Aesa shrugged out of her grip. “If you want to live, stay close until we get to your village.”
The sheep woman repeated her former words. When Gilka told them to head out, Aesa cast a glance over her shoulder. The sheep woman was still staring. Some of the others were as well, and some just milled around, doe-eyed.
Aesa glanced at the others to make sure no one was watching, and then gestured for the sheep to follow. They hesitated, and she gestured again. Finally, the honey-eyed woman began to trail along, and the others followed her.
“Aesa, get to the front where you belong,” Gilka said.
Aesa hurried there, walking beside Hilfey and resisting the urge to see if the sheep still followed.
“I wish your healer bondmate had been able to come,” Hilfey said.
Aesa spotted a bandage around her leg. “Is it bad?”
“Eh. Sibba does what she can to patch us up. Her mother was a healing witch, but she felt the call of the sword.”
“Maeve would have loved to come, but…”
“No wyrd. Runa told us.”
Yes, no wyrd. Aesa tried again to imagine her in the middle of combat. She would have run to the wounded immediately even if she’d been ordered not to. She would have wanted to rescue the sheep, too.
Hilfey clapped Aesa on the shoulder. “How’s the gut?”
“Doesn’t hurt.” But her body called her a liar.
“Otama will bait you every chance she gets, especially when she’s got a burr in her boot.”
Aesa frowned. “Maybe I’ll just shoot her.”
“Pull a weapon on a crewmate, and you’ll get a taste of Gilka’s hammer.”
“I have to get better at wrestling.”
“When we camp, I’ll show you some things.”
Aesa nodded gratefully. When they passed the collection of huts, she looked to see what the sheep did and was happy when they broke away to be with others of their kind. Aesa scanned for the honey-eyed woman but couldn’t spot her among the crowd.
*
Ell stared at the smear of red on her sleeve. She’d seen blood. She bled every now and again, just as all fini women did, and people cut themselves accidentally from time to time. But the shapti on the ground hadn’t cut himself, and he hadn’t bled women’s blood.
Ell had seen the shaptis fall, had seen the birds come from the sky. She saw the shapti lying on the ground before her now, completely still, nearly naked in the dirt between the huts. As much as she studied him, though, she couldn’t understand what had happened. The shapti who’d been closest to her on the road had been standing one moment and lying down the next, his neck a red ruin. Standing, then lying.
Dead, she realized with a start. The shaptis and their krissi mounts were dead. The shaptis lying before her now were dead.
She stood, and the other fini looked to her. “Do you have pain, Ell?” Lida asked.
“No, elder.”
“I have pain,” Nin said. Ell knelt at his side and stroked his hair while Lida searched over his body. “In my hand.”
His fingers were bent crooked, twitching. He tried to smile, but little white lines creased the skin around his eyes. Ell tried to smooth them so his handsome face wouldn’t be spoiled.
“The shaptis will have to fix this,” Lida said.
“Where are the shaptis?” someone asked. “Ours were lying in the road, and then they took off their skin.”
The fini villagers blinked at them in wonder. “How is that done?”
“They are dead,” Ell said.
They gasped as one. “Shaptis don’t die,” Lida said.
“Fini die,” another said. “When we get old or have too much pain.”
“Will I die?” Nin asked.
Lida rubbed his arm. “The shaptis won’t let you die.”
One woman in the back stood. “But if the shaptis can’t keep themselves from dying…” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted. Some of the others surrounded her, trying to help her up.
Ell clenched her fists and tried not to think the same thoughts. Already, her mind was buzzing, and she could feel blackness gathering behind her eyes. If she thought too hard, she would pass out, too. She concentrated on good thoughts, the only thing that kept the blackness at bay: sunny meadows, wildflowers, the shaptis’ comforting faces, Lida’s warm hands.
And blond hair cut like a thistle, eyes the slight green of long grass, and a strong body, muscled like a shapti’s but leaner, taller. She had the face of a fini and the strength, the mind of a shapti. She’d leapt, carried Ell to the ground. Ell could still feel the pain in her elbows and back. The shapti-like woman had smelled like leather and sweat. Her face was dirty, and she’d had a red streak on her cheek much like the one that marred Ell’s sleeve. Her beauty was that of a wild thing, carefully hidden, but there if anyone cared to search for it.
The shaptis wouldn’t approve of her at all.
Lida patted her arm. “Don’t think so hard. You’ll fall asleep.”
“Yes, elder. Will more shaptis come?”
Everyone looked to Lida, concern on their beautiful faces.
“Remain tranquil,” Lida said. They all relaxed. Frowning would only bring wrinkles, and then they’d have to put on the gray. “Shaptis will come. They always come.”
A comforting truth. And the dirty women? Would they return also? The slight, hard woman had gestured for them to follow, guiding them as a shapti would, though with a much harder hand.
Maybe they were the new shaptis. The pressure began to build behind Ell’s eyes again, and she let the thought go, helped the others as she could, and waited for more shaptis to tell them what to do.
Chapter Six
Maeve surveyed the garden, poking the dirt with her toes. It would take a lot of work to bring it back to life, but Laret seemed happy to make a start. She knelt nearby, sorting weeds from plants, a soft smile on her face. She even hummed to herself.
“Is there any sage nearby?” she asked. “You could transfer some here.”
“What does it look like?”
Laret stared at her. “You’re a healer.”
“With my spirit. I don’t use plants.”
“Most healers use their spirit only when other methods don’t work.”
Maeve shrugged. “Why do you know so much about sage?”
“My father was a spice trader, and the witch of Sanaan taught me poisons.”
Maeve scooted closer. “What need did she have of poisons?”
“She knew all the ways to sicken someone.” The air seemed to turn cooler, and Maeve shivered. Laret glanced at her and chuckled. “You wanted to learn these things.”
“As I’ve said—”
“Yes, you don’t want to hurt anyone, big powerful raider, you.”
“I’m only going to learn enough blood magic to see if I can make my wyrd come.” She quirked an eyebrow. “As to what I can do with it, I won’t know until it appears.” Before Laret could ask any other questions, Maeve said, “So, once you learned poisons, you learned the cures?”
“Sage is good for treating a variety of ailments.”
Maeve curled a lock of Laret’s hair around her finger. “A curse breaker, a healer of sorts, and your spirit magic nurtures plants. Why don’t you wear a witch’s braids?”
“The eyes are usually enough to tell people what I am.”
“The braids would say you practice other magic as well.”
“Most blood witches do. And if I let people know I’m a curse breaker, they might begin asking for my help.”
“Ha! If someone came running out of the woods right now, screaming for help, you would answer.”
Laret stood. “Think so?”
Maeve followed. “I feel it in your presence.”
“You said you wouldn’t use your magic on me.” She crossed her arms and stood tall, no doubt trying to use her height to intimidate.
Maeve stood on tiptoes and rested a hand on Laret’s forearm for balance,
spoiling her attempt to make herself taller, but it forced Laret to stay still. “I didn’t need it. You sought my company, and you wouldn’t do that if you didn’t agree with what I do. And you wouldn’t be a curse breaker if you didn’t want to help people. You could have turned from blood magic completely.”
“Only partly true.” But her gaze shifted to the side as if the urge to argue was leaving her.
Maeve chuckled and leaned far forward, smiling as a blush darkened Laret’s cheeks. “And you’re fun to tease.”
“You shouldn’t…”
Maeve gave her arm a squeeze and stepped back. “If I didn’t know when to stop I wouldn’t have so many friends.”
She meant it as a joke about how alone they were, but Laret muttered, “Beautiful women always have lots of friends.” Her eyes widened as if just realizing she’d spoken aloud.
Maeve couldn’t resist letting her gaze travel up and down Laret’s body. “Beautiful, am I?”
Her eyes dropped to the ground. “You must know it.”
“Well.” Maeve plopped down in the dirt, not wanting to embarrass her further. “Teach me about the virtues of sage.”
Laret’s lips lifted into the ghost of a smile. After she’d named everything in the garden, she wandered toward the forest, pointing out various plants and what they were used for. Maeve gave up listening and just watched the way she spoke, how excited she was at each new flower, leading Maeve around the woods like a little child. She broke stems apart in her long fingers and crushed leaves in her palms. This one had to be eaten fresh, this one ground into powder, and this one mixed into tea. These cured poisons, and these were for poultices.
Finally, Maeve sank down at the base of a tree. “Let’s take a rest.”
“You have so many good plants near your house.”
“No need to put them in the garden, then.”
“You could always plant vegetables, I suppose.”
“You can if you want.”
Laret shook her head, and Maeve wondered how her power worked, if she sent her spirit into the plants much as Maeve did with the human body. As she considered it, something else intrigued her more. “Can I…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Can I see your wyrd?”
Laret hesitated. “Why did you assume I had one?”
“If you didn’t, you would have joined in my whining.”
After a flash of a smile, Laret closed her eyes and began to chant. Maeve resisted the urge to lean into her heat. When a sapling’s tendril wrapped around her little finger, she jumped. All around them, smaller plants swayed in time with the words. “Incredible.”
Laret ceased her chant, and the plants stilled, the little one still wrapped about Maeve’s finger.
“Did you know it would be plants?” Maeve asked.
Laret shook her head. “A wyrd doesn’t always match a person’s spirit power.”
“I know, but how lovely it must be when it does.” She gently freed her finger and wondered what it would be like to have so much power at her command.
“Healer!” someone shouted from the direction of the house.
Maeve sprang to her feet and ran, dodging tree roots and plunging through underbrush, Laret only a few steps behind. Several people clustered around her small house, only one of whom she’d met.
He pointed her out, and another man ran for her. “My bondmate!” he cried.
“Where?”
“This way.”
She kept on his heels, not wasting words. They ran down the road, in the direction of Skellis before dodging down a dirt path that led through a wide field, toward a house only slightly larger than Maeve’s.
Breathing hard, she tried to keep up with him as he dashed out of the field, winding around an animal pen. Wails of agony pushed aside the stitch that had built in Maeve’s side, and she tried to run harder.
In the house’s gloomy interior, a pale woman lay in bed and another woman knelt next to her. The first wore a white shift, her pregnant belly jutting out from under the blanket. She screamed, a sound much sharper than normal pangs.
“Step aside.” Maeve pushed past the man and laid one hand on the pregnant woman’s belly. The baby inside kicked and squirmed. Maeve moved the blanket, looking between her legs. She was nearly fully open, but the baby had yet to birth.
“Is it too early?” the other woman asked.
“It hurts!” the pregnant woman cried before she wailed again. Her glassy eyes couldn’t seem to focus, and chilled sweat stuck her hair to the sides of her face.
“I need to look inside.” Before they could ask her what that might mean, Maeve plunged into a trance. Two spirits waited, mother and baby, both in agony. The baby hadn’t turned, had one foot caught against the mother’s hip bone, and the cord wrapped around its neck.
Tricky. This wasn’t like a wound. She pressed her spirit into the baby’s and felt his give way, unable to keep her out in his infant state. She fought his feelings as they closed around her, the panic, the fluid in her lungs, her limbs scrunched inside the mother. Instead, she settled into him, controlling him. She turned his head as much as space would allow, disentangling herself from the cord.
Now to spin. She felt the womb constrict, the mother’s desperate attempt to rid her body of pain. “Not yet, not yet,” she tried to say, but she was too far outside herself for words, and the mother’s spirit was too strong for her to take over.
Maeve tried to wriggle faster, turn her head downward, and move her foot inward. There was so little time. The womb convulsed again, and she was nearly there, almost free enough to slip away. Almost, almost…
There! Her head touched the birth canal as the womb convulsed again. Soon, she’d taste air and light for the first time.
No. She couldn’t share this with the baby, couldn’t let him become so used to her spirit that she crushed his fragile self. She let the cries of the mother bring her awake, and when she opened her eyes, she was on her back, staring at the ceiling while the other woman implored the new mother to push.
Laret helped Maeve to her feet just as the infant’s cries filled the air. The new father threw his arms around Maeve’s shoulders, nearly knocking her to the floor again, but Laret held her up.
“Careful!” Laret cried.
The man backed toward his family. “I don’t know what you did, but you fixed them! Thank you, thank you, healer.”
Maeve looked past him to where the two women were swaddling the child. The father bent low to cut the cord.
“I need air,” Maeve said.
Laret guided her outside. “You were writhing on the floor.”
“I was helping the baby turn.”
“You were inside the baby? Moving it?”
Maeve nodded. She’d never felt so weary. She had to stretch her arms just to make sure she could.
Laret was staring. “All the power you have, Maeve, how could you possibly want more?”
“It’s different.”
“You can save lives before they’re even born! Is there any problem you can’t fix?”
Maeve laughed darkly. “Not death. And not a wyrd.”
“We have a word for you in Asimi: miracle. It means something extraordinary, a marvel.” She took Maeve’s arm. “There is nothing Aesa is doing that is more important than what you just accomplished.”
“Then why am I a thrall while she isn’t?”
To her great surprise, Laret hugged her from the side. “A miracle. I think you’re the only one who doesn’t appreciate you.”
“Aside from the warriors. They won’t have me if I can’t defend myself.”
“Then they are idiots.” She hugged Maeve tighter. “Maybe it’s just that they’ve never seen a healer as strong as you. If they thought about it, perhaps they’d see their own folly and put aside their silly rule.”
Maeve leaned close, glad of the support. She hadn’t felt so tired in a long time. It barely left any room to think.
“That family will remember you all t
heir days. That’s far better than knowing how to bash someone’s brains in.”
Maeve shrugged. She couldn’t argue about this now. “What are you going to teach me next about blood magic?”
Laret sighed.
“You have a good deal to say about raiding, but you’ve never done it. I’ve never done it. How can I decide my path without knowing all the possibilities? Didn’t blood magic help you decide what to do with your life?”
Laret didn’t say anything, but Maeve could tell by the set of her shoulders that her resolve was weakening.
*
The question rang in Laret’s head. Everything she’d unearthed about blood magic hadn’t let her make the one change she’d wanted: to undo what the True God had done and make her into the person she was inside. She’d put hope into her studies. She’d let the witch of Sanaan see her innermost self. And when nothing had helped, she’d despaired.
There had been one dark day in particular. There had been a knife.
She’d awakened in a cave, bowls of blood scattered around her. Some of it had been drawn by magic, some by deep cuts across her body, mostly on her thighs as she’d wandered closer to taking her manhood at knifepoint. Thankfully, she’d passed out before she’d gotten there.
Her clothes lay in a ruined mess, the body that the True God had cursed her with marked with scars she would always carry. Tears and dirt stained her face, snot making a mud crust under her nose. She’d sacrificed home and family, become an outcast among her people, and forever marked herself with the sign of blood magic. She’d reveled in the feel of her dark power, the heady intoxication that came from draining herself. Finally, she’d had to hide in the cave to escape the continuous desire to use her power on those around her.
And what was her reward? As she’d sent her spirit through her blood, she’d managed little changes, tiny ripples in muscle or skin, barely altering her appearance. She’d put all her will into changing her cursed body from male to female, but every time she opened her eyes, she was the same.
She’d raged at the True God then, at herself, at all creation. She’d stomped around her cave a bloody, sobbing mess, throwing around her meager possessions before she gave in to despair yet again.
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