"Nothing. It doesn't mean anything."

And, in truth, it didn't (well, strictly speaking it could be made to mean something but, unto itself, it was only a swirling shape, vaguely primitive, the kind of marks one might find in paint on cave walls or, yes, on the sides of strange altars).

He closed his eyes and let her mark him--like bloodying the faces of young hunters after their first kill, perhaps. But, in her mind, perhaps still more at ritual.

"Some men would fear a bleeding woman, you know."