Loud, echoing drums sounded in the air, calling out an unmistakable summoning beat. Her head jerked up, though she knew she wouldn’t see anything but the verdant leaves of the shrubs and trees.

Why would the shamans be calling for the Raindancers?

After another deep bow to the Goddess, she hurried from the sanctuary down the long, winding narrow path out of the forest and sped along the edge of the woods. Halfway to the wide meadow where the Raindancers usually performed the dances, she discovered the source of her pain.

Two men had cut down a tall, majestic tree and were starting on another. She didn’t know who they were, but she identified them from the three white feathers sticking out from the band around their foreheads and knew they were her tribesmen.

“Stop!” Anger propelled her toward them, making her heedless of their huge builds or the weapons in their hands. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The two men exchanged a glance.

The shorter one shrugged. “Cutting down this tree, or about to, anyway.”

They bent once again to their task.

“Stop it!” She had reached them by now and pulled at the beefy arm of the taller man, the one who hadn’t said anything.

“Get your hands off me.” He pried off her hands and pushed her back, making her rock on the heels of her feet.

Intense fury blinded her. “You’ve already cut down one tree. How many do you need?”

“Look, girl, you don’t own the forest,” he said, his patience fraying at the edges and his unremarkable eyes snapping with anger. “We can cut down all the trees here if we want.”

“I can’t allow indiscriminate logging—”

“What are you, some guardian of the forest?” He sneered.

“Yes.” Self-appointed guardian, that was. “What are you cutting them down for anyway? Why do you need so many?” If they had a valid purpose—like building a new house or furniture for a couple who was about to handfast—she wouldn’t stop them, despite the pain their actions brought her. That was the principle her kind lived by.

The other man held up the saw in his hand and cast it an admiring glance. “Isn’t this a beauty?”

Lissana saw nothing but a weapon of destruction. However, she didn’t want to antagonize the men, so she swallowed and asked, “What has that got to do with my question?”

“I’m apprenticing at the smithy and this is my first product.” His face shone with pride. “I have to test its sharpness and durability—”

Evil, evil men.

She moaned, then ran toward the tree and clasped her arms around it. “You can’t cut this down. Not only this tree, but all the others.”

“Crazy woman,” one of the men muttered. It didn’t matter who, but she would bet it was the taller one. “Let’s pick another.”

Her head turned so she could watch where they go. “Why don’t you test it on that fallen tree? It’s got a lot of trunk you can practice on,” she yelled after them. “You can cut it into smaller pieces for kindling during the winter months or—”

“It’s not the same!” the shorter one shouted back.

Shaking, she released her hold on the tree, as it appeared they had lost interest in it. The dying tree beside her tugged at her soul as its life essence leaked into the air. “What do you mean?”

The short man answered, “It’s more difficult to cut a living tree—”

His companion cuffed him on the head, interrupting his explanation. “We don’t need to explain nothing. Let’s get this done so we can go home.”

But the short man had said enough for her to understand. Of course it was harder to hack at a living tree. Because it was alive, it could resist the invasion and even fight back in subtle ways that were not visible to human eyes. A dead one, however, posed no challenge.

The drums beat louder and more urgently, but she couldn’t leave the trees alone. Her innate link to the land meant she couldn’t allow another tree to die without purpose, not when she was in a position to put a stop to it. She couldn’t bear another of that sharp, agonizing pain that signified the violent death of nature, more so one that gave its life for no significant end than to enable a man to check the sharpness of his weapon.

She ran toward the tree the two men were targeting and barred them from getting nearer by placing herself in between.

“Ridiculous!” The taller man growled, anger suffusing his face. “I’m not going to play this game the rest of the day with you.” He advanced toward her with a menacing gleam in his eyes while the shorter man took the opportunity to skirt around her. “I’ll give you until the count of three to leave. If you’re still here by that time…” He left the threat hanging.

A frisson of fear lanced through her, but she whispered a prayer to Aeshera and stood her ground. She refused to be threatened. “Look, I won’t report your actions to the Chief. But if you cut down another tree for no specific purpose other than to—”

“You’re not going to be reporting anything,” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest. She gulped, cursing herself for her rashness and wondering what she was going to do. She was just now aware of his height and strength and build. “Leave now, little girl, while I’m still feeling kind and generous. One.”

Perhaps she should go for help—

His friend positioned the weapon at the tree and started sawing.

Oh Goddess, the pain.

Sharp, debilitating pain slashed through her.

Lissana huffed and concentrated on standing straight. “I won’t leave until you agree to stop.” Even if she did leave, she wouldn’t get far due to the intense agony that was starting to weaken her.

“Two.”

Each pass of the saw was torture, pain slicing into her. Yet she knew what she was feeling was not her own pain but the tree’s, the land’s. It didn’t make bearing it any easier. “Stop it, please…” She couldn’t stand it anymore. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground, hunched over. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please…”

“What in the name of the Goddess is going on here?” An angry male roar sounded from some distance away. Not a second later, the pain abated, as the saw dropped from the other man’s hand.

With a grateful sob and a prayer of thanks, Lissana sniffed and wiped her tears before coming to her shaky feet. Turning around, she was surprised to see the two men lying on the ground some distance away, groaning, as though some giant hand had picked them up and thrown them there.

When Lissana saw who her “savior” was, she understood.

Dalin, son of Head Shaman Shanawin and Wise Woman Jalana, was a formidable journeyman shaman in his own right. She had seen him lift a giant boulder once with the power that blasted from his hand.

Dalin, her nemesis from childhood. Scenes from her dream of three nights ago rushed in and she saw him once more holding her tight in his arms and impaling her. She went hot with remembrance, even as she denied the memory.

His brows lifted in surprise upon seeing her. “Lissana, are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” she informed him, stiff and polite.

He nodded. “What happened here?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It is when I was the one who saved you from kissing the ground,” he retorted.

She acknowledged the truth of that statement and reluctantly explained the events. “So, when he,” she pointed to the shorter man, “cut the tree, I was in so much pain my knees couldn’t hold me up. I’m fine now.” She hastened to reassure him, as a frightening frown started forming on his forehead, even though the scowl was directed at the two men on the ground. “They didn’t…didn’t touch me. They just wanted me to be gone, but I couldn’t very well leave the tree to die, could I?”

She regretted her question when he turned his fierce stare toward her and grasped her arms. “What you should have done, you idiot, was run the hell away from here as fast as you can and look for reinforcements.”

Her hackles immediately rose and she tried to claw his hands away from her arm. It didn’t matter that she had thought of that, but it was too late by then. Her voice shook with a mixture of annoyance and anger. “Let go of me!”

He released her and she backed away a few steps, rubbing her arm and casting him several black glances.

Dalin always had that effect on her. Whenever they met, they ended up biting each other’s heads off. The Goddess knew they had a long history of it behind them. He’d first made her cry when they were about nine or ten summers and he had delighted in pulling her hair and placing wet frogs and slimy snakes in her pockets. When they’d grown a little bit older, he’d taken to ridiculing her taste in boys and she had punched him once in the nose when he’d made fun of her best friend Cheon. Since the day that Dalin had become Tragan’s mate, she did all she could to avoid seeing them, to forget they ever existed.

Therefore, Lissana didn’t know why she was feeling the rather strong tug of Dalin’s attraction now. She had always been indifferent to him, because she still saw the Dalin she’d grown up with despite the moderately attractive man he’d become, with the rugged features and charismatic appeal. Could her dream have anything to do with the change in her perception?

She shook her head to clear the ridiculous thought and looked up to find Dalin gazing at her with a strange expression on his face. His silver-gray eyes burned with an intensity that captured her gaze and made her heart beat faster and they would probably have gone on staring at each other had the sound of drumbeats not penetrated her fog-filled mind.

The drumbeats increased in pace and speed, communicating urgency.

She turned away, thus breaking the spell.

“You should go to the Clearing,” he commanded abruptly. “I’ll clean up the mess here.”

“No, I started this, I want to see it through to the end.”

Dalin shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He strode over to the two men. “Tawern, you miserable son of a goatherd.” He delivered a swift kick to the shorter man’s thigh. “I want an answer. What were you doing, cutting down the trees? Did your master say you can practice your weapon on the forest?”

Lissana stopped him. “Wait.” She narrowed her eyes, remembering something. She gestured at the man Dalin had just kicked. “He said he’s apprenticing at the smithy. Could he perhaps be one of your mate’s students? Maybe Tragan sent him here?” If he did, that was one more thing she had against him, aside from breaking her sister’s heart and crushing her own youthful dreams.

Dalin understood the implied accusation. “Before you open your mouth, get your information straight,” he retorted. “Tragan works alone.” He turned back to Tawern after a disgusted look at Lissana, for wasting his time no doubt.

She hadn’t known that. She’d heard from Mar Tiana that Tragan had attained master status, the youngest ever at the age of twenty-four summers, and she’d thought he, like the other masters, would take in students when he’d set up his own smithy. Apparently not.

Once he’d heard Tawern’s bubbling apology and promises never to do such a thing again, Dalin turned away from him. He stalked over to the other man, who still lay on the ground groaning in pain, as though he’d broken a rib or two. Maybe he had. Lissana wasn’t sure and she couldn’t sympathize enough to check.

He deserves it, she thought fiercely. At least Tawern was remorseful of his actions. Whether he was sincere or not remains to be seen, something only time could tell.

“Are you a man or not?” Dalin barked. “Stop whining, Lajie.”

“If you were a man, you wouldn’t have intervened.” Lajie sneered. “I couldn’t let a slip of a girl like that walk all over me.”

Dalin kicked him, which caused Lajie to groan louder and double over in pain. “Listen well.” Dalin leaned down and wrenched Lajie’s jaw around so that he was forced to look into Dalin’s eyes. “If you ever harm a tree or go near this woman again,” he said, his voice soft but full of menace, “even if you do nothing but stand next to her, you won’t get off so easy as today.”

Lissana watched, fascinated. When had Dalin turned into such a compelling man with that dangerous air? When had his face lost that boyish roundness and become all rough angles and edges?

When she wasn’t looking, apparently.

“And why should I listen to you, pretty boy?” Though seriously at a disadvantage, Lajie still hurled out the words with a hint of bravado and a belligerent look on his face. “Because you said so? Because you’re the Head Shaman’s son? Because you can do some iffy magic?”

“Because you’re wrong and you know it.” Dalin’s brows drew together in a frown. “Don’t let me hear of any unauthorized logging, or I will report you to the Chief and to the Head Shaman.” He stared down at Lajie with a considering look. “Perhaps this will drive the lesson home.” Brilliant yellow light poured from his hand and Dalin raised the other man to an upright position. He didn’t stop there though. His hand continued to lift until Lajie was on the level with the tree’s lowest branches, his back against its trunk.

Looking down from a height that was as tall as two six-foot men, Lajie whimpered, his eyes wide with fright.

Lissana found the punishment fitting and she grinned, her savage thirst for Lajie’s blood satisfied.

Dalin lashed him to the tree with some sturdy vines. “I’ll come back later and let you down. In the meantime, reflect on your actions.”

“I’ll get you for this, Dalin.” Lajie’s threat lacked heat and the nervous quaver in his voice negated any fear his words had meant to strike.

“I’d like to see you try.” Dalin turned his back on him and closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths, his forehead a frown of concentration. Sweat beaded his face. “Damn.”

Lissana wondered what he was doing when she remembered that every use of shamanic power had a corresponding price. “Are you in pain?” she asked, her voice soft so it wouldn’t carry to Lajie or Tawern. It disconcerted her that he should suffer on her behalf, this man who’d been swift to torment her so when they were younger.

“Headache,” he answered briefly. He dug out a small vial from within his belt, uncorked it and gulped down the contents. “I’ve got low threshold for pain.” After several moments, his expression eased. He examined her face, then his teeth flashed. “Having tender feelings for me?”

“Not on your life,” she retorted, immediately erasing any softening she might have felt for him. Only because he saved her, she assured herself.

He released a soft laugh, then turned and gestured toward the Clearing. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late.”

They set off, racing to their destination side by side.

“You stupid fool,” Dalin scolded her, not even winded from his gallop. He had, of course, shortened his stride to match hers and she was both grateful and annoyed. She would, however, have preferred not to have this conversation.

“You’ve already informed me,” she snapped. “Can I save my breath for the journey?”

“You should’ve walked away the moment you saw what they were doing.”

“I can’t not save the tree, Dalin.”

“Like I said, you should’ve gone for help instead of taking on those two men by yourself. Not only are they stronger than you, but there are two of them. Didn’t you even think of the odds that were against you?” He continued in a dry voice, “Or didn’t you even think?”

“Shut up,” she said through gritted teeth.

She didn’t have to listen to this. She put on a burst of speed that placed her ahead of him. There, only a few hundred more steps and she would reach the Clearing.

“By the way, Lissana,” he said in the same dry voice as he ran past her. “You’re welcome.”