Read It Dreams in Me for Free Online

steps with Clearwing right behind her, and Feather Dancer bowed and said, “Matron, I thought we decided you wouldn’t go anywhere alone for a while. Where are your guards?”
    Feather Dancer had posted two of his best men outside her bedchamber.
    “I ordered them not to accompany me.” She gestured to his door. “May I?”
    “Of course, Matron,” he said, and held the curtain aside for her to enter.
    After she’d ducked into his house, Feather Dancer gestured to Clearwing, signaling him to keep standing guard outside the door. Clearwing resumed his former position. He was medium-sized man with a square face and serious eyes—a good man, and an excellent warrior.
    For a few days, while Feather Dancer was being held captive in Eagle Flute Village, Clearwing had been elevated to the position
of war chief of the Black Falcon Nation—a position he had lost when Feather Dancer escaped the village massacre and returned to Blackbird Town. Lesser men would have felt resentful, or worse, at the demotion. But Clearwing seemed unaffected.
    Feather Dancer stepped through his door and let the curtain fall closed behind him.
    The matron stood in front of the hearth with her hands extended to the faint warmth of the glowing coals.
    Feather Dancer walked over, knelt by the woodpile, and pulled out a branch. As he scraped the coals into a pile in the middle of the hearth, he said, “What happened?”
    Matron Wink shoved her hood back, and he could see she still wore her yellow sleepshirt. A frizzy graying black braid fell over her right shoulder. She must have risen straight from her blankets.
    “I’ve been thinking about our conversation with Red Raven,” she said. The lines around her ample mouth cut deeper.
    “What about it?” He placed branches on top of the coals and blew on them until flames crackled to life around the new tinder.
    As though she couldn’t stand still, she paced in front of the fire. “Let’s assume that the man and woman he saw in Eagle Flute Village were Flint and Sora. Didn’t it strike you as unlikely that they would have willingly returned to the village after the attack?”
    “It struck me as impossible,” he said, and tossed another branch onto the flames. A fluttering yellow gleam filled his house, casting their shadows over the walls like leaping giants.
    Matron Wink stopped pacing to stare at him. “Why did you think it was impossible?”
    “Flint was once a warrior, a good one. He would have never gone back, Matron. It was too dangerous.”
    Wink countered, “Perhaps he went back searching for Sora.”

    “Yes, that’s possible. But I doubt it.”
    Her dark eyes searched his face. “Why didn’t you tell me these suspicions?”
    He rose to his feet and rested his hand on the hilt of his belted stiletto. “I’m not sure they matter.”
    “What do you mean? Of course they matter. What if—”
    “They only matter, Matron, if they are true.”
    She frowned for several moments before she said, “You’re right. Do you think Red Raven was lying?”
    “My gut tells me he wasn’t. But my gut isn’t always the best judge of these things. I wish we had more information.”
    “Well, we don’t.” She massaged her temples as though a headache pounded behind her eyes. “What does your gut tell you about Flint?”
    Feather Dancer hesitated, not certain he wanted to say. At volatile times such as these, opinions could be as dangerous as weapons. He clenched his fists to keep his emotions bottled up. “Matron, he betrayed Chieftess Sora to the Loon People. After his cohorts ambushed us on the trail, and we were taken as hostages to Eagle Flute Village, I watched him closely. He is a coward and a liar. I don’t trust him.”
    “Which means … what?”
    He shifted, uneasy. “I’ve been asking myself if perhaps Flint wasn’t surprised to see Chieftess Sora at Eagle Flute Village. The way Red Raven told the story it sounded as though he might have been.”
    “Are you suggesting