Storms of Destiny by A. C. Crispin

His fingers brushed the fabric of her shawl where it lay over her shoulder. “I am a Silent One,” he reminded her. “You can trust me to repeat nothing.”
    Thia looked up at him, knowing he spoke the truth. “I was raised in Verang, in the temples. I was a priestess until a few months ago. Then I ran away.”
    Jezzil’s eyes widened. “One of Boq’urak’s priestesses?
    And you dared to run away?”
    She nodded, and suddenly found herself fighting back tears. Hastily, she raised her veil and fastened it again, using that moment to try and regain her composure. “I lost everything when I learned the truth,” she said finally. “Boq’urak is a vicious, cruel god, not worthy of reverence. I ran away when I realized what I had been serving all those years. If they find me, they will kill me.”
    This time he reached out and touched her hands as they held her shawl clutched about her. His fingers were rough, callused from rein and weapons. “Sister Thia,” he said. “I understand, more than you dream I can. When I was Chonao, I was …” He searched for the words. “I was a priest who fights. Warrior priest. Then I ran away too. Now I am no better than a dead man to my brothers, my order. If they find me, they will kill me.”
    Thia caught her breath and stared at him in the lamplight.
    “I see,” she said finally. “We have much in common, then.”
    “Yes.”
    She hesitated, and unable to think of anything more to say, stooped and grabbed her basket. Jezzil stepped in front of her as she turned to leave. “You will come back, Sister Thia? You are … I could not speak of this to anyone but Falar … but you, you understand. It was good to speak, after so long as a Silent One.”
    She nodded. “Yes. I’ll be back tomorrow. Fare you well tonight, Brother Jezzil.”
    He stepped back, raising a hand to her in half salute as she hastened away with her lamp, leaving him alone in the darkness, save for Falar.
    Khith had traveled steadily for a month now, and still was not free of the forest giants and the warm embrace of the Sarsithe. It knew that in the North it was late winter, and the Hthras was not in a hurry to experience snow and ice again.
    It remembered winter, from when it had traveled the world with its merchant father.
    Khith could barely remember its mother. She was only a soft blur of warm, reddish-brown fur and a lilting voice that had trilled lullabies to her only child. She had died after being attacked by a wild jagowa while gathering river reeds for basket weaving.
    Khith had been doing some weaving itself. Knowing that it would face much harder ground soon, it had been gathering reeds and vines, so it could make sandals to shield its long-toed, narrow feet from roads and streets. When Khith and its father had traveled in the lands inhabited by the humans, it had worn protection on its feet, just as it had worn a robe to cover its slender, furred body, and a hood to shield its eyes from the sun.
    With the half-finished sandals tied to its pack, the Hthras trudged on, its ears alert for any sound, its large, round eyes constantly scanning the animal trail before it. Khith’s people loved the jungle, but were ever mindful of its myriad dangers.
    It kept the sun always to its left after noon, and each morning it shed its pack and climbed to the top of a forest giant to check the position of its rising, in order to make sure it was still on track. Khith was trying to gauge its travel so that it missed the arrival of the rainy season, while still not having to travel during the worst of the northern winter.
    Its goal was a human port town. Q’Kal had been one of its father’s favored places for trade, with ships tying up daily to the quays, vessels containing goods from Pela and other countries lying across the Narrow Sea. Khith remembered Q’Kal as a bustling place, the busiest port in the Pelanese colony of Kata. It has undoubtedly changed in twenty-five years, the Hthras thought with a sigh,