“Spotted Wrist? As trusted as he is, could this run deeper than—”
“She is not the assassin.” Morning Star stepped out of his quarters, an apron around his hips, but otherwise naked. His hair hung down over his shoulders in a thick black mantle. Blood smears were visible on his hands and arms.
He was followed by Red Warrior Tenkiller. Her brother’s ashen face reflected shock and horror. Normally attired in finery the tonka’tzi wore only a breechcloth and a cape.
“Who then?” Matron Wind asked, after touching her forehead respectfully.
“Cut String Mankiller.”
“But he’s Four Winds Clan.” Blue Heron fingered the wattle of skin on her chin. “Is he still alive? Can we hang him in a square and ask some questions?”
“Unfortunately, he’s bled out on my floor.” Morning Star’s expression pinched, and he seemed to stifle a shiver. “I am more interested in how he managed to evade the guards.”
“The girl?” Matron Wind gestured to the corpse as the two warriors rushed in and, avoiding Morning Star’s eyes, placed the woman carefully on a rain-wet litter. “Was she in on it?”
“Perhaps. He killed her with the first blow.”
“You must have moved fast to have avoided the second,” Blue Heron said thoughtfully, still leery of a trap.
“He didn’t wish to kill this body with a club,” Morning Star said as he walked over and extended his hands to the fire’s warmth. “It was to be accomplished ritually.”
The warriors lifted their litter, bearing the dead woman from the room.
“Huh?” Blue Heron scowled at the blood pooled on the matting. “How?”
Night Shadow Star’s voice took her by surprise as she emerged from the door, and said, “With this.”
Blue Heron gaped at the sight: Night Shadow Star stood naked, her hair rain-soaked and hanging in strands that trickled water down her smooth brown skin. Outside of her taut nipples, she seemed oblivious to the cold. The wicked-looking knife she held before her glistened in the firelight. A master craftsman had knapped it from a single long piece of semitranslucent brown chert.
“Thank the Creator you’re not dead,” Matron Wind blurted.
Blue Heron felt cold wind blow through her souls. Night Shadow Star’s eyes possessed an eerie look, large and glistening. The effect was as if they were oddly inhuman. Her face, so perfectly formed, remained expressionless. The woman’s wet hair seemed to be touched by a breeze the way the long black locks moved. And more unsettling, why was she naked? Last Blue Heron knew she’d been in Rides-the-Lightning’s care as he fought to recall her souls. Now, here she stood in the light of the fire, her athletic body bronzed by flickers that glinted gold in her thick mat of pubic hair.
Night Shadow Star held the knife out like an offering. The viciously hooked blade at one end glinted in the light.
“Does anyone recognize that knife?” Red Warrior asked.
“No.” Blue Heron studied it. It wasn’t the sort of thing a person could forget. “Sister? Do you?”
Matron Wind shook her head. “Never seen it before. If it was Four Wind Clan’s I’d know it.”
“So,” Red Warrior pondered, “what could possibly entice Cut String Mankiller to act against the Morning Star?”
“He’s from Evening Star town, isn’t he?” Blue Heron studied the knife. “And he’s Four Winds Clan by birth?”
“I think so.” Matron Wind glanced at Morning Star. “Did he say anything? Give you a reason?”
Morning Star had been standing to one side, positioned where he could watch their faces. Now, in an emotionless voice, he announced, “He said only that he’d see me soon.”
Night Shadow Star’s voice had a peculiar resonance, the sort that might have mimicked speaking down a long cane tube as she said, “You see only the reflection. Like the surface of a still pond. You must go deeper … into the very darkness.”
Matron Wind frowned. “Niece, I don’t understand.”
“No … you don’t.” Night Shadow Star cocked her head, as if hearing a distant voice. “I have to go now. Any longer, and he’ll be dead.”
She turned, fixing her eerie gaze on Morning Star. “Do we have an accord? You agree to the terms?”
He nodded, something unsettled in his expression. “As you wish.”
“I’ll take Five Fists.” And with that, Night Shadow Star tossed the brown-chert knife to her father; Red Warrior barely reacted in time to snatch it from the air. She turned in a whirl of damp black hair and strode purposefully for the door.