Free It Wakes in Me by Kathleen O’Neal Gear

stay warm during the night, we can’t light the fire until well after dark.”
    “No blankets? Not even for the children?”
    He shook his head. “We have five capes for eleven of us. We try to sleep two people beneath each cape. Three of the children sleep beneath one cape.”
    Exhausted, she massaged her forehead. “Blue Bow told me the captives were being well-treated.”
    “For captives, we are being well-treated.”
    Ten winters ago, Feather Dancer had been captured and tortured by the barbarian Lily People. He’d lasted eight days. Finally, when his captors thought him too weak to oppose them, he’d risen up, killed his guards, and fought his way through the village to escape.
    None of these captives showed torture wounds. They had food in their bellies and the capes they’d brought with them. Feather Dancer was right; they were being well-treated.
    The fire crackled to life, and a soft yellow gleam filled the lodge. She fingered Strongheart’s cape, understanding suddenly what he’d meant when he’d said she would need it. “Thank the gods we will have one more cape tonight.”
    “Yes. You might wish to ask young Pipit to share your cape. Somehow, in the night, her cape always winds up tucked around the two younger children she sleeps with. When the
adults scold her and tell her she’s going to make herself sick, she claims she doesn’t know how it happened.”
    “Which one is Pipit?”
    Feather Dancer turned to look at the twelve-winters-old girl she had noticed earlier. “That’s Pipit—in the red-and-blue cape. Her mother and father were both killed in the fight at our gathering grounds, but she doesn’t seem to realize it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Every time the guards take us to a work site, Pipit tells the other children to keep watch for her parents, because they’re coming to save her. Old Jawbone says her reflection-soul is loose.” He gestured to the woman sitting with her white head propped on her knees. She looked too weary to move.
    “Do you think,” she asked quietly, “that Grown Bear is organizing the war party to go south for the jade?”
    “No, I don’t. I’ve listened very carefully to the guards talking among themselves. Not one has mentioned longing to be chosen for the party. They seem to know nothing about this precious jade.” He paused, and his teeth ground beneath his scarred jaw. “Unless, of course, he’s working for himself, assembling a war party in secret, and his men are under a death sentence if they speak of it aloud.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Nor do I. But I’m beginning to think that Grown Bear made up the story about traveling south to meet the Scarlet Macaw People. The night he died, Blue Bow told Long Fin that he knew nothing about the jade brooch.”
    Sora’s head suddenly ached, as though a memory was struggling to rise through the cottony haze caused by the sleeping potion. “Then … where did Grown Bear get it?”
    “All I know is that hundreds of warriors from your husband’s village believe it came from the Scarlet Macaw People,
and are willing to do anything to get it. They believe they are joining with two hundred warriors from this village.”
    Her head snapped up. “Rockfish’s people promised warriors?”
    “Yes, Chieftess, three hundred.”
    “But if Eagle Flute Village is not preparing warriors to go south after the jade, what will happen when Rockfish’s warriors get here?”
    Feather Dancer seemed to be able to track her thoughts across her souls. He said, “Who says they’re coming here?”
    “Well, isn’t that the plan?”
    Very softly, he replied, “I’m almost certain that Rockfish’s three hundred warriors will head straight to Blackbird Town, where they will be joined by a few hundred of our warriors, and together they’ll march south for the Scarlet Macaw People.”
    “Dear gods, do you think my husband could be working with Grown Bear—” She stopped.
    Cold Spring had cocked an ear and was