She turns the card. She does not study this one. She knows it on sight, the way someone recognizes a face they have been dreaming about.

"The Cyclone. Hammers. The card of storms with hands."

A pause. Her shoulders set, as if she is bracing against weather only she can feel.

"Listen to me, child of feathers. This card is not subtle, and I will not soften it for you."

"What happened to your people was not weather. It was not a season. It was not the world breathing wrong. It was a plot. There were hands behind it. Minds. The storm had a mouth that spoke a plan, and that plan had a name, and the name is being spoken again — now, in another room, by other hands. There will be a second storm. There will be a third. There is always a fourth."

She looks at him directly.

"You ask me how to prevent. The card answers: not by building walls. Walls do not stop storms made by men. You stop the storm by reaching the room where it is being argued into being. You stop the hand that wrote it. You stop the mouth that signed it. You stop the wheel that pays for it."

Her voice drops.

"Your tribe trained against a thing. The thing was not what struck them. Something that should have stayed beneath the stone was moved — by hands that did not belong to your people, or to the mountain, or to anything sacred. That hand still lives. That hand is reaching for another stone. Right now. While we sit."

She softens, only slightly.

"You cannot mourn and prevent at the same time, child. The cards know this. Mourn when you have stopped the hand. Until then, you carry the storm in your feathers and you fly toward the room where the next one is being made."

She holds his eyes.

"The feathers are not a curse. They are a route."

She slides the card back. Her hand stays on it for a moment.

"Chaotic evil. Hammers. Strength. The card does not ask you to be clever. It asks you to be unflinching. Find the hand. Take it. There is no other prevention."