It Dreams in Me Read Online Free Page B

knee and laced his fingers atop it. “Do you think it’s time to kill Chieftess Sora?”
    “I—I don’t know.” Flint got to his feet and walked a short distance away. “Maybe.”
    Emotion tightened her throat. She struggled to stay silent.
    “You were married to the chieftess for fourteen winters, Flint. Though you divorced her three winters ago, you told me you still loved her.”
    “I divorced her because I was afraid I was going to be her next victim! She had murdered so many people, I—”
    “No,” Strongheart said in a deep voice, “she didn’t.”
    Flint squinted. “Have you lost your senses? She committed her first murder at the age of seven. Her father—”
    “Her father killed himself. He was distraught and lonely. He must have thought it was his only way out.”
    “What are you talking about? She told me herself that she’d killed him.”
    “Yes, I’m sure she did. All of Chieftess Sora’s life her mother led her to believe she’d killed her father by accidentally adding a poisonous plant to the stew she’d made for him. But she did not kill him.”
    “What about her sister, Walks-among-the-Stars? Sora bashed her brains out with an oar!”
    “For three winters, Walks-among-the-Stars lived with the pain of believing Sora had killed their father. She must have heard her mother say it a thousand times. When she could stand it no longer, she took her younger sister, Sora, out in a canoe during a storm to accuse her of murdering their father. Sora had seen ten winters. Perhaps Walks-among-the-Stars meant no harm. All I know is that the two of them began fighting with their oars. Sora struck her older sister in the head, and Walks-among-the-Stars fell out of the canoe and drowned.
Sora made it back to shore alive.” Strongheart gazed steadily at Flint. “Her sister’s death was accidental.”
    Surprise and disbelief vied on Flint’s handsome face. “I’m sure she told you that, but she’s lying!”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Flint threw up his hands as though exasperated. “What about the murders in Eagle Flute Village, just before the attack? She killed Grown Bear, Black Turtle, and Snail. You’re the one who found their bodies!”
    Sora’s blood went cold. She remembered none of it. But she never did. For twenty-five winters others had had to tell her the things she’d done when in the grips of the Midnight Fox.
    Strongheart stared at Flint for such a long time that his dark eyes caught the light and held it like polished mica mirrors. “She was being held captive by those men. She killed them to escape. She was defending herself.”
    Flint’s handsome face slackened. “Blessed gods, you’ve actually convinced yourself that she’s telling the truth. Well, you can deny all the other murders, Priest, but there’s one murder you cannot deny. White Fawn’s. She killed the woman I was engaged to marry.”
    Strongheart stared out into the trees, and his brows drew together. “She may have. I’m not sure yet. I—”
    “Sora said she did it!”
    “Sora said she thought she’d done it. She said she remembered ‘things,’ images.”
    Flint’s fists tightened. “Has your love for her totally blinded you?”
    She glanced at Strongheart for confirmation, but the words didn’t even seem to affect him. He leaned toward Flint and said, “If she is a murderer, she became one much later in life. The question is, why? What started it?”

    Flint propped his hands on his hips. The front of his cape pulled apart, revealing the pale yellow shirt he wore. “You asked me if I still loved her. I do. I always have. That’s why I brought her to you. I tried for more than half my life to Heal her. I couldn’t.”
    Less than three moons after Flint had divorced her, Sora’s mother, Chieftess Yellow Cypress, had arranged for Sora to marry an elderly Trader named Rockfish. She’d never expected to see Flint again. Then he’d come back and turned her world upside down. He’d given her a