She grimaced. “I was not there, but this truth I know, that it only added fuel to Keir’s rage. Keir commanded Marcus to live, and Marcus obeyed.”

“What is Marcus’s tribe, Keekai?”

“Marcus has no tribe, Lara.” Keekai’s eyes were filled with sorrow.

I sucked in my breath.

She nodded. “I did not think you truly understood what you did, choosing him as Guardian. Marcus is no longer of a tribe, no longer of the Plains.”

I chewed my lower lip, trying to remember. “When I first met Marcus, he said that he was ‘token-bearer and aide to the Warlord’.”

Keekai’s face grew grim. “That is all he is. If not for Keir’s protection . . .”

“Marcus would die,” I finished.

Keekai nodded. “Just so. By his own hand, like as not.”

I stared into my kavage. “That is not right.”

“Life on the Plains is hard.” Her voice sounded so much like Marcus’s, I lifted my head, almost expecting his eye to be glaring at me. But instead, Keekai’s blue eyes blazed at me, sending shivers down my spine. “Harder than you know,” she continued. “For hear now the truth that the Elders know, and will not speak of. The People of the Plains are dying.”

I sat upright, and sloshed my kavage in my lap. “Why?”

“We do not know why. Warriors in battle, that is to be expected. But there are more deaths during the snows, more women are dying in childbirth. Worse, our babes are dying without reason. Half the children born do not see the first true blades.”

“Keekai, that’s—” I swallowed hard. “Children do die, of fevers and accidents and the like, but not at that rate.”

She nodded again, still grim. “None outside the Council know this, although I think that Keir has come to his own understanding of our plight. When he was named Warlord this spring, the lots awarded him Xy. He stood before all, the Elders and the Eldest, and announced that he would conquer Xy. With the intent of learning and absorbing their ways and knowledge.” A grin flashed over her face, so much like Keir my heart skipped a beat. “So imagine their faces when word comes on the wind that Keir of the Cat had claimed a Warprize, one who holds a healing magic of her own. The news rolled like a storm over the Plains.” Keekai’s arm emerged from the blankets to sweep the air before her.

I smiled back in answer to her grin, but then I remembered something that Keir had said. “Keekai, what is a ‘Warking’?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Now, where would you have heard that word?”

I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. Keir had said to trust her, but had I said too much? Regardless, the goats were out the gate now, and eating corn. “From Keir. He was ill and raving when he spoke the word.” Even now I could see him, in my mind’s eye, fighting the restraints and howling. ‘Fear the day Keir of the Cat is named Warking!’

“Raving?” Keekai asked.

“Like the battle madness,” I responded, not wanting to have to give a lengthy explanation.

“Ah.” She tilted her head to the side, and studied me. “Not a word to use lightly. Nor would I say it outside the bells. I am not surprised to hear that Keir’s thoughts move in that direction now.”

I waited, nervous.

“A Warking is a warrior that stands above all, even the Council.” Keekai rubbed a finger over her eye. “There have been only two in the past, who rose when we of the Plains faced dire threats.”

“You think Keir intends to become one?” I asked.

“I do not pretend to know that one’s truths.” Keekai was deadly serious, her eyes never leaving mine. “But speak of this only to him and to Marcus. You understand?”

“I do,” I answered quietly.

Keekai shook her head again, as if in despair. “I have told that fool of a warlord that blind hatred of the warrior-priests is a dangerous thing. But that one, he is stubborn. Knows what he wants, and gets it.”

I blushed and looked away, knowing that trait in Keir very well.

Very well indeed.

The hunters returned, with an odd looking deer that they soon had spitted and roasting. Keekai and I emerged to hear the tale of the hunt.

The warrior-priests seemed no different from the other warriors in their excitement over the hunt and the kill. I watched closely, trying to see the differences in the details of the tattoos.

Iften, grim and brooding, wasn’t far away. He’d seated himself off with a group of older warrior-priests, and he was talking. From the glances that came my way, he was spilling his hatred into their ears.

I gritted my teeth, and tried not to think of going over and spitting on his shoes. I reminded myself that it would be mean-spirited. That it would bring me down to his level.

That it would feel really good.

“We spotted some warriors of the Plains when we returned from the hunt.” One of the warrior-priests was talking to Keekai. “They kept their distance, followed us for a time, then disappeared over a ridge.”

“They didn’t identify themselves?” Keekai asked.

“No, Elder.”

“Odd,” Keekai said.

Still Waters was beside her. “Not so odd these days. The old ways of the plains, the courtesy of the land and of the tents, is gone.”

Keekai shot him a look. “Or perhaps they thought warrior-priests would not welcome an intrusion. Still, it is unusual.”

A grunt from Still Waters was the only response.

“A belly-full of meat, and kavage.” Keekai sat on her pallet and patted her stomach. “Well worth the stop, eh?”

I nodded, drinking the last bit of kavage from my cup.

“And look.” Keekai raised her hand into the air, and flexed her fingers for me to see. “The stiffness eases.”

“Good.” I smiled, pleased at the relief the salve gave her. Stiff joints and crooked fingers could be a source of terrible pain to the old. “Keekai, how old are you?”

“Eh?” she asked, tucking herself into the blankets.

“How many years do you have?”

“You count years?” Keekai looked at me as if I had grown horns.

I clenched my teeth. Honestly, how did these people manage? I thought for a moment. “How long did it take you to have your children?”

There was an odd look of remembered pain, but her voice was light when she answered. “Popped them out one after the other after my moon times came upon me.”

“Were you late getting your courses?”

“Moon times?” She shrugged. “They came when they came.”

“How many campaigns have you served in?”

Keekai’s face lit with pleasure. “My first was under Rize of the Hawk. ...” She proceeded to use that memory of hers to detail her military history. I counted out the campaigns, figuring that would come close to a year if the armies were disbanded before each winter.

“Then I became an Elder, and I have served to select the warlords seven times since then.”

I blinked, rechecked my figuring, and then looked at her in shock. Keekai wasn’t nearly as old as I thought she was.

She tilted her head to the side. “Your curiosity is satisfied?” She took my silence as such. “Then we must sleep. Still Waters will insist on an early start tomorrow, and I doubt he’ll agree to a halt until the sun is down!”

I stretched out under the blankets, listened to Keekai’s breathing, and thought about what I had learned.

Life on the Plains was hard. I knew that, or at least, I’d thought I’d known what that meant. But I didn’t, not really. I’d had all the comforts of city life, plus the advantages of living in a castle. I didn’t have a daily struggle for food and warmth, things I took for granted. But on the Plains, life itself was hard, harder on the body. Which meant that Keir wasn’t as old as I’d thought. Perhaps we were closer in age than I’d realized?

I turned onto my side, and pulled the covers up over my shoulder. The brazier was not putting out as much heat now, and the air felt colder. A slight breeze moved the side of the tent, and if I turned my head and looked up, I could see the stars through the smoke hole. I shifted deeper into the warmth of my bed.