Poppy’s head came up like a sheepdog’s hearing its master’s whistle.
That was what she felt like. She’d heard—something. Her mother’s voice, it had seemed. She looked again at the black rock altar. The dawn ritual was almost over. Despite the clawing cold, almost all of the inhabitants of this little town had come out to greet the gods. When danger threatens, her mother had said many times, people start praying.
If she was going to hear her mother’s voice anywhere, it would be here, Poppy thought.
It had sounded like her mother had said: “There is a lot we need to do, if we’re going to hold off this Ice.”
The ritual finished and the people began to drift away, many looking up at the clear sky with worried faces. Poppy went closer to the altar, reached out to touch it.
“Gods of field and stream, hear your daughter,” she said softly. Bringing out her belt knife, she cut off a lock of her hair and laid it down on the altar. “Gods of fire and storm, of earth and stone, of sky and wind, hear your daughter. Give me my mother’s wisdom, give me my mother’s guidance.”
A breeze stirred, making her eyes water. When she blinked the tears away, the hair had gone. The gods had accepted her offering. She waited, and gradually found herself becoming afraid. Afraid of the cold. Shivering, shuddering with cold, although she could see from Larch’s manner that it was not truly any colder than before. Then her mother spoke into her mind, clear and achingly familiar.
We must bind ourselves into one, she said. Like this.
A cascade of images flooded Poppy’s mind; a song, a movement, a sense of many needs plaited, woven into one strong strand—no, a fence, a wall, a woven barrier as solid as steel. And her mother in the middle, the weaver.
“When?” she whispered, and the gods said to her: We will tell you. Go, prepare the others. Ice comes.
Salt was the nearest big town, and they had the mines—safety for everyone while the battle was being fought. She just had to convince everyone to go there.
Hah! No one would listen to her, a farmer’s daughter. They wouldn’t even listen to Larch. But Poppy had lived all her life with gods and prophets and seers, and she knew what she needed. Stonecasters.