Kyma ran.

  It was what she was best at. Laughter trailed behind her as she cut through the grass like the wind. The thundering, shouting pack chased after her, weaving between tents. They wouldn’t catch her. She could outrun all the other children in the tribe. She was sure that if she tried hard enough, she would one day outrun even the antelope.

  But she was paying too much attention to what was behind her, and not enough to what was in front. With a jolt that knocked the breath from her lungs, she ran full force into the leg of a giant. The impact knocked her back into the dust with an “oof.”

  The next thing she knew, her father was lifting her, his huge hands under her arms, his great bearded face split in a grin. “There is my Little Bird. Are you getting into trouble, Little Bird? Or are you just avoiding your mother, hmm?”

  The tide of laughing, shouting children parted around them, continuing their race, now that one of the others had a chance at winning. Kyma squirmed, giggling as her father tossed her up and caught her. She loved it when he did that. For just a moment, she felt like she could fly.

  “Ah, there she is,” came her mother’s voice. The lanky brown-haired woman stood with the tent flap pushed aside. Her mouth was set in a disapproving line, but her eyes were smiling. “Olan, you spoil her. Come, Kyma, we have herbs to dry, and you have things to learn, especially if you want to follow me as Meneswa someday.”

  Kyma hung her head as her father lowered her to her feet. “I’d rather go learn the spear with Olfan. Why does he get to do the fun things?”

  “Because Olfan is your father’s son, and he will lead the tribe one day. He must learn to fight. You are my daughter, and so you must learn to hear the spirits and call the wind. One day, you will need to advise your brother. You must know the wisdom of the ancestors if you want to keep the tribe on the right path.” Her mother held out her hand, and Kyma took it, glancing back at the other children with longing as they ran.

  The years passed. When the winds grew chill and her mother measured the sun and told her father that it was time, the tribe packed away the tents into their carts and rounded up the herds to move to the sheltered river valleys for the winter, snug among the trees. When the days grew longer and the snow melted away, her mother would measure the sun and tell her father it was time, and the winter shelters would be cleaned out. The summer tents would be loaded on the carts and the oxen yoked, and the herds driven ahead out to the wide grass expanses of the high Steppes.

  Kyma slipped away from her lessons every chance she could to take up a spear shaft and imitate her brother and the other boys as they trained. They laughed at her, but she didn’t care. When they tried to fight her, she would spin and dance around them like they were standing still. She didn’t always win, but she won enough that they began to take her seriously. But the grown men would scowl, and the women would shake their heads and cluck their tongues in disapproval. And her mother always found her and dragged her back to her lessons.

  She learned to measure the sun and to hear the spirits. She learned which herbs would help wounds heal, and which would ease a birth, or bring on visions. Her mother taught her how to feel the power of the world around her and within herself. She learned how to tell if a malevolent deywos was vexing a cow, and how to drive it away. She learned how to calm the spirit of the wolf and how to draw the spirit of the antelope for a good hunt. And her favorite lesson: she learned to call the wind.

  The days were growing short and cold. The herds had been culled and were loose among the trees in the winter valley. Kyma was also among the trees, watching the boys in the clearing as they clashed with their spears and knives. She wanted to be down there with them. She had a spear shaft with no head; the copper heads were too precious for her to risk losing one when she wasn’t supposed to have a spear in the first place. The new alloy spearheads, the bronze ones, were guarded more closely than silver, and only the veteran warriors among the people could even touch them.

  So she pretended. She pretended her spear had a blade, and she pretended that she was in the clearing with the boys, and she followed along as old Niklo yelled at them and corrected them and showed them how to move. She was so engrossed in the lesson, her imaginary foe, and the clacking of the spears in the clearing that she didn’t hear the leaves crackle when her mother found her.

  A hand landed on her spear, bringing it to an abrupt stop. “Kyma.”

  “Mother,” Kyma said, torn between hanging her head in shame and thrusting out her chin to argue.

  “Daughter, I know why you do this,” Akayma’s voice was gentle. “I know how you feel. I was here, in this very spot, when I was your age. I, too, loved to run across the Steppe and race the antelope. I wanted to be strong and fierce and free. But we have a gift, you and I, and we have a responsibility to learn to use that gift to help the tribe. There are many strong arms to wield spears, but only we two can wield the wind.”

  The girl’s eyes snapped up to her mother’s face at those words, and she asked, “What do you mean, wield the wind?”

  Her mother smiled. “You are feeling wild today, and that makes this a perfect time for this lesson. Come, let’s go up to the ridge where we can see the sky.”

  Kyma followed her mother. She hadn’t realized it before, but she was almost as tall as her mother, now. She didn’t have to hurry to keep up anymore.

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  They walked up the rise, climbing out of the trees of the valley to the windswept crest of a rocky ridge. Without the shelter of the trees, the air bit at their faces and tugged at their clothes. Kyma pulled her fur cloak closer around her shoulders and shivered.

  “Don’t. Let it blow through you. It will be cold, but you need to feel the wind,” her mother said.

  She let go of the cloak and let it fall open, shivering as the wind stole the warmth from her. She let herself feel it, how it stung against her skin, how it pulled and lifted her hair, how it smelled of ice and the dry grass of the steppe.

  Her mother nodded, “Good. Now, open yourself to the flows of the earth and sky, like I taught you.”

  Kyma focused on the flow of warm energy that coiled inside her and permeated the world. Her mother had taught her that it was the life-breath of all creation. Very few people had the ability to sense it and use it, but she was learning. As she pulled on the flow and let it pool in her chest, her mother talked her through the words and symbols for the spell. Akayma taught her daughter how to shape the power and call the wind to push her as she ran, to borrow its speed, its darting agility. Kyma learned.

  It took all of her concentration and willpower to focus and call while running, and it took numerous tries to get it right, but when Kyma finally felt the spell hook and catch and pull the wind to her, she shrieked with joy. She nearly flew as she raced along the top of the ridge with the wind pushing her along, running faster than she ever thought possible.

  It felt like the wind could read her thoughts as it shifted with her, letting her change direction in an instant. It even gave a gentle lift, boosting her as she leapt over rocks. She had never felt so wild and free. She ran until the flow of power sputtered out. Stumbling, she dropped to one knee, panting, and grinning from ear to ear.

  After that lesson, for a while, Kyma threw herself into her lessons with her mother. When she wasn’t at her mother’s side, she climbed up to the high ground to call the wind and run. She didn’t have much time to run, and soon the wolf winds were blowing and the snows piled high as the sun withered in winter’s grip.

  On the shortest day that season, her older brother, Olfan, went to pledge to the Koryos.

  All of the boys around his age, on the cusp of manhood, went into the woods with the old warriors of the tribe. Kyma knew Olfan and the other boys would be draped with a wolf skin and would invite the wolf-spirit in. In the morning, the old warriors would return, but her brother wouldn’t. He and the other young men of the Koryos would be gone for half a year, or more. For half a year, her brother would be considered a beast, outcast from the civilized tribes and loosed to survive or die by his own strength. If he lived and came home, he would be a man, a warrior of the tribe.

  Not all of the young men would return. Kyma could only ask the wolf spirit to make Olfan strong and fast and cunning.

  That winter passed slowly. Kyma helped to care for her younger brother, cleaned and treated pelts with the women of the tribe, tried not to worry about Olfan, and learned wisdom at her mother’s knee. By the time spring came and the river ice began to break, she was restless. Her feet ached to run, her hands longed for the weight of a spear-shaft.

  That year, Kyma was the one who measured the sun and told her father that the time was right.

  They rounded up the herds from among the trees, cleaned out the winter shelters, and loaded up the tents on the carts. The men mounted their horses and rode ahead, driving the herds, while the women drove the oxen that pulled the carts. Kyma walked with her mother up the steep trail to the high steppes, but once the ground leveled out and the grasslands stretched before her, she couldn’t help herself. She had to run.

  Her mother called after her, but she didn’t listen. She ran. She called the wind and nearly flew across the plain. The sun was warm on her cheeks, and the gentle lamb-winds of spring lifted her hair and made it stream behind her like a horse’s tail. An eagle screeched, and she looked up, watching it fly as she ran, wishing she could be up in the sky with it. And so, she didn’t see the rock that tripped her and sent her skidding through the grass.

  When she came to a stop, she lay where she landed, stunned and breathless. Her knees and palms burned with scrapes. She blinked, dazed. As breath and thought came back to her, her eyes focused on the grass in front of her. She let out a surprised, “Eeep!” and scrambled backward.

  Peering out between the knee-high stalks of grass, looking as surprised as Kyma felt, was a little man. His skin was the same golden-brown color as last season’s dead grass, and his hair was the vivid green of Spring’s new shoots. His eyes were large, and as crystal blue as the sky. He was dressed in mouse-skin leggings and a shirt woven from thistle down.

  They stared at one another for a long moment, neither sure what to do or say. Then, the little man made a noise that sounded concerned. He touched his own chin and then pointed to Kyma’s. She lifted her hand to her chin, and her fingers came away smeared with blood. Once she knew it was there, the wound began to sting. She must have scraped her chin across a rock when she slid. The skin was torn. Kyma sat back and checked the rest of herself. Both knees and her right forearm were skinned and oozing blood, as was the heel of her left palm. She winced as she brushed away the dirt. Nothing was broken, though, and that was good.

  The little man watched as she checked her wounds. He seemed curious and a little worried for her. Kyma smiled at him, not showing teeth. In a soft voice, she said, “Thank you for your concern, but none of my wounds are bad ones. I’ll be alright.”

  He tilted his head to the side and said something in a language that sounded more like the babbling of a brook than words.

  Kyma touched her chest and said, “I am Kyma. What are you called?”

  The little man mirrored her, touching his own chest. He said, “Tolus.”

  “Tolus. It is an honor to meet you. Are you a grass spirit?” Kyma asked, running her hand across a clump of grass to illustrate her words.

  Tolus shrugged and shook his head in frustration, unable to understand her question. He said something else in his bouncing, liquid language.

  That was the first time Kyma really thought about language. It was the first time she’d ever met anyone who didn’t speak the tongue of the People. She had so many things she wanted to ask the little spirit man, but she was at a loss for how to bridge the communication gap.

  They might not be able to speak together in words, but she did know the proper way to greet a spirit. She reached into the pouch she wore on her belt and pulled out a small handful of nut meat and dried berries. She whispered the words of greeting and propitiation for the spirits of the land, and sent a trickle of power into the offering that carried her wish for peace and prosperity. Using a few stalks of grass as a mat, she placed the small offering of food down in front of Tolus.

  She heard her mother calling her. She needed to get back before her mother got cross. If she lingered too long, she would have extra work to do when they made camp. She smiled at Tolus, who looked a little confused. She bowed her head to him in respect and touched her forehead, her mouth, and her heart in the ritual gesture. Then she climbed to her feet and hurried back to the caravan.