CHAPTER ONE
KhaiduKhaidu had not always wished for death. She still remembered when the sky’s endless abyss spoke to her in hushed tones. She used to prance like a goat on the mountains while her ten brothers laughed at her. Now that she couldn’t walk, now that her face was a broken ruin, now that she could hardly speak two words without the pain in her head turning white-hot, they no longer laughed at all. Not in her presence.
Her family, the last true nomads of the Gumiren, had a saying. The Steppe is a hard mother. The Steppe provided food and grass for the herds. The Steppe gave water and firm land, comfortable for the feet of the horses. The Steppe’s endless sky and limitless grass—it was a home as great as the earth itself. But the Steppe was cold. The Steppe was wind and driving s
