do that. But you still don’t know if my fate is a good one or a bad one?”
“I’ve never walked Sojourn’s path. Perhaps it depends on where your feet take you. Walk bravely in your all travels, honor the Mother, and remember who you are. Do that and you will continue to be a good man, and a fine witch.”
Mahti left the old man’s clearing at dawn the next day, Teolin’s blessing still tingling on his brow.
Plodding over the crusty snow, Sojourn a comforting weight across his shoulders in its sling, he smelled the first hint of spring on the morning air. Later, as the sun rose over the peaks, he heard it in the dripping of water from bare branches.
He knew this trail well. The rhythmic crunch and rasp of his snowshoes lulled him into a light trance and his thoughts drifted. He wondered if he’d plant different kinds of children now than he had under the Moon Plow sign? Then again, if he were to travel far, would he plant any children at all?
He wasn’t surprised when the vision came. He often had them at moments like these, tramping alone through the peace of the forest.
The winding path became a river under his feet, and the sinew and bent ash of his snowshoes grew into a little boat that bobbed gently on the current. Instead of the thick forest on the far bank, there was open land, very green and fertile. He knew in the way of visions that this must be the southland, where his people had once lived, before the foreigners and their oreskiri had driven them into the hills.
A woman stood between a tall man and a young girl on that bank, and she waved to Mahti as if she knew him. She was Retha’noi like him, and naked. Dark-skinned and small, her fine, ripe body was covered with witch marks. The fact that she was naked in the vision told him that she was dead, a spirit coming to him with a message.
Greetings, my brother. I am Lhel.
Mahti’s eyes widened as he recognized the name. This was the woman Teolin had spoken of, the one who’d gone away with the southlanders on a sojourn of her own. She smiled at him and he smiled back; this was the Mother’s will.
She beckoned him to join her but his boat would not move.
He looked more closely at the others with her. They were black-haired, too, but the man’s was cut short and the girl’s hung in long waves around her shoulders rather than the coarse curls of his people. They were taller, too, and pale as a pair of bones. The young man had an aura of strong magic about him: oreskiri, surely, but with a hint of power Mahti recognized. This witch, Lhel, must have taught him something of their ways. That was troubling, even though Teolin had spoken no ill of her.
The girl did not have magic, but Lhel pointed to the ground at the girl’s feet and Mahti saw that she had a double shadow, one male, and one female.
He didn’t know how to interpret the vision yet, except that these two were both living people, and southlanders. He was not afraid or angry to see them here in his mountains, though. Maybe it was the way the other witch rested her hands on their shoulders, love so clear in her dark eyes. She looked at Mahti again and made a sign of bequeathing. She was giving these two strangers into his care, but why?
Without thinking, he set the new oo’lu to his lips and played a song he did not recognize.
The vision passed and the forest path returned around him. He was standing in a clearing, still playing that song. He didn’t know what it was for; perhaps it was for the southlanders. He would play it for them when they met and see if they knew.
“It’s one thing to accept one’s destiny.
It’s quite another to live it.”
I am Tamír!”
Ki stood beside her in that ruined throne room, the acrid stink of the burning city thick in the air, and watched as his friend declared herself a woman and rightful heir to the throne. Imonus, high priest of Afra, had brought Ghërilain’s lost gold stele as proof. It was as big as a door and he could see Tamír reflected in it, crowned by the ancient prophecy engraved there:
So long as a daughter of Thelátímos’
líne defends and rules, Skala shall
never be subjugated.
She didn’t look much like a queen yet, just a ragged, tired, too-thin girl in battle-stained men’s clothing. She hadn’t had to strip for the crowd this time, but there was no mistaking the jut of small pointed breasts through the loose linen shirt.
Ki averted his eyes with a vague pang of guilt. The thought of how her body had changed still gave him a sick feeling.
Iya and Arkoniel stood with the priests at the foot of the dais, still in their dirty robes. They’d helped turn the tide of battle, but Ki knew the truth about them now, too. It was their doing, all the lies.
The oath takings and rituals dragged on and on. Ki scanned the crowd, trying to share in the joy he saw around him, but all he could think of at that moment was how young and thin and brave and worn out Tobin—no, Tamír—looked.
He tried the unfamiliar name in his mind again, hoping to make it stick. He’d seen the proof of her sex with his own eyes, but he still could not get his mind around it, or his heart.
I’m just tired.
Had it only been a week since they’d ridden for Atyion at the king’s order? Just a week since he’d first learned the truth about Tobin, his dearest friend, his heart’s brother?
He blinked away the sudden stinging in his eyes. His friend was not Tobin anymore. There she stood, right in front of him, yet he felt as if Tobin had died.
He glanced sidelong at Tharin, hoping the man hadn’t noticed his weakness. Teacher, mentor, second father, he’d slapped Ki when he’d panicked that night on the road to Atyion. Ki had deserved it, and he’d been grateful for the correction. He’d stood fast with Tharin and Lynx a few days later when Tobin had sliced the fragment of Brother’s bone, and the witch’s magic with it, from his own breast on the steps of Atyion castle, calling down the mystical fire that burned away his male body. Horrified, they’d watched as Tobin bled and burned and somehow lived to strip withered flesh away like a snake shedding last year’s outworn skin, leaving in his place this wan, hollow-eyed girl.
The rituals ended at last. Tharin and the newly organized bodyguard closed ranks in front of them. Close by Tamír’s side, Ki saw how she wavered a little as she stepped down from the dais. He slipped a discreet hand under her elbow, steadying her.
Tamír pulled her arm away, but gave him a small, tight smile, letting him know it was only pride.
“May we escort you to your old chamber, Highness?” Tharin asked. “You can rest there until arrangements can be made elsewhere.”
Tamír gave him a grateful look. “Yes, thank you.”
Arkoniel made to follow, but Iya stopped him, and Tamír did not look back or summon them.
The palace corridors were packed with the wounded. The air was rank with the stench of
