No one harassed Kindra when she left the tent. She headed straight to Eoin’s pen, jumped over the fence, and pressed her face into his neck as she cried. He was the only thing that calmed her now, and she would lose him tomorrow. Like her friends, she couldn’t take him with her to Fie Obsid.

“Kindra?” It was Kaye, and Kindra’s heart broke again.

“What?” Kindra’s voice sounded rough even to her own ears. She hoped Kaye was too scared of the horse to enter the pen, but she should have known better. Even if Kaye wasn’t a priestess, she was the other half of Kindra’s soul, and she wouldn’t fear a monster Kindra didn’t fear.

Kaye’s hand touched her shoulder and Kindra turned, swallowing as she saw Kaye’s face for the first time in moons—really saw it. There was a worldliness there that had been absent before. Kaye’s graceful innocence had been replaced by a hardness that Kindra recognized, because she’d had it since their father’s death.

“I went to Fie Obsid,” Kindra said. “You weren’t there.”

“No.” Kaye took a deep breath. “You can’t go through with the wedding. Obsid doesn’t want to marry you.”

“I’m not giving you back to him. He took you from me once. Never again.” Kindra wanted to reach out and touch Kaye, but she couldn’t make herself move. If she touched her sister, then this would be real, Kaye would be here, and the chance of losing her again…

“Kindra, it’s not a wedding. It’s a sacrifice.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t.”

She stared at her twin for a long moment. “What do you mean?”

Kaye grabbed her hand, and all of the fear, pain, and confusion of the winter washed away with the touch. When Kaye spoke, the sadness in her eyes was almost unbearable.

“They took me as a sacrifice. Obsid was marrying an Obsidian woman and they were going to kill me at the ceremony as an offering to their god.”

The words didn’t make sense. The Obsidians came for Kaye because their chief needed sons. Now they wanted Kindra for the same reason. Sons. She shook her head. “You can’t give him a son if you’re dead. Why would he kill his wife?”

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Kaye grabbed her shoulders. “The wedding is a sham. They want an Odion sacrifice. You can’t go through with it—when you return to Fie Obsid he’ll kill you.”

Kindra looked past her to the village. “But if I back out now, he’ll destroy the Seven Tribes. This whole wedding—I know it’s a sham. It’s just to save the Tribes.” She didn’t expect to be killed though. She expected to be put aside after she gave him an heir. She expected to live alone in Fie Obsid until the old man died and she could return home. If what Kaye said was true…

She looked at her sister. “Then how did you get away?”

“I flew.” A brief smile graced Kaye’s lips before falling again into hardness. “They shot me out of the air and chased me over the mountain. And Kindra,” Kaye grabbed her hand, “I found the Faye.”

“There’s another one?”

“There’s a whole tribe of them! It’s real. The Legends about Ian Odion bringing us from the Faye lands are true. They’re wrong, because he was an awful man, but they’re true.

Kindra was speechless. She’d prayed for a Faye army to defeat the Obsidians when Kaye left, and now they’d found one. They’d found one too damn late to do her any good.

“Not only that,” Kaye continued, “but the Gaerloms—the people on the giant river, only it’s not a river, but that doesn’t matter—they’re willing to fight with us. They’re good with spears and the Obsidians will kill them anyways. With them and the Dacians, and all of the Aledan men, we could beat the Obsidians.”

Kaye was almost beaming as she shared the good news, but Kindra’s mind was reeling. “Yes. The wedding should buy you enough time to gather and train everyone. Once they’re here you can tell Petoskey what happened to me, and go to war.”

Kaye’s hands dropped from Kindra’s arms and her smile disappeared. “What? Buy us time? I just told you Obsid will kill you if you marry him.”

“And we don’t have time to gather anyone if I don’t. He’ll return the day after tomorrow with an army.”

“Not his full force.”

“Full enough to destroy us. They can come downriver. The men across the mountain have to go through the pass.”

Kaye opened her mouth to argue, but it left her as a defeated sigh. “You can’t expect me to watch you leave for Fie Obsid knowing what will happen to you.”

“I did.”

Kaye’s eyes filled with tears, and she reached out to touch the scar on Kindra’s chin that wasn’t there when Kaye left. “When you were whipped you told me to cry out if the pain was too much. I’m crying now. You cannot put me through that pain.”

Kindra grabbed her and held her close. “That was for me. This is for the tribe. I made the blood-bond, and through me so did you. It will only hurt for a moment.”

“I will feel it forever,” Kaye whispered and began to cry.

Kindra held her, too shocked to cry. She told Monk marrying Obsid was death, but she didn’t know how true that was. After a moment she held Kaye back. “You can’t tell anyone until I’m gone, do you understand? Promise me.”

Kaye wiped her eyes. “Kindra.”

“Promise me, Kaye. As the other half of my soul. You will tell no one.”

Kaye looked at her wrists where the Obsidian ropes had left scars. When she spoke, her voice was full of tears. “I promise on our bond. I will tell no one until after it’s done.”

Kindra smiled sadly and grabbed her hands. “Come back to the tent. It’s been lonely without you.”

Kaye nodded and pressed her lips together as they walked back hand in hand.