Kiva pushed herself up and ran back to the village, the edges of the long grass-blades slicing at her feet. Her legs burned and her toes flexed in the grit as she hiked up the rise. At the top, she paused and placed her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
Her father’s hut stood at the edge of the village. It was a squat structure made of mud and surrounded by a small, furrowed garden. Grath, Kiva’s father, stood amidst the plants, working a hoe. Just outside the door, Quint, Kiva’s younger sister, played in the dirt with two small figures carved from pieces of wood, chattering softly to herself as she made them talk to each other.
When Kiva approached, Quint lifted her head, her eyes wide and gleaming, and burst to her feet. She ran through the garden and threw her arms around Kiva’s waist—and in spite of herself, a smile broke across Kiva’s face. She bent her neck and planted a kiss on the top of Quint’s head.
“Kiva!” Quint said, looking up at her older sister without letting go. “Where were you? Out on the prairie?”
Kiva nodded and laughed quietly to herself.
“Yes,” she said, “you know I was.”
Kiva knew that Quint adored her, practically worshiped her—the girl would follow her around everywhere, if she let her. Kiva still remembered the day Quint first came to them, the day their mother, Liana, and the Sisters brought the mewling, squawking baby to live in their hut. When Liana came through the door with Quint in her arms, Kiva had craned her neck to peer over the cloth wrappings at the girl’s face. It was so smooth, the gray skin of the baby’s forehead and cheeks almost shiny—and Kiva fell in love with her at once. The feeling was so strong and sudden that she felt she might fall over: this urgent, immediate need to protect Quint, to clasp her close and never let go.
Now, Quint unlaced her hands at Kiva’s waist, stepped back, and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Quint asked. “You’ve been crying.”
Kiva quickly wiped away the streaks her tears had left on her cheeks. At Quint’s back, Grath stopped working, propped the hoe against the dirt and leaned both arms on it, listening.
Kiva met her father’s eyes for a brief moment, then looked back to Quint and shook her head.
“It’s nothing,” Kiva said. “Nothing you should worry yourself about. Go on inside, okay? I’ll come tuck you in soon.”
Quint glanced at their father, then turned back to Kiva, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Go on,” Kiva said.
“Mind your sister,” her father said.
Quint sighed. “Will you sing to me, too? And tell me a story?”
Kiva bowed her head. “If you want.”
Satisfied, Quint grinned and scampered inside. Grath watched her go. After the girl had disappeared inside the hut, he turned to Kiva.
“All right,” he said. “Now, what is it? What’s happened?”
“I … I,” Kiva stuttered. She didn’t have the words to describe what had happened to her. Not yet.
“I saw something,” she said finally.
Grath stood silent, waiting.
“People,” Kiva said. “Dark shadows coming over the hill.”
Grath’s neck straightened. “Who? The Forsaken? What did they do to you?”
Kiva shook her head sharply. The Forsaken were men who used to live in the village; some had been banished for behaving violently, while others ran away because they were restless and craved the freedom of life outside the village. In the wilderness, they banded together and lived in an uneasy truce with Kiva’s people—but even so, Grath had always told her to keep her distance from them. Sometimes when Kiva went beyond the edge of the village she could see the Forsaken lurking in the far distance, silhouettes against the sunset with weapons in hand. She was afraid of them. But it wasn’t the Forsaken she’d seen—not this time.
This was something different.
“No,” she said. “No. They weren’t real. Or—they were real but they weren’t … really there. They were in my head. In my mind.”
Grath breathed out. His shoulders dropped and he unflexed his hands, returned to his work. There was a rasp of stone scraping against stone as the hoe cut into the soil and loosed dusty clods.
“A dream,” he said, “You fell asleep.”
“No,” Kiva said, the word a knife that cut the evening air. “It was more than a dream.”
She thought of the pain that had seized her gut and shot up through her spine. The memory of it lingered as a dull ache.
“A vision,” she said.
Her father looked up again.
“Impossible,” he said. “You must have imagined it. You’re only thirteen seasons. Only the Sisters have visions. The Sisters and the Vagra.”
“I know,” Kiva said. “But this was a vision.”
He considered that for a moment, then turned and walked toward the hut. Kiva fell in step behind him. He set the hoe against the wall, then nodded Kiva toward a spot on the ground.
Kiva sat down and waited for Grath to do the same. He clapped the dust off his hands, then eased himself to the dirt. He stretched out on his side and leaned on one elbow.
“Now,” he said. “Tell me about this vision.”
Kiva told him everything: the explosion of fire, the stars whizzing by like a handful of thrown pebbles, the bird bursting through the clouds to land on the plain, the three dark figures standing shoulder to shoulder against the horizon.
As she spoke, her father traced patterns in the dirt, his finger swooping as it drew broad curves and sharp angles. When she had finished, he sighed and drew his flat hand across the ground, wiping it smooth once more.
“We must take her to the Sisters,” came a voice from the hut.
Kiva’s head snapped up. It was Liana, standing framed in the doorway.
“Forgive me, Sister,” he said, bowing his head. “If I had known you were here—”
“I didn’t want to disturb your work,” the woman said. “I came in without your noticing. I was waiting for you in bed. Then I grew tired of waiting.”
“How long have you been listening?” Grath asked.
“Since Quint came inside and told me that the two of you were plotting something,” Liana answered, smiling. “Long enough to know: the girl has had her first visitation from the Ancestors. She must come before the Sisters. She must tell her vision to the Vagra.”