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"Let me sit with him until it’s time for uage The Walking Ones who taught es of our allies rateful"

He glanced at her oddly "Is it true that the Holy One sent him to be your husband?"

She had to look away Dried fish and herbs hung froathered in the rafters "I bow to the Holy One’s will" Would they think it unseemly if they kne quickly she had fallen under Alain’s spell? Would they suspect that the Holy One had used er? Not everyone trusted the Horse people and their powerful shaic had influenced her So unexpectedly

Dorren exa Mother Orla with respect "Where is fa? She does not attend the Hallowed One as she should"

"Herjust as the barley harvest cao back to Muddy Walk to help lay the path that will lead her mother’s spirit to the Other Side Your old teacher is too crippled to walk all the way froone to learn the language of the Black Deer people"

"A strange time to do so when one is needed here with the Hallowed One at all tifa back Her sister can draw the final spiral herself When I aner, so he can learn to speak Falling-doould not have dreas a ods have chosen to speak through him, but we cannot understand hi the truth of his argument

Yet Alain could co when Adica led Dorren up to the looer dared witness sorcery for fear of the winds and eddies of fate called up by ic

She had spent the afternoon with Pur the stone knapper, repairing her mirror He prolue stewed from the hooves of aurochs by which he could h to weave the looain before sunset, Alain greeted her very prettily, although it was clearly easier for hiht hie and walked up through the embankments to the tu on these embankments," said Dorren "He believed that such fortifications would protect all the White Deer people from the incursions of the Cursed Ones, yet how can they if the Cursed Ones have learned hoalk the looe below, the houses with their long sides facing south to get the arden plots denuded except for the last leafy turnips going to seed, a restless ht Adults sware must protect itself," said Adica softly, "until that day we are rid of the Cursed Ones"

Dorren looked away fro the fate laid on her

Beside her, Alain knelt to dig a hand into the soil "This is called ‘earth,’" he said, sounding each word h he couldn’t reproduce the sounds precisely He gestured toward the nearest curve of the embankment "This is called ‘wall of earth’"

Dorren chuckled "You will learn quickly with a good teacher"

"A good teacher," echoed Alain, wiping his hand off on grass

They reached the looht fell The circle of stones stood in silence, as they always did She set her feet on the calling ground Dorren knew to stand to her right side and, after a h he seeht into the loom itself

Clouds covered part of the sky, whichmore complicated Since the Grindstone lay concealed by clouds, she would have to weave a gateway byshoulders she could use as a weight to throw the gate open to the west

Lifting her an the prayer to waken the stones: "Heed me, that which opens in the east Heed me, that which opens in the west"

Alain did not tremble or run, as many would have, faced with sorcery such as she wove now out of starlight and stone The hill woke beneath her The awareness of the ancient queens gripped her heart, as though their hands reached through stone and earth and death itself to take hold of their living heir, to seize her for their own purposes