Kindra woke tangled in Gar’s limbs. Sunlight streamed through the tent flap, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes.

“Oh good,” Monk’s voice came from the door. “You’re awake. It’s time to talk about that responsibility thing you keep avoiding. Get dressed.”

The flap closed, smothering her in darkness. Gar nuzzled his face in her neck and mumbled. “They can wait. Your responsibility is to me right now.” He pressed his body into hers and nipped her ear.

A shiver ran through her as his fingers found the mark on her back and began tracing the scars. For Trina that felt good. But it also reminded her of the fact that there was nearly a civil war outside that door, and it was her responsibility to end it.

She kissed Gar and stood as he groaned, a sound of longing so unexpected it almost brought her back to bed.

“You got me into this,” she said as she pulled on her pants. “You deserve to be punished.” She pulled a shirt over her head and smoothed her hair down.

“Wear your warrior shirt.”

She started to argue, then realized that she could be in no more trouble than she already was. If she was going to take on the responsibility of leading half the warriors in Fie Eoin, she better look the part. She dug a plain warrior shirt out from under her cot and put it on.

“Oak has my cloak,” she said.

Gar, still shirtless, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. “We’ll get it back.”

She smiled at him. “Put your clothes on; I’m letting them in.”

She opened the flap, letting the cold in with the warriors. “All right. Let’s talk about this plan of yours.”

“Monkey, Gar.” Petoskey nodded to the door, and they bowed and left to stand guard. When it was closed, he said, “The fewer people who hear what I’m going to tell you, the better.”

Kindra knelt to build the fire and warm the tent against the chill he’d brought with him. “Why?” What could possibly be so bad that he wouldn’t say it in front of his son?

“It may not be true, but if it is we have to tread very carefully.”

She crouched on her heels. “You may have noticed I’m not very good at ‘careful’.”

A wane smile graced his face. “You are your father’s daughter.” He sat on Loria’s cot and motioned for Kindra to take a seat on hers. “One of your men saw Osprey leaving the tribe last night.”

One of her men. What a strange thing, to go from outcast and failed warrior to the leader of a rebellion. Kindra smiled. “Good. Maybe Gar scared him off.”

“He was going north.”

North? Osprey was as rash as Kindra, but she didn’t think he had a death wish. Unless he was going to sell her. Surely even Oak’s warriors wouldn’t let him sell the last Odion to their enemies?

Petoskey’s voice broke through her thoughts. “You seem to know what it is Obsid wants in place of Kaye.”

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“He wants me,” she said and looked at her bandaged hand. “Oak promised them the last Odion warrior.”

“Did he promise before or after the battle?”

Kindra threw another piece of wood on the fire, watching the sparks as they flew towards the ceiling. “How could he promise before? He wasn’t chief.”

“Have you never been suspicious of why the Obsidians settled so easily?” Petoskey searched her face as he spoke. “Why take only Deer Valley, if they could have easily destroyed or subjugated us?”

Kindra hadn’t wondered. She was twelve when her dying father made the peace treaty with the Obsidians—all she cared about then was keeping Fennec alive. “I thought…I don’t know.”

“Have you ever wondered why, eight winters after we lost Deer Valley we’re still starving? Every summer Fie Deorsa expands their fields and births more sheep, and every winter we starve.”

“We have more people than we did.”

Petoskey shook his head. “Not that many more.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped before him. “Did you know the Wains are hiding weapons? They’re stockpiling them in the mines so Oak won’t know. Every summer he asks for too many weapons for the number of trainees we have.”

Kindra squeezed her hand closed and looked at her father’s sword. “But I was told we didn’t have enough. I had to train with my father’s spear because there were no extra training spears.”

Petoskey nodded. “So where are the food and extra weapons going?”

“That can’t be,” Kindra stood and began to pace. “Why would we pay a tax to the Obsidians? The only ones who do that are the tribes who’ve been subjugated by the Nation.”

“I know.”

“But we aren’t part of the Nation.” Kindra rounded on him as the wood in the hearth popped. “If we were there wouldn’t be division in the tribe. Every single warrior would go to war.”

Petoskey sat, calm. “I know.”

Kindra lowered herself to her cot. If what Petoskey was implying was correct, the Obsidians had subjugated the Seven Tribes. Quietly. With the help of only one man who would be chief and promised the enemy the most powerful Odions so there would be no one left to fight them. When Obsid said Oak promised him the last Odion warrior he hadn’t been speaking of Kindra at all.

Her voice came out a tear-filled whisper. “He killed my father.”

Petoskey nodded. “And he did it in a way no one could prove it. He abandoned your father in the battle. If Oak and the rest of the honor guard had been there, Fennec wouldn’t have died. Neither would Geoff. But those boys saw Oak lead your father’s guard away, and Geoff tried to help. And Liam tried to help him. And we almost lost all three.”

She’d spent the winter angry at Geoff and Gar over what Oak told her, and really it was the other way around. The wood popped again and her hands closed into fists.

“Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

A sad smile graced Petoskey’s face. “We were waiting for you to become a warrior. If Oak was deposed, I would become chief. It would look like a desperate, power-hungry lie. No one’s going to believe a Preston over a Conal. No one. But if an Odion warrior tells them…”

“They’ll force Oak to step down. Or kill him.”

Petoskey nodded. “Which leaves us with the second, greater problem: the Obsidians. When they find out we killed their puppet chief and stopped paying their taxes they will destroy us without mercy.”

“And you know, for sure, that the missing goods are going to the Obsidians?”

He dropped his gaze. “No. I’ve tried to find out what Oak does with them, but I could not prove it.”

Kindra leaned back against the tent wall. “So, you can’t prove Oak killed my father and you can’t prove he’s sending goods to Fie Obsid.”

“No.”

“Then I need to talk to Oak.” She sat up straight. “Alone.”

“Absolutely not,” Petoskey said. “I promised your father I would keep you safe.”

Kindra smiled. “Are you afraid Oak will kill me?”

“He already tried.” Petoskey nodded to her bandaged hand.

She shook her head. “He was trying to scare me. He can’t kill me because the Obsidians want me. If Oak is already giving them food and weapons there’s nothing left to offer, except the High Priestess, and even Oak isn’t coward enough to do that.”

Petoskey stared at her a moment, then sighed. “You really are your father’s daughter.”

That made her grin, but they were interrupted by Alder. Blood seeped from under the hand pressed to his forehead. “The horse is loose. Again.”

Kindra’s grin dissolved. “I’ll take care of it.” She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and looked at Petoskey. “I will talk to him.”

Petoskey folded his arms with a frown. “I know.”

“Good.” She left, and Gar followed her to the woods.