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Asterin, who’d been monitoring from
across the fire, fell into step beside her, taking
up two of the brooms. “I forgot they used the
redwood,” her Second said, studying the
brooms in her arms. “A hell of a lot easier to
carve than the ironwood.”
Manon could still feel how her own hands
had ached during the long days she’d whittled
down her first broom from the log of
ironwood she’d found deep in Oakwald. The
first two ventures had resulted in snapped
shafts, and she’d resolved to carve her broom
more carefully. Three tries, one for each face
of the Goddess.
She’d been thirteen, mere weeks past her
first bleeding, which had brought about the
zipping current of power that called to the
wind, that flowed through the brooms and
carried them into the skies. Each stroke of the
chisel, each pound of the hammer that