one of her fingertips.
“I don’t know who I am,” she said slowly, watching the flake melt. “I don’t know where I am from. I have no promises to uphold me. Yet here I am, and I do what I must.”
“Then perhaps your burden is the greater by far.”
She turned suddenly and faced him. “What do they mean when they call me the Weaver?”
“It is said that one day an Ilduin would come who could touch the warp and woof of reality, and bend it to her will.”
“And they think I am that person?”
“You wielded the Weaver’s sword in battle.”
“Anyone could have wielded that sword.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not as you did.”
She closed her eyes, remembering the moment when Tom had placed the sword in her hand and told her what it was. After that, everything had become a great blur. She had little memory of the battle afterward, and knew only what she was told: that she had led a force of men against a flanking attack and had saved the day. That later, with one word, she had caused the battle to instantly still.
A great fear began to tremble in her, colder than the cold that surrounded her. “What does it mean? What is expected of me?”
“I know not.”
“The prophecies. If the Weaver is mentioned in them, there must be some hint, some clue!”
“Have you not realized by now how prophecies are more riddles than foretellings? I cannot tell you what it is you are to do. I cannot tell you how to do it. You must trust, my lady, that when the time comes you will know.”
“There is too much call for trust.”
“I know.” He looked past her down the valley to where the fires burned in the prison compound. “They too must find a way to trust. For trust, I believe, is all that will save us from the wiles of Ardred.”
She turned from him and looked down the valley, too, thinking of the men who must be huddled around those fires, despairing and perhaps even bitter in defeat, a taste that no Bozandari had known before. “Aye,” she said, her heart heavy with dread. “They, too, must trust. And perhaps that will be the most difficult thing of all.”
That night, in her dreams, the white wolf came to her again, as he had twice in reality. He howled, a mournful, spine-tingling sound, then seemed to gesture for her to follow him.
Through the mists of her dream, she slipped after him. As was the way of dreams, she never wondered why she followed, or what the wolf wanted of her. Nor did she feel any fear.
Gradually the mist softened, then faded until she could see the woods through which they traveled. Always the wolf was just ahead of her, pausing in his easy, long-legged lope when necessary to let her catch up.
At last they emerged into a clearing. Above, the sky glistened with a carpet of stars thicker than any she had ever seen. Then, around her, she heard the murmur of voices. She could not make out the words but sensed that she stood in the center of some invisible gathering.
Until now, she had felt nothing, but as she stood there, her discomfort grew, because she felt as if she were being judged by some unseen jury. The wolf remained at her side, but his presence offered scant comfort. She began to think of fleeing from this haunted clearing. At that instant the voices fell silent.
Then a woman stepped out of the shadows, her face concealed by a hood that cast it in darkness.
“Many,” the woman said quietly, “are your sisters who have gone before you. To none of us fell the burden that now befalls you. Yet each of us, in her own way, has prepared your path with promises and prayers. We cannot tell you what is to come, for the gods make a game, and we are bound by their rules. But we will be with you, little sister. If you hear a whisper on the air, listen for our voices. All that lies between is a veil, and that veil can be pierced.”
Before Tess could question her, the woman had vanished back into the shadows. For a second or two, she could hear the quiet murmur of the voice again.
Then she was alone in the clearing with only the white wolf.
He nudged her hand with his cool, damp nose and she blinked.
And gasped. For she no longer stood in the clearing at all, nor was it any longer dark.
Dawn was breaking over the mountains to the east, wreathed in red and pink and orange, the globe of the sun not yet visible.
Nor was she in her bed. She stood halfway between Anahar and the compound housing the Bozandari prisoners of war.
The frigid morning air made her cheeks sting, but she was still surprisingly warm. Looking down at herself, she saw that she had dressed in her fine white woolens and boots, with her cloak about her shoulders. Had she done that in her sleep?
A sound behind her made her swing sharply around, and she gasped as she saw the wolf was still with her.
What was going on? Had she been dreaming? Or had she been awake in some netherworld? Had long-dead Ilduin really spoken to her?
Or was she simply losing her mind?
But then the wolf came toward her and shoved his big, soft head beneath her hand. Instinctively she scratched him behind the ears, and marveled at how silky his coat felt.
She must have been sleepwalking, she thought. Thank goodness she had dressed before setting out from Anahar. Else she would be frozen and dead right now, it was that cold.
She was about to return to the city on the hillside when the wolf tipped back his head and howled. It was a beautiful sound, music unto itself.
And it was answered. Tess felt her scalp prickle as wolves howled back from the awkward, hardy trees that made life for themselves in the green desert that was the Anari lands. The sound was eerie, as eerie as anything she had ever heard. There must have been dozens of them.
But then they emerged from the trees, still howling, a harmony among their voices that reverberated until it sounded as if they numbered in the several dozens. But there were only seven more of them, all as white as the one that stood beneath her hand.
She should have been terrified. She should have fled. She should have tried to call on her powers for protection. Instead she remained rooted to the spot as the wolf pack ran toward her, their yellow eyes bright, mouths relaxed in smiles, as if they were coming home.
When they reached her, their howling stopped and they began to make quiet whimpers and whines as they swirled around her legs, sniffing her as if to learn her. Then, as if by silent order, all seven sat on their haunches and looked up at her.
She spoke, not knowing what else to do. “What do you want?”
The only answer she received was from the pack leader. His head moved from beneath her hand so that he could tug at her robe with his mouth.
He pulled her gently.
Toward the prison compound.
And
