“Which reminds me.” I dug around in my satchel. “I have a jar of joint cream here. It might help your hands.”

“Eh?” Keekai leaned forward and reached across for the jar, settling back into her blankets as she looked at it carefully. “Some of your magic?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have any magic, Keekai. Just herbs and knowledge of their uses.”

Keekai sniffed at the contents, then looked at me with half-closed eyes. “So, you claim no magic?”

“None,” I said firmly.

She grunted, dipped into the jar, and started to work the salve into her hands. We sat in silence for a mo ment, the flames in the brazier crackling. I looked up where there was a smoke hole cut in the tent, and saw the stars above us. It was late.

“I thank you.” Keekai made as if to return the jar, but I gestured for her to keep it.

“I hope that it will help.” I looked at her for a moment, then bit my lip.

She snorted, softly. “Do you wish for my token?”

“I might need it,” I responded. “Keekai, why does Keir hate the warrior-priests so much?”

Keekai sighed. “That is a long tale, and not easily told.” She yawned. “Still Waters will have us up at dawn yet again. But this time I will stop us at the nooning and tell him that a hunt is needed.” She cackled. “They will hunt, and you and I will talk.” She rose to give me privacy.

I shook my head at her. “What kind of name is that? And how can you tell them apart?”

She wrinkled her nose. “When they become warrior-priests, they take on a new name, not the one that the elements gave them, but a name to signal that they are warrior-priests.” She snorted again, reminding me of Marcus. “They take them from the plants and animals or the elements. Still Waters, Gentle Breeze, pah. Why not Dead Deer, or Rutting Ehat?”

I laughed out loud at that, and she grinned back at me. “As to telling them apart, look at the tattoos around their left eyes. There the pattern always differs.” She raised the flap of the tent. “Get into your bedding and close those eyes, Lara. The sun will be up before we wish it.”

Still Waters had us up even before the sun rose.

I stood, holding Greatheart’s reins, sipping kavage as the camp was broken. Keekai was talking to one of the warrior-priests, announcing her craving for fresh red meat.

I ignored it, and watched the sun rise. Truly rise, on a horizon as wide as my eyes could see, seeming almost to leap up into the sky.

No wonder these people worshiped the elements, and swore by the skies. It was such an enormous part of their lives, affecting everything that they did, every moment of the day. Living in a castle, in a city, I was not attuned to it the way they were. I watched in awe, and wondered. What would a storm be like? What would winter be like?

My stomach tightened. It was all so new and frightening. I gazed out at the horizon, and wished for some nice, safe mountains to cut the openness. I felt so exposed....

“As frightening as a land where one is constantly surrounded by huge mountains of stone that restrict your sight and block the sun.” Keir’s words came back to me, and I smiled. Was he watching the sunrise? Or hassling his warriors to work faster so that he could follow us?

I had to chuckle, since both Keir and Marcus were probably driving everyone around them to work as fast as possible. Goddess knew, Marcus would drive them hard.

I turned a bit, letting Greatheart shield me from the others, and tried the hidden blade. I’d used the privacy of Keekai’s tent to strap it on. I jumped when it popped out and tried to clasp it tight in my hand. It would take practice to get it to work right. I pressed it back in as I heard someone come up behind me.

“Mount.” It was Iften, leading his horse, his usual morning scowl on his face. I rolled my eyes, and then turned, but he must have seen my face. His lip curled, and he spit at my feet. A small piece of something brown hit my shoe.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he’d turned away, and my warrior-priest guards were moving into position. In the confusion, I reached down, scooped whatever it was, and tucked it into my satchel.

We’d see what the warrior-priests’ ‘magic’ consisted of. We’d just see ...

Chapter 7

“Blind hatred is a weakness.”

I said nothing, just watched as Keekai reached from her pallet to add fuel to the brazier. The flames rose and made the light flicker and dance over the walls of her tent.

She’d called a halt before the nooning and ordered a hunt for fresh meat. The camp was guarded, and Iften was roaming the perimeter, keeping watch over me from a distance. Keekai had us warm in her tent, bells in the flap, and a pot of kavage between us. Her warriors were without, with instructions to make sure that no one came near. We were as private as we could be on the Plains.

It was just as well she’d ordered that we make camp early. We’d ridden into a fine mist of rain, and the damp and the cold had seeped into my bones. I could imagine what it did to Keekai’s body.

“I do not know the truth of all that has been, and can only speak the truth that I know.” Keekai looked at me from her nest of blankets. “You understand?”

I nodded, unwilling to interrupt.

“I am no Singer, but you must know of the past before I can say more.” Keekai rubbed her knees beneath the covers. “Long ago, a Warlord claimed the first Warprize. Together, they united all the tribes of the Plains. They created the Council of Elders as the wisdom of the Plains, the Singers as the knowledge, the Theas as the spirit. The Warrior-priests were supposed to be its strength.”

Keekai sighed deeply and her shoulders slumped under the blankets. “It worked well, for a time. But something happened. The warrior-priests began to claim to speak for the elements, to have magic that they alone wielded.”

Keekai paused, adjusting her blankets, and I poured us both more kavage. She pulled her hands out and held the mug in her blanket-covered lap.

“Now, Keir has always had the strength of a warrior. But he also has a heart, a caring for his people. It hurts him to see people suffer, and it infuriates him to see one in pain and another stand by and do nothing.”

“Is that what the warrior-priests do?”

Keekai nodded. “They only use their magic on those they decide are worthy.” She fixed me with an intent stare, as if trying to find the right words. “With Keir, the reason for his anger,” she hesitated, “there was a woman—”

My heart froze in my throat. My face must have reflected my feelings, for Keekai stopped and frowned. “No, not a binding. A young woman raised beside him, eh? Of his tribe. Do you understand?”

“Like a sister?”

Keekai looked puzzled. “I do not know this word.” I explained, and her face cleared. “Yes, yes. One does not lie down with a member of one’s tribe. We track the blood of all, to insure strength in the children.” Keekai pulled the blankets off her shoulder to show me her tattoos. “We do not mate or bond with the tribes of the ones that made us.”

“Yes.” I relaxed. “I understand.”

“So.” Keekai adjusted her blankets again, pulling them up and over her shoulders. “There was a woman of his tribe, who was bearing her first. It did not go well, and the woman died. I think, in the end, she was given mercy.

“Keir was enraged, for a warrior-priest refused to use his magic to aid her.” Keekai looked over my shoulder, staring into the past. “Marcus had him dragged off and restrained, lest he challenge every warrior-priest and die in trying to kill them all. Keir saw reason. Eventually. But he vowed to destroy them.” Keekai stopped, and took a drink of kavage, then set the mug down. “Destroy them all.” She shook her head. “His hatred blinds him to his danger. And yours.”

“And Marcus?” I asked. “What did the warrior-priests do when he was injured?”