Night Shadow Star watched the Natchez delegation vanish into the throng at the foot of the Morning Star’s great mound. She turned, walking thoughtfully past the Piasa and Horned Serpent guardian posts at the top of her steps.
She could feel the tendrils of Power, as if they were filaments of spider silk settling around her. Invisible, deadly, and binding.
“Should you be up there?” Fire Cat asked as he came trotting up her long staircase. From the glisten on his skin, his chunkey practice had been spirited. With the lance he gestured toward the Council House, its roof just visible behind the clay-coated palisade.
She studied him for a moment, this man who’d killed her beloved husband and lied about the manner of his death. Fire Cat had assured her that Makes Three had died well. She had hated him with all of her heart. Had anticipated slowly burning him alive in the square.
As he stopped before her, perspiration gave his skin a glow, accenting his black Red Wing tattoos along with those marking his military successes. Muscle packed his arms and shoulders, his belly rippling down to where a loincloth snugged around his thin waist. Trickles of sweat followed the contours of his pectorals and ribs. She experienced the oddest urge to reach out with a fingertip and trace one of the glistening beads as it slipped down his hard body.
His gaze had turned wary, as if he could sense her disquieting interest.
He. Is. My. Enemy. She forced the words down between her souls where they could not become dislodged, and cocked her head as she heard Piasa’s faint laughter, as if it mocked her from a distance.
Her gaze shifted to the Council House roof where it rose behind its palisade. “My presence would change nothing. The struggle will have to be waged.” In the place of fear came an inexorable weariness and distaste.
“How was your game?” She changed the subject, indicating the lance and stone he carried. The sight of Makes Three’s prized stone in the Red Wing’s hands no longer incited rage.
He was still watching her through cautious eyes. “I won by three. I shouldn’t have. Your cousin wasn’t on his game. He made mistakes. But even though I won it’s as if…”
“Yes?”
He shook his head, tossing the stone up and letting it slap into his hand as he cast another anxious look across to the Council House. “As if part of me is numb and blunt, Lady. The part of my souls and Power that should be sharp and skilled.”
She nodded, feeling the same of herself. “My master tells me you must find it, Red Wing. He…” The words eluded her, unsure herself about what the whispered warnings spun of the air actually meant.
She hadn’t yet found herself—her Spirit-possessed souls shiftless inside the new woman she’d become. A part of her remained shattered by revelations called up from deep within her hidden memories.
My brother raped me. And some sickness in my souls hid it.
She’d learned, no, rediscovered, that truth last spring while her souls were being judged in the Underworld. The terror, pain, and betrayal had been too great to bear.
I am insane and polluted. No wonder Power twists me about like a knotted rope.
She tightened her fists until the nails cut into her palms, the unclean taint of incest tickling her skin like wind-borne soot.
“It would help,” Fire Cat said gently, “if you could give me some sense of what’s to come. The last time? I was a half a breath away from being too late.”
Did she really remember his hand reaching down, fixing in her hair and lifting, drawing her from the river’s depths? Or was that some made-up memory she’d pieced together from his description of when he pulled her soul-dead flesh from the water?
Her first true memory was of his breath forcing its way into her lungs. His frantic hands on her breasts as he pressed water from her drowned body. Only when she’d coughed and shivered had he lain his warm body atop hers and collapsed in relief. Her heart skipped as she relived that instant of amazed realization that she was alive.
She shot him a wary glance. And breathing life into me? Did he also breathe some of his souls into mine?
The thought carried too many implications. She forced it away.
“Piasa hasn’t told me all of it.” She returned her gaze to the Council House. “Only that the Spirit World is threatened.”
“I’ll look for the lightning ahead of time.”
“This isn’t a battle between Sky and Underworld.” She shook her head, trying to quiet her roiling thoughts. Memories of the river’s dark depths stirred, tried to possess her. Walking Smoke had gripped her by the throat until lightning blasted the river. She banished the image, concentrating on the here and now. “But something different. We’re … gaming pieces. Bet upon by Power.”
“Piasa told you that?”
“A hunch, Red Wing.”
He took a deep breath, swelling his chest. A woman could admire a chest like that. Dream about it.
But not her. Not with this man.
She turned, the sense of unease creeping through her souls like a winter mist.
“He must play like the heroes of the Beginning Times,” Piasa’s voice seemed to hiss from the air.
“Then call upon the Morning Star,” she retorted.
“He has already abandoned you.”
“Lady?” Fire Cat asked as he hurried along behind her. “You want me to call upon the Morning Star? I don’t understand.”
“Not you, Red Wing. And understanding isn’t required. Just chunkey. Perfect, flawless chunkey. As if our lives depended upon it.”
But why? What goaded Piasa’s insistence?
She didn’t look back as she stepped onto the veranda of her palace. All she’d see in Fire Cat’s face was confusion, and she already had enough of that for the two of them.
“Lady?”
At Fire Cat’s call she turned, following his gaze.
She could see the Natchez delegation, four messengers, two men dressed in finery, and warriors bearing heavy boxes as they climbed the high staircase to the Morning Star’s palace.
“It begins.” Piasa flickered at the edge of her vision, his sibilant voice chilling her souls.