Mayla watched Karni go into the clearing alone. When she had passed out of sight, Mayla turned to Shvate. “I should be with her. Just in case.”
Shvate looked at her with a patient expression. “She will not be harmed. These are gods, not urrkh.”
“But still. If she needs moral support . . .”
Shvate shook his head. “Karni is strong. Stronger than both of us combined.”
Mayla squinted at him, playfully. “Are you saying I’m not strong?”
Shvate raised his eyebrows. “Mayla, my love, you are capable of besting me in a duel at least two times out of five.”
“It would have been three, but the ground was muddy, and I slipped.”
He didn’t argue or press the point. He was carving a length of wood and continued whittling at it.
“What are you doing?”
“Carving practice swords for our children.”
“Isn’t it a bit early? I know that children of the gods are born much sooner than human ones. But even so, it’ll be months yet before they can even stand.”
Shvate looked at her, then glanced at the cot nearby, in which their little champion lay sleeping peacefully. “Our children will be extraordinary. We must prepare them for extraordinary lives.”
Mayla was about to say something else when suddenly a wind whipped up out of nowhere. At once, Shvate dropped the wood and the knife and went to the cot, pulling the covering over the top to keep the wind and dust out of his eyes. When he turned around, Mayla was standing with her mouth open, staring in the direction of the clearing.
Shvate glanced that way and saw the wind churning furiously in the air above the clearing, where only a moment ago all had been still.
A grinding sound came from above.
They both looked up at the sky.
A tornado was descending, a thin, tall wind funnel blurring at tremendous speed, dark as night against the clear, cloudless blue sky.
There were no tornadoes in this part of the Burnt Empire. This was no natural phenomenon.
The tornado touched ground precisely in the clearing.
The wind and sound were both deafening and blinding.
Shvate pulled at Mayla’s hand. “We have to get under cover!”
Mayla reluctantly broke away and went with Shvate. She continued looking back as she went, all the way until she reached the safety of the hermitage, where all was quiet and peaceful.