, and Zi, weaving through the piles of books to return to the barkeep’s office, still masked by Faith.

Thumping sounded from below, the rush of stairs taken two or three at a time, and Zi prompted: Yellow, then a heartbeat later, Red.

A man in black leather appeared at the top of the stairs, paying her no mind—hidden as she was—and he rushed past her faster than any man should have been able to move. Even though she was expecting him, he still managed to catch her by surprise, racing to the door, bracing himself against the frame as though he feared the worst lay within.

It took a second look to register his face, and recognize him for who he was.

“Axerian?” she said, letting Faith drop. Zi had appeared on the desk this time, and without knowing how, she knew he’d chosen to make himself visible to her and Axerian both.

The man in black spun around, confirming it was him. The Nameless; a God, or at least he had been, before what had transpired with d’Agarre. His face was haggard, a beard’s growth showing through on his jaw where he’d been clean-shaven before, his eyes carrying only a fraction of the spark of wit she’d come to expect from him during the days leading up to the battle. She hadn’t seen him since.

“Sarine,” he said. “Thank the hidden Emperors it was you, and not one of the others.”

“One of who?” she asked. “And what are you doing here?”

He slowed down, a sign his kaas had rescinded Red, and showed her a half smile, apologetic and knowing at the same time.

“You’re responsible for this,” she said. “You moved the library, after the battle.”

“Xeraxet moved the library,” Axerian replied. “With Green and the help of a few dozen otherwise unoccupied militiamen.” At mention of his name, Axerian’s kaas appeared on the desk next to Zi. Unmistakably the same sort of creature—metallic scales, a narrow snout like a snake, with four short legs and long, looping coils for a body—but unmistakably different, too. Shorter, stockier, with force to his movements, whereas Zi had always moved with delicate grace.

“Why?” she said. This time it was touched with anger. “The books, and d’Agarre’s Codex. You hid them from me?”

“From you? No. I destroyed d’Agarre’s copy, and the others had been taken by their owners by the time I got there, more’s the pity. The book is dangerous in the wrong hands, as you can well attest by now, I think. As for the rest, a revolution is no place for a trove of knowledge. I took precautions to store it all here until I could return.”

“You didn’t think I’d want to read them? To find some answers, something? Or to question you, for that matter.”

He gave a pained look. “I had to go. With d’Agarre’s ascension there are certain matters that had to be seen to. My failure need not count for Paendurion’s, or Ad-Shi’s. With my help, both their places might still be secured. And even with the Veil in stasis, the block she placed—”

The world lurched.

Vision blurred, and she was in a chamber of stone, but distorted, as though she viewed it through a glass. Two faces looked up at her, faces that pulled on her memory, each connected to her through arcing strands of energy.

NO.

Zi’s thought, and she heard it in two places at once.

The barkeep’s office pulsed with blue light, an array of beams seeming to radiate from Zi’s scales. Her companion had drawn himself up to his full height, staring at Axerian, almost trembling, for all he stood rigidly in place.

Her belly ached, and she watched as the lights receded, returning the room to amber lamplight. Bile stung her throat, and her stomach twisted, an afterimage of the stone chamber shimmering over top of the room before it faded.

“Apologies,” Axerian said quietly.

Zi was shaking, his coils quivering as he stood upright on the desk. He was in pain, and Axerian had done something to trigger it.

“Why are you here?” she asked, moving to Zi beside the desk. “Why come back to the city now?”

Axerian’s eyes lingered on Zi as he spoke. “I’m dying now, again, after so many years. I mean to spend my last days as I spent the last ten thousand.”

“You were responsible for d’Agarre,” she said. “You said as much. You manipulated him through your Codex. If you’re planning to loose another monster on this city …”

“No,” Axerian said. “My work here is simpler. There are two more ascensions coming. I mean to stop them, and I’d have your blessing, if you’d give it.”

She has never given you her blessing, Zi thought, though his voice sounded weak, giving the impression of frailty for all she heard it directly in her mind. Whatever you do, you do alone.

Axerian glanced to her, as though expecting her to countermand Zi. She’d done as much before, hunting d’Agarre and his fellows while Zi suffered for it. This time she said nothing. If there was a course for her to follow, she could determine it with Zi, in a manner that didn’t leave him quivering in pain.

“Very well,” Axerian said. “Then I expect this will be our last meeting. I remand the library into your keeping. Take what you like; I’ll see what remains stored safely against the worst of whatever comes.”

He hesitated for a moment, as though he meant to say more. Instead his kaas vanished as he turned and headed down the stairs, leaving her and Zi alone.

Wilderness, Near the Sinari Village

Sinari Land

Familiar trees marked the way home. Oaks and cedars, firs and elms. On foreign lands one was much the same as another. But as they drew nearer the Sinari village, every leaf and stem seemed to offer its welcome, coated with the drops of wet-season rain.

Corenna stepped gingerly beside him, watching where he placed his feet. He grunted when he saw it, wearing a wry grin.

“I’m almost well again,” he said. “By tomorrow I will be running footraces with the children.”

“As you say,” she said. “Though you’ll forgive me if I lay my wagers on the children in those races.”

He tried to laugh, cut short by stabbing pain in his lung. It earned another bout of concern from Corenna, though she did no more than look him over when he stopped to catch his breath.

She was beautiful. He’d always known it, since their first meeting, but he saw the truth of it now. Soft russet skin, silken black hair, eyes that cut with heat that never burned. She’d accepted a place among his people with a grace he doubted he could have found within himself. And she fought like a tempest, wind dancing on water, hurling thunder and boulders with equal ease. Without her by his side, the kirighra would have gutted him like a fish, and instead they carried the creature’s fangs as trophies to present to the tribes of their alliance.

“Wipe those thoughts from your mind, Arak’Jur,” Corenna said. “You’re in no state for physical exertions.”

He drew her in, lifting her in spite of the singeing fire in his side. She laughed, and kissed back before he set her down.

“Later,” he said.

“Later,” she agreed. “Tomorrow, after those footraces.”

They exchanged smiles, and pressed on at the hobbled pace they’d kept since sunrise.

It had taken five days to reach the place where Ilek’Inari had foreseen the kirighra, and ten to make the journey home. His leg made the difference, shattered in half a dozen places, with bruises, rips, and bite marks covering the right half of his body. The kirighra spirit had mocked him, full of pride, when he dealt the killing blow with mareh’et’s claws, and rightly so. He’d been careless, and paid with fire in his lungs. The Great Panther had journeyed north from the jungle where he made his home, seeking to kill, and it had been a near thing between him and the great beast. But now he had the right to call upon its blessing, and the people of their alliance were safe. The rest would fade in time.

The leavings of a rainstorm showed in the brush and grasses beneath the forest, and the remnants of a fire, where his people had burned away sections of the land to make way for wild berries and chestnut, maple, and cherry trees. Without his and Corenna’s efforts, the kirighra might have sprung from the shadows on those who came to gather fruit; such was the great innovation of their people, which let them live among the bounty of the wild while the fair-skins and other folk cowered behind their barriers. Still an oddity for a woman, even a woman such as Corenna, to aid in the guardian’s duties, but it was a time for change, for rebirth and renewal. The tribes would adapt, as they had always done, and survive.

The sound of falling trees greeted them at midday, shouted voices presaging each crash, with whoops and cheers when they went down. It lightened their steps, and they pushed hard in spite of his injuries to cover the final stretch of their journey.

Home.

Laughter and shouting, raised voices colored by the accents of four tribes, and the sound of woodwork ringing through the trees.

“Slow,” a woman’s voice called. “Let them steady the base. We must set it before we raise the outer wall.”

They emerged into view, and the tribesfolk turned as one. Six men working under the woman’s direction—Symara, foremost among the Ganherat—kneeling around a square frame large enough for three tents, with enough lumber and stone piled to set the stakes for twenty.

“Honored sister,” Symara exclaimed, setting down a plank of wood and wiping sweat from her forehead. “Honored guardian. Run to rouse the tribes; let them know our guardians have returned!”

The last Symara said to a slight girl, who turned and ran toward the village. An apprentice, perhaps, however the women reckoned such things.

The men rose, offering warm greetings as Symara strode forward to wrap Corenna in a tight embrace.

“We’d begun to worry,” Symara said. “Ilek’Inari assured us all was well, but after so many days, we feared for both of you.”

“It was hard-won,” Arak’Jur said, grimacing through a smile. “Yet the spirits blessed us with a victory, and we cannot ask for more.”

“What is it you do here?” Corenna asked, nodding toward the wood frame.

Symara glanced toward where the men had been working. “With the snows gone, we can construct shelters in the new style. Warmer and more resilient to the wild, with stone hearths and ovens built into the walls.”

“Difficult to carry a stone hearth, should it be needful to move the tribe,” Arak’Jur said, thinking of the shamans’ stories, of ancient times—fire, war, great beasts, floods—when tribes left the tent stakes behind and carried the hides when it became needful to flee into the wild. “Is it not so?”

“It is so, but our villages haven’t moved in living memory. Ilek’Inari saw a vision of us living in dwellings of wood and stone, as the fair-skins do. It is time we build for our future, together.”

The men murmured agreement, though they watched him for sign of his reaction. He misliked the look of the thing, all squared edges, and the promise of what it would become. Too close to a fair-skin house for his liking. Tribesmen didn’t live in such dwellings. But then, women didn’t hunt great beasts, and apprentice guardians didn’t see visions of things-to-come. The proposal would have been debated in the steam tent among the elders, and he was no Sa’Shem, to dictate what would and would not be.

“It will be an ugly thing, when it is finished,” he said. “But I will come and eat at your hearth, Symara of the Ganherat, and enjoy the comforts of your tent of wood and stone.”

The men relaxed, and Symara offered him and Corenna a wry smile.

“There will be time for work later,” she said. “For now, we will accompany our guardians, if they will have us, and celebrate your return.”

Cookfires roared, a warmth well suited for the fire in his side. Plates of food had been served by young women, trays of smoked elk, maize, honeyed nuts, and sweet potatoes, and he and Corenna had separated, seated among the men and women at their separate fires.

The men made allowance for him, giving space enough to extend his leg while he sat, but still they crowded close, waiting for him to speak.

“A victory,” he said. “And a new blessing, one no tribe has been given before.”

A hush rippled through the men, and excited whispers, piercing through the quiet.

“Kirighra,” he continued, unfastening the string on the deep pouch he’d carried fixed to his leggings. He withdrew the teeth they’d taken from the corpse, met by gasps when he produced them. Two incisors, each the length of his forearm, honed to deadly points.

“A snake?” one of the youths asked, a bright-eyed Vhurasi boy. “Like the valak’ar?”

“A cat,” he replied. “Stronger, thicker than mareh’et, with fur as black as a shadow and eyes like full moons.” He passed the fangs, one in either direction, and the hunters handled them with proper reverence, each man whispering the great beast’s name in awe. “He is not given to toying with his prey, as mareh’et does, nor does he claim territory like una’re. He stalks the land, smelling its scents, finding its secrets, until he knows the ways of every creature in his path.”

“It hunts every sort of creature?” the boy asked. “Birds, fish, beasts?”

A few of the elders frowned at the questioning; it wasn’t done, speaking over a guardian’s recounting of a hunt. Arak’Jur met the boy’s eyes, lowering his voice to just above a whisper.

“It knows them all,” he said. “But it hunts one. Kirighra is proud; he finds the strongest, the predator who is never prey. He stalks the land until he is sure, and then he strikes. In the jungle he might choose the boa; on the plain, the alpha wolf. Here in our forest, he might choose you, if you proved your prowess and slew a bear, or some other beast to satisfy his liking.” The boy’s eyes went wide; Arak’Jur had timed the telling to coincide with the arrival of one of the fangs in the child’s hands.

“In the west,” he continued. “Five days from our lands, the kirighra chose me.”

He gestured to the ruin of his right side, where claw marks raked his flesh, leaving a bore the size of an apple through his chest and lung, where one of the fangs had bitten clean through.

“He chose me, and stalked the shadows until he knew the pattern of my days. He waited, as patient as the anahret, until I slept. I woke with full moon eyes leaping at me from the brush, and the rest is between me, Corenna, and the kirighra spirit. Though you have the fangs, as proof of the tale.”

The men laughed, those near him clapping his shoulder, offering praise and blessings for the spirits’ favor. A ripple of tension broke as they took up the food, Vhurasi, Sinari, Olessi, and Ganherat sharing meat and maize together. A strange sight. Once, each tribe had their own village, their own shamans and guardians, any of whom might have told similar tales to men gathered around their cookfires after a hunt. Now the Sinari village burst with life, half a dozen fires for the men alone, and half again as many for the women, seated across the clearing, where they’d already expanded the tribe’s meeting place to double its size.

He glanced to where the women gathered, where Corenna was seated at their heart, sharing whatever passed between women on such occasions, though he supposed she would be the first, the one to decide what would eventually become tradition. In all the tribe’s stories, women had never hunted the great beasts, following the shamans’ visions to protect their people from the ravages of the wild. But now Corenna fought at his side, and they were stronger for it. It was wisdom. Ilek’Inari received the sendings of the spirits of things-to-come unabated, though he was no full Ka, even now. A sign of the spirits’ favor, in spite of change.

“Well done, honored guardian,” Valak’Ural said beside him, a master hunter of the Olessi. “A hunt well fought, and a tale well told.”

Arak’Jur bowed his head, enjoying a haunch of elk. “What passes with you, honored hunter, and with the tribes? It seems the turning of the wet season finds us in good spirits.”

“It does. I led a hunt in your absence, with the spirits’ blessing on our muskets, and our spears.” Valak’Ural gestured to the elk in Arak’Jur’s hands. “But I fear there is yet grief among us, for what passed on our lands, and the fair-skins’. The great beasts come ever more often, and yes, we are kept safe by your hand, but there is the matter of the shamans’ visions, the sendings of war given to us, and to other tribes.”

“Perhaps the worst of it is behind us,” he said. “Our alliance is strong. Few would dare provoke us, and we lay claim to the land of five tribes, a great distance between us and any would-be enemies, with as great a distance to see the comings of great beasts.”

“Spirits send it is so,” Valak’Ural said, then leaned forward, his voice lowered. “But there are whispers of sightings, of Uktani warriors in the north.”

“On Ranasi land?”

Valak’Ural nodded gravely.

Arak’Jur’s blood chilled. The Ranasi were gone—the price of Llanara’s madness, though their blood still stained his people’s hands—but the Uktani, their northern neighbors, had grown cold in the last seasons. Alone they would be no threat to the combined alliance of the eastern tribes, but the thought of violence put ash in his mouth, and he lowered his elk haunch, his appetite suddenly diminished.

“Ilek’Inari will have seen it, if they meant us harm,” he said at last.

“I hope you’re right,” Valak’Ural said. “Spirits bless us all, I hope it.”

He returned to his plate, finding his maize cold. He had seen enough of death. This was a time—and a place—of joy, of changing traditions and growth. Five tribes made a home here, to think of any who might challenge it, and so soon after—

“Arak’Jur.” A voice came from behind, a child’s voice.

He turned, though it spread fire in his side, and met a young boy’s eyes, a child of no more than five.

“Yes, little brother?” he asked. “What is it?”

“You are summoned to the shaman’s tent, by the will of the spirits.”

Corenna met him on the path, falling in beside his plodding steps. He hadn’t seen her leave the women’s circles, but she was there, and he was grateful for the company.

“It can’t be another great beast,” she said. “Not so soon. Even in desperate times, they never come so often.”

“Better a beast than something worse.”

She eyed him again, falling silent. He knew her mind, even without her speaking it. It had been no beast that ravaged her people. Corenna was the last daughter of the Ranasi, and it had been war and madness that took her father and the people of her tribe.

They crossed the village as quickly as his leg allowed, passing through a dull refle