Blaise
The High Priestess arrived at the border at dusk, on foot, with a staff in her hand and a faint, formidable scowl on her face.
I'd been waiting for her since noon. I had stood at the tree line for the better part of the afternoon with my hands in my pockets and my collar turned up against a wind that smelled of rain and cut hay, watching the empty road, and telling myself she wouldn't come. Odalys did not leave the coven. In all the years I'd known her she had sent letters instead of visiting, dispatched emissaries instead of attending councils, and turned away every invitation to the solstice gatherings of other houses with a short, dry note. A woman who ruled by being the still point at the center of a very large wheel did not go wandering.
And yet here she came, out of the lon
