Carina sat back on her haunches. She still had about a dozen patients waiting for her attention. She wiped her hands on her robe and sipped at a cup of kerif, now gone cold.
"Tonight is for the Crone?" she asked, beckoning her next patient, a young man with a badly-broken leg. "I thought Principality "They do. But what the Nargi call the Crone has no likeness to the ancient tales. I've heard the elder vayash moru tell stories. In the old days, Sinha was a weaver, not a hag with a cauldron. She spun the threads of life and wove out destiny, determining how long each thread should be. That's why woven gifts are given tonight, shawls and blankets. Like Nameless, Sinha comes for unrepentant souls because their threads must be ripped out and woven again. She can be harsh, like the winter wind. She was also a tanner,, taking the hides of evil men and rekindling the spark to send "their souls back until their lessons were learned.
"But the Nargi took Sinha's name and put it onto other stories. Sinha wasn't a destroyer or a monster. The Nargi's priests have made Her so, because it suited them. Tonight in the procession, you'll see a very old custom, where Sinha battles Peyhta, the soul-eater. In Nargi, Sinha and Peyhta became one."
"Why would anyone want to worship a monster?" Carina removed the soiled strips of cloth that bandaged a festering leg wound. She gritted her teeth against the smell and focused her healing power. At the edges of her power, she could feel a drain-more noticeable now that Lisette had drawn her attention to it. Deep
Carina could sense its energies, tugging at her. "Laisren says we make our gods in our own image," Lisette said. "The Nargi priests rule by
fear, and Peyhta rides in nightmares to feed on souls. The Nargi give those images power by choosing to worship Her. Sometimes, it's best to let the old gods die."
JONMARC SWUNG DOWN from his saddle, tired and sore. The morning's events still weighed heavily on his mind. Gabriel would have risen for the night by the time Jonmarc reached the manor, and the briefing would not be pleasant.
Jonmarc stretched. After he'd done what he could to calm the villagers in Haven, he'd spent the rest of the day out with the farmers in the southern holdings, mending fences. This night, sacred to the weaver-Crone, was considered a lucky day to patch fences, make rope, and tie new nets. Despite the cold and a constant flurry of snow, the village men and boys had turned out to walk the fence lines, mending the stacked stone and zigzagged wood in preparation for the new herds of the spring. As darkness fell, Jonmarc's face and hands were red and cold, and he could barely feel his toes. "You'd think after last year, I'd remember what winter in Principality is like," he muttered to himself. His breath steamed in the bitterly cold air.