Kindra’s head pounded as she woke to consciousness. Pain and heat radiated from her left side, but when she touched her face, her fingers hit fabric instead of skin. She groaned and turned toward the small fire in the hearth. A girl, perhaps only several summers old with dark hair, looked up.

“You’re awake. I’ll get Celeste.” She jumped into the dying light beyond the door.

Kindra pushed herself up and walked on weak legs to the door, but instead of solid ground there was a sheer drop. She stumbled back until her calves hit the cot and she dropped onto it. What madness was this? A cruel joke on Pike’s part to keep her imprisoned? She looked around the room and realized it was a cave, and it was weaponless.

A Faye woman landed in the doorway and Kindra stood on alert. The woman had no weapons, but Kindra didn’t want to take any chances. “Who are you?”

The Faye smiled softly. “I am Celeste, First Daughter of Aleda under the Lady.”

Kindra had no idea what that meant.

Celeste stepped forward, unafraid. “I am a priestess, like your sister.”

Pike had convinced a Faye priestess to imprison her? This was bad. Her heart beat erratically and she clawed at the fabric covering half of her face.

“Please, do not.” Celeste stepped forward and Kaye’s man landed behind her.

“You’re awake. Good.” He stepped around Celeste and grabbed Kindra’s arm. “We must go.”

“She cannot go,” Celeste admonished. “Look at her face.”

Kindra ripped the fabric off and grunted at the pain. There was dried blood and something yellow to glue the hide in place. “What is this?”

“A poultice,” Celeste said. “You were burned. The hide is to keep the dirt out.”

“How was I burned?”

Kaye’s man stared at her injuries with wide eyes, but he spoke, and for that she was grateful. She could trust the people Kaye trusted. “You fell on the hearthstones. Your face and arm burned a bit before I could get you out.”

She wondered what ‘a bit’ meant. Her left eye was blurry, but as she touched her face lightly with her fingertips her eyelid closed. The skin beneath was hot and painful and covered in the sticky poultice.

“Get me out of what?” She couldn't remember anything past cutting herself free from Obsid.

“Out of the battle." He looked to Celeste and dropped his gaze.

Celeste frowned. “He thought you were Kaye. He wants you to go back and save her.”

“How many warriors do you have?”

“The Faye do not fight.”

Bryant finally looked at her. “We have no weapons.”

Kindra grew up with the stories of Ian Odion and the Faye. That he had saved the Seven Tribes from the winged people they shared the land with. Why would he save them from a tribe that had no weapons? “How do you protect yourself?”

Celeste walked to the door and swept her arm into nothing. “No one can climb the cliff.”

Every hope that had been in Kindra was snuffed. When Kaye spoke of the Faye, Kindra thought she’d finally found an army to match Obsid’s, but if they wouldn’t fight, they were no good to her. “You hide like cowards.”

“Like birds,” Celeste said, staring her straight in the eye. “We have no weapons. We do what we must to survive.”

“Eagles have talons.”

Celeste didn’t back down. “They also have nests hidden in the canopy. We wouldn’t waste a life on war.”

Kindra’s fingers brushed the burned skin of her face. Was her life wasted? Her father's? No. “It’s no waste to die for your people and what you believe in.”

Celeste finally looked away. “We have died for what we are.”

“I’m a warrior. I won’t let the Seven Tribes die without me. If I cannot find warriors to help me fight, then I’ll go alone.” She turned to Bryant. “I may be able to get Kaye out, but no one else. Not against the Obsidian Army. Certainly not without a weapon.”

He frowned. “We have arrows and skinning knifes.”

Arrows would be fine if she wanted to sit outside the tribe and pick them off one by one until they found her, but that wouldn't get Kaye out. “I need a spear or sword.”

“We have no weapons,” Celeste said. “They are not allowed in Aleda.”

Bryant crossed his arms and gazed out the darkening door. “The Gaerloms have spears.”

Celeste grabbed his arm. “You cannot go there.”

“Where?” Kindra said. “Do they have warriors?”

Bryant turned to her. “Spears and hunters, at least. Kaye lived with them over the winter; they may be willing to help her.”

“Let’s go.” Kindra pushed past Celeste to the door, stomach churning at the steep drop. “How do I get down?”

Celeste grabbed Bryant’s arm again. “You cannot go there. They will kill you.”

“And the Obsidians will kill Kaye,” he replied. “So I will do what I must to save her.”

“Bryant.”

“How do I get down?” Kindra repeated, louder.

The Faye didn’t look at her. They stared each other down until finally Celeste looked away. “Let me re-bandage her face, at least.”

Bryant nodded and Celeste retrieved her salve and another piece of hide. Kindra moved away from the door and the priestess put on the cooling poultice, lips moving with prayer. Kindra refused the hide.

“I can’t see well enough to fight with that on.”

“For Gaerlom, at least.”

Kindra wasn’t sure what was going to happen in Gaerlom, but she would feel better with it off. Bryant nodded at her though.

“You should wear it. Your face is…severe.”

She looked between them and nodded, shoulders slumping. It wouldn’t matter what her face looked like in two days—she wouldn’t survive going back to Fie Eoin.