6
CODY
Cody rides, three days, and sleeps beside the road three nights, and swears the birds say her name sometimes, chirping Cayda, Cayda, Cayda.
It’s a pretty song, not as forlorn as she thinks it should be; a lilting, skipping, bough-hopping song, like water bugs dancing on a lake.
There are few travelers on the road to hear it sung, so she does not shout at the birds to be quiet – though once, when she’s missing her sisters, she throws a stick into a tree.
“Silly,” she says – and says it like a swear – when a trio of cinnamon-speckled sparrows come fluttering out of the leaves. She should have shot an arrow instead.
But she thinks the song is better than a bird-filled belly. She doesn’t really want the birds to retire it. And besides, her quiver is sparse, so it’s wise, and on
