Chapter One

The grey dove, dappled with a faint misty red hue, walked in circles around Caitir’s boot, keeping other doves from coming near. There was no fear in that silly little head. No understanding that the lifeblood was eking out of Caitir’s body as she leaned against the dirty alley wall. Caitir knew, though. Knew in a blurry kind of way. She saw the blood, even felt it trickling down her ribs, but couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

Drumbeats pounded against the inside of her head. But…they pounded on the outside, too. How could they pound both ways? She tried to think. Had to think, but every time a thought came, the relentless banging inside and out drove it away. Even her tongue hurt. Could a tongue hurt? She tasted tangy blood in her mouth and scraped the aching tongue against her top teeth wondering how it could be coated with flaky grit.

Blood coated her eye, too. She thought so, anyway. Her one eye was swollen shut, and when she opened the other, the dove, the alley, and the cobbles digging into her legs were all covered in a faint patina of red. She liked red. At least she had liked it until today. Today, something red had happened. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But why stupid? She couldn’t remember why something was stupid but knew it was. And alone? A sword lay next to her, but not a Blade. That something red thought included a Blade, but in her addled dizziness, through the sick roiling in her stomach, she couldn’t figure out why.

The dove touched her shoulder, and Caitir absently smiled. She’d seen doves jab one another with their wings and found it amusing that this one was jabbing her now. When it poked her again, she opened one eye and tried to bat it away. A lightning bolt of pain raced up her arm, through her shoulder, and down into her chest. Her red vision went black and then winked back to red again.

The dove backed up and patted its chest with its wing. “Ghost.”

Caitir scrunched her eye shut and then opened it wide. Her head ached, but she knew doves couldn’t talk. Shaking her head lightly only served to rattle her brain even more, so she squinted, watching as the dove flitted between red/grey feathers and a red/brown mop of curly hair.

The dove/skelli spoke again. “Ghost.” It squatted in front of her, staring intently into her eye, willing her to remember.

The Ghost grabbed Caitir’s tunic and pulled her forward but immediately dropped her and spun. The dove held a knife in its wing now, slashing at the other birds squawking around them. Again, the dove/skelli circled Caitir’s boots, keeping the other birds at bay.

From somewhere up above, a voice called out, “Oi. Get on with ya.” The squawking birds all flew up and disappeared into the sky. A big, fat, muscled bird flew down off a wall into the red alley, but the Ghost wouldn’t let her come near. The fat one limped forward, rubbing its thick, round leg.

Caitir tried to remember what kind of bird had thick legs. She blinked her one working eye several times, knowing she needed to clear her head. The new bird’s squawk was loud, and the words rattled around in her brain. “What’s this? Fowk. It’s th’ Blade. The fowkin’ skelli’s protectin’ th’ Blade!”

Caitir’s brain stumbled, cleared, and then blurred red again. The big bird had wobbled into a big woman the same way heat wobbled off the cobbles in summer. Was it summer, then? Was that even important? As she watched, the woman wobbled back to a red bird again. The new movement made Caitir’s insides dance a sickly jig, so she closed her one good eye, trying to think.

When the big bird yelled, she forced her eye open again. Its beak snapped and it waved a wing at the top of the wall, where another dove’s head and shoulders were sticking through a hole. “Go tell th’ Arch Priestess she’s here.”

The mop of brown/red hair growled and slashed the knife through the air. Her legs straddled Caitir’s as she swung back and forth, watching the limping bird one moment and swinging around to guard their backs the next. Good Lass, Caitir vaguely thought. She didn’t know why it was good, but somewhere in the depths of her rattled brain, she knew it was.

The big bird held up her wings. “Easy, Lass. Ya know me. I be Barta. Help’s coomin’. Ya did good keepin’ them skellis and nints away. Real good. Easy now. We’ll just bide, th’ both of us, aye?”

The Ghost bird squatted over Caitir’s legs and settled in to wait.