Chapter One

The wind sighed out her name, summoning her for the third night in a row. This time, Lucinda shoved the blanket aside and jumped to her feet, sweeping up her belt in one hand, scrabbling for the small bronze box attached to it with the other. Inside the pyxide she found the stone she needed—hard, black jet—and closed her fingers over it, then dropped the belt, the other stones spilling across the beaten earth floor of the alcove where she slept.

The lid of the chest slammed against the wall as she yanked it open, echoing her urgency, and from the other room she heard the sound of her sister stirring. Hastily, she grabbed a handful of dried field-madder from the chest and made a night-gild right there in the alcove. It took her three tries to strike a spark from the fire-stone.

The field-madder took flame, its scent intended to ward off hostile spirits. She dropped the fire-stone and strung the jet on the chain around her neck for further protection. The fire wavered, charring the dried herb as she watched. She clutched the stone at her neck, heart leaping wildly in her throat.

Already the pungent smoke thinned, drifted, disappeared. She needed stronger magic tonight. From the chest, she snatched up the ritual seax, purified by fire and water. She had stolen the knife from a shrine-thane in Aelfsted after the first summons, certain her need was greater than his. The rune inscribed on the blade was Sigel’s, the sun-god from whom the locals took their name. She had no relationship with him but that didn’t matter for her purposes.

She sliced the blade across the palm of her hand, flinching at the pain. The crimson path, the poets called it, the scarlet sea, life’s tide. She dripped blood onto the ritual fire, three drops that spilled out quickly. The flames flared in hunger and approval. Then she closed her bleeding hand into a fist and bent toward the fire.

“My lady,” she whispered. “Sophia. I will not do this thing.”

She pressed her wounded hand against her heart, her whole body aching as she listened in a silence so intense it made her ears ring.

The answer came on a roar of sound like an ocean wave, so loud she cried out in response. An invisible weight slammed into her, forcing her face down on the ground, the smell of earth and anger filling her.

“You would use the stone of the abyss against me? Why not use lead?” the lady thundered. “Write a curse tablet and bury it in the earth!”

I would if I dared. Lucinda didn’t say it and tried not to think it, for though the lady could not read minds she could hear well beyond the limits of mortal kind. Lucinda trembled on the ground, her heart fluttering in her chest like a damaged butterfly.

Now the wind whispered, stroking her hair. Gently, in the manner of the Sophia to whom she had once professed her loyalty, in contrast to the rage of the Sophia who had terrorized her these past three nights. Lucinda pressed her face to the ground.

“I would not ask it if there were any other way,” Sophia said, her words softer now, coaxing.

I will not, I will not, I will not. Like a child hiding from her mother. But this was not a child’s game.

Lucinda’s hands shook as she unclasped the chain from around her neck and set it aside, a gesture of respect, not a yielding, and when Sophia murmured her approval, Lucinda steeled herself and said, “I have told you, my lady. I will not do this thing.”

At first when the thunder didn’t come, Lucinda thought Sophia hadn’t heard her. But of course she had. When the lady spoke again, her voice was still calm but all of the kindness had been wrung from it.

“Do my will, thane, or pay the sacrifice.”

That was the choice. Sophia couldn’t force her, couldn’t substitute her will for Lucinda’s own. But Sophia could . . . negotiate.

When Lucinda had fled her service, Sophia had made it impossible for her to stay more than a few days in any place. Until the wind had blown her to West Randburg and her sister Bertha’s house, and here the lady had allowed her to abide a while, letting her believe it might even be forever.

Lucinda knew the shape the sacrifice would take. Sophia would send the wind and it would blow her somewhere new, wrenching her from her sister’s home, from the warmth of the fire and the laughter of the folk.

On the morrow, some disaster would occur—a cow-tender would accuse her of thievery, perhaps—and she would have to take her leave of Bertha, who was almost to term with her first child. Bertha’s husband had been drowned months before and Lucinda didn’t like leaving her alone. But that would be the cost, and Lucinda would bear it.

She curled into a ball, like a small child trying to avoid the stick of the apprentice master, and said, “Do as you must.”

There was no angry outburst. After a moment she could feel Sophia retreating and the great emptiness of her withdrawal made Lucinda ache. My lady, please, she wanted to say, but the time for pleading had passed.

From the other room, Bertha screamed.