Berséba de-Hajezhi wiped fresh blood off her hands.

A pair of skinned rabbits lay on a pallet, ready for roasting, with a bowl of ground spices to rub into the dark meat. She tossed a log onto the fire, the bark damp with melting snow. It popped and hissed as it met the flames while her daughter, barely two, slept by the hearth. Dark hair peeking above the thick blanket of wolverine furs, exhausted after a long day of trekking through the woodlands hunting game in the snow.

Sinadine—of the night—a fitting name for a child shunned by the stars.

Berséba brushed a hand across the top of her head. She'd taught her to hunt, and fight. To fear nothing. And Berséba hoped it was enough to leave a mark, rooted deep to the bone.

Because time was running out.

The flap sealing the cave entrance yanked open and Berséba whirled with practiced speed. On her feet and sword drawn, she had the intruder pinned and steel a whisper from a bare throat within a heartbeat.

The older woman released a ragged breath, eyes glassy. "Surely you haven't forgotten the face of a friend, Bersé."

"So, it's time." Berséba lowered her sword and sheathed it. "I'm surprised they sent you for the dishonor of collecting me."

Guida dabbed away a thin trickle of blood with rough fingertips from her throat, the disks of white shells woven within the twisted strands of grey hair sang like windchimes summoning her end. "I asked for it."

Berséba laughed, teeth flashing with the barest hint of fangs. A mark of her ancestry. Her proud lineage. "Why would you do such a stupid thing?"

Shunned for three years, left to forage and fend for herself and her child, Berséba lived in isolation. No one from the clan was allowed to acknowledge her until this day of judgement, when Berséba would have to choose between honoring her clan or something far more precious.

"There was no other way. Or time. I've come to beseech you to see reason."

And though Guida's shoulders were set defiantly, Berséba caught the waver in her voice and smiled. It took a brave soul to challenge her, especially on this matter. The life of her daughter.

"Please, Bersé. Your bloodline—not even your mother—can spare you from the matrons' judgement. Hand over the child. Beg for their mercy and they will grant it."

Berséba unsheathed a dagger from her side and ran the pointed edge beneath her thumbnail, cleaning out blood that the water failed to wash away. "I am Swordsworn," she answered. "I beg of no one."

"You won't be for much longer," Guida pressed, shuffling after her deep into the cave. "If your mother was here—"

"She would respect my decision, as I expect the matrons to."

"It is but one life for the sake of many, surely you must see why the child—" Silenced by a hard slap, Guida pressed a hand to her cheek, flaming bright as her shock.

"Careful," Berséba whispered. "I like you, so consider that fair warning to swallow your tongue before you dare ask me to kill my own child."

"Why? Why do this?"

Berséba's eyes flitted across the cave to the fire where Sinadine slept soundly. The night of her birth had been arduous, the pain—nearly ripping Berséba apart. She'd labored for two days and nights before Sinadine came into the world cloaked in darkness. The clan had fallen silent as the stars vanished moments after her first breath, like wisps of candlelight snuffed between fingertips. They didn't disappear behind the filmy haze of clouds or get swallowed up in a storm—they just faded, one after the other, into the impregnable black. Like pearls sinking into shadows.

A harrowing omen.

One that foretold death for the Acharrān way of life and the matrons, in their fear, consulted the bones of the ancients, which only confirmed that Sinadine would herald a bloody ruin upon the world.

Shunned by the stars. Cursed. Damned. The proclamation was death.

But as the matrons circled in to make their claim, she'd battled them off and swore a terrible, bloody vengeance upon the head of any who dared lay a blade against Sinadine's tender throat—a vow no one in the clan dared to challenge. But it would take more than fear of her sword to save her daughter's life.

It would take sacrifice.

"Because my heart beats inside her," she said at last. "My rage. My passion and pride. She is of my blood and bone therefore it is my responsibility to protect her, whatever the price." She cut her eyes back to Guida. "Whatever the price."

Guida stomped her cane, rattling the beads encased within. "The stars do not lie!"

"No, they don't," she agreed, "but Sinadine deserves a chance to change them. When the matrons look at her they see an end of days, but when I look at her I see she will be the sword that cleaves this world in two, driving the colonizers from our Motherland. She will be the winter before the spring—ruthless and cleansing. I believe she will save us all. I know it." Berséba looked to Guida. "Will you tell the matrons of my words?"

Guida hung her head. "Even if they'd listen it would change nothing."

"Coward." Berséba sneered around a laugh and fastened the belt of her scabbard at her waist. The weight of it settled against her hip, familiar as her own skin, and already her heart grieved for the impending loss. A terrible sorrow, second only to the pain of the daughter she was compelled to leave behind.

Weary, Guida lowered to a flat outcropping of stone, old bones creaking, and closed her eyes. "You've been beyond our walls, Bersé, you've seen for yourself—a woman needs a clan to survive this world," she whispered, soft as smoke.

"That's why I am doing this and why I can't take her with me." A knot clenched in Berséba's chest, squeezing around her heart. "The greatest gift I could ever give her is the chance to prove herself worthy to the stars that shunned her."

As a mother how could she not?

"Take me to the matrons." Berséba pushed steel into her spine. Into her words. "I'm ready."

The assembly gathered in the courtyard of Home Mountain, matrons and daughters, all. Their faces lit by the roaring flames of the star-shaped brazier made of bronze. Smoke spiraled over dancing tongues of red and gold, casting warmth to battle the chill of winter in the air.

The matrons stood proudly, a row of women in kubari robes of deepest indigo like the sky as it bled from day into night. Like the ink of the tattoos marking their skin, and the woad painted across their faces. Elide, her little sister, stepped forward. Their newly appointed leader. The woven bands of leather and gold, signifying her authority were new on her brow, but she carried them with the dignity of ancestry, and the confidence of someone born to lead.

Even though this was a moment of profound sadness, a kindle of pride sparked in Berséba chest, intricately intertwined with frustration. If only Elide could see as she did. If only she could make Elide understand . . .

But Elide was never one for defying the ways of the past, and the stern faces of the elder matrons behind her glowering in contempt, Elide would never set herself apart from their wisdom. She was a staunch advocate for following protocol and maintaining order, and would uphold their ways, unto her last breath.

For that reason, Berséba had no other choice but to play the only hand she had left. Whatever the cost . . .

"You were given the grace of two years to be with your child out of respect for all that you have done for the clan, and for our distinguished heritage. A grace we wouldn't have bestowed to anyone else," Elide spoke, always soft. Always measured. Ever proud. "Perhaps that period of isolation has given you adequate time to come to reason."

"If the matrons will not yield, then I am left with no choice. I envoke Raitorēdo," Berséba spoke clear, and loud for all to hear of the stunned gasps rolling like fog across the forum of the gathered clan. "By my honor and rite as Swordsworn, I shield Sinadine from your judgement with my own back, even if it means I must surrender my sword, so be it. Whatever you decide for her, let it fall upon me."

Elide set her chin, furious hands fisted at her side. The only outward expression of her frustration. "One life to save many is a just and noble course of action, yet you contend to defy our ways. Our judgement. Sisters before self!"

"Sisters before self!" the clan echoed.

Berséba assessed Elide and the matrons each in turn. Only her mother, answering a call deep in the Soulands, was missing among them and she was grateful for it. A mother should never have to see such things and the only tempest to brew blacker than Berséba would be the wroth of Avanthi de-Masad.

"Look at you. Trembling where you stand over a child when the true threat lies south in a palace of gold and bones," she sneered.

"War is not our way," another said.

"It should be," Berséba answered. Jaw grim.

"If you go through with this," Elide interjected, "you will be disavowed."

"I am aware."

"Then so be it." Elida flagged a hand, calling for silence among the elders and clan. "We've heard enough. As your selfishness affects us all, I call upon a collective vote to determine your fate. Sisters." She gestured to the bowls at her feet. Alabaster for forgiveness. Onyx for judgement. "Cast your stones."

Berséba held her ground as one after the other, each member of the clan came forward. Some cast their vote easily and without hesitation, others lingered over the decision, but eventually conceded, dropping their stones into the onyx bowl until it overflowed with smooth, polished bits of rock. The alabaster bowl remained empty.

None had dared to challenge her decision, once again fearing Berséba's sword more than they did Elide's anger.

"It appears to be unanimous." Elide unfolded her hands and gestured to the pyre, muscle ticking in the side of her jaw. "You know what must be done."

Crossing to the brazier, Berséba removed her dagger from her belt by the elk-bone hilt and passed it to Matron Nnedi who accepted it with a wrinkled hand and nodded gently. Berséba set her teeth as the cool touch of fingers angled her chin and the first pass of the blade sliced across the side of her head, removing the three long braids and the heavy beads adorning them, each one tossed into the brazier to burn.

Then she thrust the dagger into the flames, long enough for the heat to cleanse the steel, before dipping it into a pot of black ink and pressed the point into her skin. And as she carved the left side of Berséba's face her sisters sang, each note, like the stroke of the blade, deep and mournful. This was a funeral of sorts. To the eyes and hearts of her clan, after this ceremony she would cease to exist.

She would be Osutikāru-da—Disavowed.

"Speak your words," Elida whispered, a little hoarse, a little empty when Nnedi was finished. "And let them be your last among us."

Berséba gripped the hilt of her sword, drawing strength from it one last time. Blood and black ink trickling down the side of her face in venomous tears. "I, Berséba de-Hajezhi—the Fierce Fang—forsake my place among my clan to my child, Sinadine. By sacred rite, from this moment until her last breath she is a true Daughter of the Acharrā, a bloodkin descendent to the First-of-Us, and you all will embrace her as such." She cut dark eyes around her, and some fell away in shame. In fear. "Or, on the Souls of our Sisters, you will answer to me for it. In this life or the next." Last, she turned to her daughter, to Sinadine.

Her sullen mouth set, and hands in fists.

"Behold me, Sina, remember all that I taught you," she whispered. "Remember our words and hold them fast to your heart. Let them guide and fill you with strength. Speak them now."

"We are Acharrān," Sinadine answered, her infantile voice rolling with certainty through the mantra Berséba had repeated night and day for three short years. "We do not bow. We do not bend. We do not break."

The sting of sorrow and pride warmed her eyes and, removing her sword, Berséba handed it to Sinadine. "Feel its weight," she said as her small fingers closed around the scabbard, tentative. "Feel its power. Our legacy. I am part of this blade, as you are part of me. One day, you will be Swordsworn.

"Lead with your sword, Sina, and your spirit will follow."