Sol, listening quietly while leaning against the totem, felt a flicker of understanding light up his eyes. So, the tribe is desperate, he analyzed. They are throwing everything they have into this generation to rebuild their strength. Well, that's understandable.
But as his analytical mind dissected the politics, his "cultured" mind was busy having a completely different reaction.
Damn.
He had expected a withered crone, a hunchback with warts, or a masked madman rattling bones.
But man! He was wrong. He was really, really wrong.
She was an older woman, yes… her bearing suggested she was easily in her fifties, perhaps older…but damn, she possessed a terrifying, ageless beauty that defied the harshness of the primitive world.
Her hair was a cascading river of liquid silver, reaching her waist, woven intricately with small, bleached bones and glossy black raven feathers. Her skin was unlined, pale and luminous, glowing with a faint, unnatural sheen as if she were lit from within.
