Beads of sweat trickled down Kindra’s spine as she sat in the sweltering heat of the vision tent. Coals hissed and popped in the center pit, the flames stirred by the long white dress of the High Priestess as she made her rounds between the warrior inductees, whispering prayers. Kaye followed with a clay pitcher of vision wine.

The High Priestess dipped her fingers in a bowl of water, placed them on Kindra’s forehead, and whispered her blessing. “May Eoin recognize your spirit and welcome it as His own. May He bless you with courage in battle, strength to defeat your enemies, and wisdom to know when the fight is finished.”

Kindra bowed her head and the woman moved on. Kaye stepped into her place and handed Kindra the pitcher. “May Eoin bless you with a vision of victory.” A small smile blushed over Kaye’s cheeks. The words were the same for all the inductees, but the smile was for Kindra alone.

Kindra returned the smile and tipped the pitcher back, swallowing the bitter wine. It ignited a fire in her stomach—the fire of Eoin’s spirit—and her arms and legs tingled as her body began to untangle itself from the world. Show me victory, she prayed. Show me vengeance.

Kaye moved on and Kindra stared at the coals, waiting for the wine’s full effect. When the sun rose, they would be whipped to prove their strength and mark them as Eoin’s chosen. Warriors. Kindra would be the first woman chosen in the tribe’s existence.

The High Priestess threw dried herbs on the coals and a flame bloomed. Another bead of sweat rolled down Kindra’s back as her eyelids sagged. With each breath out her old self escaped; each new breath filled her with the God’s spirit. The ties to her childhood darkened like the new moon. The only thread remaining was the bright, golden thread that tied her to Kaye. That would never break or dim.

When Kindra closed her eyes, she could still see the flame, black against the red of her eyelids. The blackness grew until it swallowed her sight.

She woke on the cliff overlooking the village. Wind pulled at her cloak and lifted her short hair from her neck as dark clouds boiled over each other in the north. Thunder echoed off the mountain on the other side of Camden Valley, but Kindra stood calm and detached on the edge of the cliff.

The clouds moved into Camden, rolling over each other until they became monstrous horses. Lightning flashed from their eyes, rain burst from their nostrils, and their hooves thundered down the valley.

The warrior God, Eoin, spoke. His voice was deep and rumbling like the thunder. “Kindra Odion, I will teach you to fly!” A hoof made of cloud slammed into the cliff and it crumbled beneath her feet. Kindra screamed as she fell, and the thunder turned to laughter.

Eoin stood on the ground below. Boulders fell around his feet, cracked the whipping rock in half and pummeled it into dust. He caught her wrist before she hit the ground.

Kindra gasped as her vision returned, but it was her sister’s face that greeted her, and her sister’s hand wrapped around her wrist. Kindra tried to slow her frantic heart as Kaye pushed sweaty hair from her forehead. On the other side of the tent, Jorsen laughed. The flame in the fire pit had gone out.

Kaye handed Kindra a cup of water and smoothed her hair again. Sunlight forced its way through the slits around the door. Outside, birds chirped, and the muffled voices of the tribe began to sing, welcoming the men who had put aside their childhood. Inside, the inductees fidgeted and grinned.

The High Priestess opened the door flap and Kindra shielded her eyes from the morning sunlight before stepping out. The song of the tribe swelled around them as Chief Oak, as broad and unyielding as his namesake, led the inductees between two rows of Aledan warriors to the whipping rock.

Kaye fell back next to Kindra and grabbed her hand. “What did you see?”

Kindra’s lips twitched, just shy of a frown. “A dream.”

“That was no dream. Your eyes were open, and you screamed.”

Little wonder Jor laughed. What should have been a vision of victory was a nightmare of falling to her death, and she’d have to relate it to the tribe soon. Nausea bubbled in her stomach at the thought.

Most of the Seven Tribes of Aleda crowded around the whipping rock at the bottom of the cliff, the families of the inductees on the inner edge of the half-circle. Kindra’s mother stood in the center, her face stolidly neutral, her eyes appraising. As the inductees took their places, the singing stopped.

Kindra stood with Kaye and her mother on her right, and Jorsen’s older brother on her left. Gar bowed his head, pressed two fingers to his forehead, then turned them to her.

She smacked his hand away. “I’m not a warrior yet.”

He smirked. “We all know you won’t cry out.”

Kindra cut her gaze to Kaye, then back to Gar, whose grin remained.

“Good luck.” He squeezed her arm, fingers warm against her bare skin. She wore little more than a child’s bib, tied at her neck and waist, leaving her back bare for the whips. The other inductees were shirtless.

The first of these, a lanky boy named Cameron Bardel, stepped up to the whipping rock and faced the crowd. “Did Eoin grant you a vision?” Chief Oak asked.

Cameron nodded. “He granted me a vision of a great victory over the Obsidian Nation. I avenged my grandfather’s death, and the Seven Tribes won back Deer Valley.”

“Of course they did,” Kindra muttered, and Kaye’s shoulders shook in silent laughter. The inductees had been saying the same thing at every whipping for the past eight summers. Defeat the Obsidians, avenge the deaths of the last battle, win back Deer Valley. Kindra swallowed hard and glanced at the other inductees—they would all say the same thing. Victory…vengeance. It was a better vision than falling off the cliff in a storm.

Cameron turned and grasped the whipping rock. Kaye’s hand squeezed Kindra’s tight at the first FWAP of the deer hide thongs across his back. Kaye’s tan face paled and Kindra spoke so only her sister could hear. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

It took a moment too long for Kaye to reply, but when she did her voice was strong. “Yes.”

Her wide eyes betrayed her, and Kindra stared at Cameron, blood welling from the cuts and running down his back. She would look the same soon, and Kaye would feel it tugging on their bond just as Kindra could feel her sister’s apprehension now, writhing like worms in her veins. “I won’t, if you say the word.”

Kaye flinched as the whips hammered down again, and Kindra’s dread turned from relating her nightmare to the whipping, and the pain her twin would feel.

Kaye squeezed her hand. “You cannot quit now, even for me. You’ve been hurt before. I’ll get through it.”

That didn’t help the guilt, but Kaye must have known it wouldn’t. When Cameron faced the crowd and said the words that would make him a warrior, Kaye pulled a scrap of hide from the priestess bag she always carried. “I will decorate this with my teeth, but I won’t cry out. Neither will you.”

To cry out at the whipping ceremony was to fail. Any weakness—including Kaye screaming—would be reason enough to refuse Kindra as a warrior.

“Cry out if you must, and they will stop,” Kindra said as Cameron joined his family and another inductee stepped forward. In answer, Kaye tucked the strings of the halter top around Kindra’s neck so they wouldn’t get in the way of the whips. There was another vision of victory, vengeance, and prosperity. The whips were laid across the inductee’s back, and he became a warrior. One more inductee, then Jorsen Bayn was called up.

“Did Eoin grant you a vision?” Chief Oak asked.

The smile that graced Jor’s face was arrogant. “He did. I had a vision of the Obsidian Nation…”

Kindra took a deep breath so she wouldn’t roll her eyes or laugh.

Jor puffed his chest out. “I saw the Obsidians bowing down to me, as their chief.”

She couldn’t help it—Kindra snorted. Jor’s gaze found hers and he glared, but the rest of the Seven Tribes chattered excitedly. A vision of the subjugation of the Obsidian Nation was unheard of.

Jorsen waited for the crowd to calm before he turned for the whipping. Kindra fumed—she couldn’t follow that. Her vision was embarrassing compared to his, even if his was a lie. The Obsidian Nation was too large to ever bow to the Aledans.

When the chief called Kindra’s name, her mother—who had never approved of her becoming a warrior—stopped her and looked her in the eye. “Make your father proud.”

Kindra nodded, swallowed the bile that threatened her throat, and walked to the rock. Old and new blood spotted the pocked surface—flesh sacrificed to Eoin for generations. She faced the crowd and the chief spoke.

“Did Eoin grant you a vision?”

“He did.” She took a deep breath. Maybe she could say the same as all the other boys—some version of victory, vengeance, and prosperity. One look at Kaye, however, and Kindra knew she couldn’t lie. If Kaye was willing bear the pain of the whips, Kindra could bear the humiliation of a weak vision.

“He sent me a dream of a storm in the north. Black clouds in the shape of horses ran from the Obsidian lands, screaming.”

Some in the crowd began to whisper. Kindra swallowed and glanced at the cliff behind her, but forced herself to speak loud enough for the crowd to hear. “The horses broke the cliff, and I fell, but Eoin was there. He caught me, and said he would teach me to fly.”

Silence surrounded her as people glanced at each other in confusion. She stared at Kaye, hoping for a wink or a smile, but Kaye’s mouth was parted in shock, and even the High Priestess fidgeted in discomfort. Jorsen snickered, and a few of his friends followed his lead. Kindra glared at him before she turned to grasp the rock.

Nothing could have prepared her for the pain. She grunted as the force of the whips threw her against the granite. Behind her, Kaye gasped, and tears sprang to Kindra’s eyes. Before she could push herself up, the whips fell across her back again, ripping apart the bleeding skin.

“Don’t cry out. Don’t cry out. Don’t cry out.” She ground her teeth together and tried to focus on her broken fingernails pressed into the rock, but the fire in her back engulfed her. How many times would she be whipped? She tried to remember the number of lashes, but the whips fell again, and her mind went blank with searing pain.

Blood soaked the waistband of her pants, hot and thick. Despite the cool morning air, sweat dripped from her nose onto her shaking arms as she tried to hold herself against the next blow. Darkness edged her vision, but her mother’s words echoed against the pain. “Make your father proud.”

She held on for two final blows before the whistle of the whips fell silent. She’d made it without screaming or fainting, and Kaye had made it too. Kindra released the rock one finger at a time and stretched them before her. They were now the fingers of a warrior.

With her heartbeat pounding through the wounds on her back, Kindra faced the crowd. Kaye was pale, one hand grasping Gar’s to prop her up and the other removing the hide from her mouth. Her smile was weak, but Kindra could see pride in it as well. Pride in her mother’s eyes, and Gar’s. The rest of the tribe was a mix of approval and disbelief, but Chief Oak stared at Kindra with cold eyes and a hard line of a mouth. She stared back at him as she said the words that would make her a warrior.

“For Eoin’s grace I gladly bear

The sacrifice that brought me here.

To face the rock and whips of thee,

Unsheltered by the Gods of three.

So that today for Them I stand

Before you, as my own grown man.”

She smiled at the irony. A cheer grew from half of the crowd as Kindra walked to Kaye, who grabbed her in a tight hug around the neck. Her mother, Gar, and others congratulated her, but none of that mattered when Kaye kissed her cheek and said, “Father would be so proud of you, Warrior Odion.”