She choked on saliva and tried in vain to control her twitching bones. Everyone was waiting for her to speak, and she yearned to be free of their judgment.

“You may,” she said reluctantly. She lifted a gnarled finger. “But only one from each branch… I can’t have the valley emptying to see a Zauhune knight get himself killed.”

“He may live, matron mother,” Saugraen said with a teasing smile. “And then what?”

She turned away, veiling them all in white, shutting them out. Sometimes her blindness was a blessing. They’d no idea the role she’d played in starting the farce with this knight and the court. She only had hoped to stir Vaidolin, to unsettle houses, and give her own fresh opportunities.

His question was astute, though. If that Zauhune knight won… then what? The entire crater and valleys were roiling from the news of the court’s re-opening. What could she get out of it if he won?

There was only one thing she wanted: medicine to heal her ailing house.

“When there is blood,” she repeated, clawed hand to her breast. “Only then.”

4

At the tail end of summer, beneath an unusually warm sun, Taul traversed Zeldra’s undergrowth with his former teacher, Voldin Lor’Vamtrin. Goddess-light had left Voldin’s hair long ago, and he was mostly bald now, but his sturdy arms and calloused hands worked every day of the year, doing whatever the orchards, vineyards, and fields needed. He was born of a valley house, square and squat, a head shorter than crater folk, but his skin was solid gray and his eyes silvery.

Voldin picked at the bark of one tree and pulled at the branches of another. There was love in Voldin’s touch, even pity. His bare, open hands grasped the limbs like he knew each tree, like they were old friends.

Blossoms rained down. It was the second bloom of the year. There’d not be a third. Before the Fall of Saylassa, Zeldra had known five or six blooms. Everything failed without Sayin’s power, his grandfather would say.

Voldin shook his head. “Aren’t you a tender?” he asked, his voice pained beneath the gruffness. “What happened to your guild-oath?” He reached up and plucked a single pear, rubbing its skin. It broke easily, and the flesh collapsed beneath his thumb. He tossed it away angrily.

Taul pretended to inspect a cluster of young leaves and let the pause lengthen. The pear clusters had turned deep purple, not yet the required color. Their skin had a black sheen developing. The ripe pears would turn the color of the mythical goddess Savra had seen when she became the first priestess. That’s what the legend said, anyway. Everything this side of the steles took on unique characteristics. The Mornae had made things grow that shouldn’t be able to in the valleys around the crater, but none were like the east valley. From the beginning, Hosmyr and its blood houses had turned their minds to the cultivation of the land and created a new sorcery. A denser air, pregnant with moisture and light, all packed tight, pervaded the east valley. It was almost unbreathable without practice. That was the magic his ancestors had devised, a living monument as great as the black towers of Zalkamas or the blacksteel of Ilor’Vakayne.

The things which grew in the valleys should not be able to grow so far north and sunlight had little to do with it. His ancestors had brought saplings from other warmer, more suitable places, and over the centuries, with the care of their tending and their sorcery, they made them grow in unexpected ways. Like the Mornae, these plants had changed, adapted, and now could only thrive here in this inhospitable land. He pushed leaves away, revealing a large cluster that would become the luscious black-violet pears that held power to soothe and heal, to empower and elevate his people.

Voldin moved on into the cavernous growth of the orchard’s heart.

“I can’t believe you let it get this far,” he said over his shoulder, voice echoing. “It’s not what I taught you. You’ll need a dozen tenders—real ones—to turn this around.” His hands flew up and then dropped, shoulders sagging. He turned back sadly. “It’s possible. If you try.”

The last words stung Taul more than he would ever have expected. The accusation thrust true like a spear to the heart. He wanted to protest, to say that it was happening everywhere, and not just under his watch, but to what end? To blame his matron? His chest tightened. Had she ever commanded him to leave the orchard? No. Was her desire implied then? He sifted through his memories. No, she was too direct for that. He was not that much different from those consorts who’d long ago left the valley in search of the power offered by the crater. Not the power of old, nothing so lofty, just the power of commerce, of wealth. It was so much easier than struggling with these ancient trees. The Hosmyr matron at the time of Toshtolin’s founding had granted the new house the orchard. The first matron was the second daughter of a second daughter. Gaukaso was the ancient word for too many daughters in a house. The word had other meanings, but this one persisted—a danger for any house to have too many priestesses. It fomented rivalries that inevitably turned ugly. Vengeance today, or in a cycle, was the saying. Mornae tradition held that it was better to split the house and let a priestess form her own house. The important houses of Halkamas were offshoots of Ilor’Hosmyr or one of its offshoots. A Mornae house should remain small, with the highest quality.

He scoffed. That ideal had crumbled centuries ago. His own house had four mature priestesses already, and six acolytes preparing to make their trial.

Without these orchards, his house would eventually crumble, with nothing to trade except the produce of vassals. Without growth of their own, Toshtolin would become like stale houses, feeding off their vassals, sucking them dry of chits. And then all Halkamas would serve another master.

Taul grasped the side of his head, now damp with sweat and the water-logged valley air.

“What to do?” he whispered. How had this burden fallen on a second son? His brother, Balniss, wiser and stronger, should be the one dealing with this.

“This is our temple, Taul! Don’t you see?” Voldin asked sincerely, gripping his tender’s belt, now worn and frayed. “How can you be so dense?”

He let out a final huff and stormed off toward the estate. Hopefully, he’d not berate Zaknil and his house. This problem needed to stay secret until Taul devised a plan of attack. Once Ryldia delivered the heiress and they were both in confinement, he could give himself over to solving this problem. He covered his nose as a breeze wafted under the canopy. The orchard’s fragrance was off. None could deny it. A first-year apprentice could discern it.

He left the orchard’s heart, following a safe path out. The east valley sat atop a honeycomb of black rock. Ages ago, water and other forces had eaten away at the blackrock so that it was now like the holey cheeses made by the Kuxul. How deep it went, no one knew. Their ancient sorcerers had made of it a single enchantment. They wrote glyphs into them with their fingers and sung to the rock, imbuing it with their thoughts and desires. It was the greatest device ever made by the Mornae—or so the people of Hosmyr thought. Roots worked their way through those enchanted holes, and over time soil formed. The tenders marked out safe paths through it with white rocks.

He pulled his hood down over his eyes against the blazing sunlight and stepped through the edge of the old growth where younger trees were growing on the other side of a path. He glanced about for workers and, realizing he was alone, removed his right glove and touched a tender trunk. It throbbed against his skin. He crouched and followed the pulse through the plant to the ground.

Down by the crusted black soil, someone had tied a gray ribbon of tenth wool around the slim trunk. The ribbon was a simple thing with a name-glyph embroidered into it: Halnil. This was Halnil’s tree to care for during his apprenticeship. No house name was present. To the tenders, the orchards and vineyards were their houses, though they kept that to themselves. For the Mornae, there should be nothing greater than one’s house. Voldin had taught Taul and the other apprentices of his generation to give the young trees a drop of their blood every year; to let them know they were family. It was nonsense, of course, but they had done it anyway. So much did they believe their teacher’s words that they made a ritual of it on the first day of each growing season. They performed it like a knight’s ritual, or mysterious priestess incantation. They believed Hosmyr was surviving the drought that was the Fall of Saylassa because of their blood offering.

And the trees grew. Their high house could not fall while the orchards bloomed. That was what they thought then. It had been their youthful battle cry, their hands and feet scarred from their work among the sharp, black-barked roots and branches. As apprentices, they worked barefoot and shirtless like the knights of old. Like the trees, they let the goddess alone be their shield.

It felt so exceedingly long ago.

Fine wool garb covered him from head to toe now. Not even the cloth of his youth, woven by the village priestesses from the bounty of their fields, but expensive weaves from rival houses. Wasn’t it expected? He was an adult now, a grown man with obligations in which his appearance, his conformity, was a piece. Halnil’s commitment was admirable, though.

“Oh, to be young again!” he blurted to the young trees. He wiped the damp from his face with his hand, mingling it with budding tears, and whispered, “And bound to a single care. Thank the goddess there are still young men like Halnil.”

Where could he find a dozen such apprentices? His own cohort of five apprentices had represented the entire valley. Five boys for the entire valley! Valley Mornae whose houses were moving up in rank preferred to be in the crater, earning chits. Few of them knew the details of how to grow in the valley, and more importantly, few had the gift. He needed an army of them.

He rubbed the pale green shoots with his thumb. Nothing happened; not the familiar tug inviting him to lose himself in that ageless sap. “It takes time,” Voldin would say. “They don’t let just anyone in. You need to earn their trust.”

“No time,” he whispered. “It can’t wait.”

He released the shoots and put his glove back on. The stillness of the place overwhelmed him suddenly, and he bounded toward the road, struggling against the grasping, spongy earth.

AUTUMN

There has never been a day we didn’t know the temptation to turn back, to give up our quest. And there has never been a day we didn’t give up.

Yet, here we remain, striving.

FROM MEMORIES BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA.

5

A gust of wind tore through the flax fields, scattering yellow blossoms across the road like Ren was a lord or something. He smirked and lifted his chin as if acknowledging the respect of invisible supplicants. Behind him, the crater’s jagged peaks blocked the faint sunlight and cast long shadows over the valley. He leapt in and out of the shadowed lines. Cassan would rise soon and cast his pale, milky light over everything and ruin Ren’s fun.

It wasn’t just fun, of course. He had to keep his skills sharp for whenever his master gave him a respectable job.

Thirty paces ahead of him, six hired spearmen rattled down the road in cheap iron armor, spearheads swaying above them as their boots crunched the limestone gravel. Respectable folk, knights and such, couldn’t trouble themselves to do the work that needed doing, so Ilor’Hosmyr deployed enforcers recruited from the poorest of its houses. People called them thugs behind their backs, but they were just poor, and had no other options to pay off their debts. One even came from an illustrious house which had fallen from the heights, cast down by the high matron. The man didn’t even have two wood chits to his name. Not a square foot of land to work. His consort entertained other men at the pleasure house now.

Ren had three vaults full of chits: wood, but also a handful of marbles and pouches of silver. If he was that man, a man with a house name, he wouldn’t be here bound to another’s will. He’d be the lord. Soon enough, he thought. When his master realized Ren’s power, his true abilities, then he could buy himself a name. There was a growing number of poor matrons needing wealth to claw their way back to respectability. Ren would never call himself a thug. He did what he was told without ever asking the why and demanded nothing. That made him something else, but he’d never call himself just a hired hand. He bounced through the last shadows lightly, as his mentor had taught him.

Across a stretch of blood-red apricots, a mile or so off the main road and upon a bump of earth, sat their target, a walled estate. Low stone structures protruded from the outer walls and fanned down from the hilltop to the fields. Beyond the wall, the main house sprawled haphazardly, a sign of prosperity as the house expanded over the decades. One terrace was a long leap from the outer wall.

Ren grinned wolfishly, a giggle bubbling in his throat.

He imagined himself leaping up to that roof, stepping to the next, and alighting right at a window leading into his target’s room. His mentor had taught him to always assess his surroundings, to make plans before receiving the order. Assassins don’t always have the luxury of time, he’d say. Ren had never known his mentor to assassinate anyone, but he’d spoken of it constantly.

Ren suspected that the most he’d done was rob small estates, sometimes just one-room huts. Those were easy. This estate would be a challenge. He wanted nothing more than a chance to prove himself.

He rested his right hand on the pommel of his short steel blade, ever ready, while he dug his left into a pouch packed with lemon candies. They were the good kind, not the fakes sold in outer Halkamas. His contact inside the crater provided them, straight from a shop in the Rilanik. He sniffed them and smiled. He was no slouch. It wasn’t the type of job he really wanted, but he was always proud to serve at his master’s side.

He pulled back his hood, wiped the valley dampness from his face with a rag, combed his silver-gray hair with his fingers, and imagined himself a lordling’s right hand. His was a Mornae face in the making; not overly attractive to draw attention, but not hideous enough to keep unwanted eyes on him. He’d bathed, trimmed his sideburns and chin hairs, and dressed in his best clothes. A charcoal felt vest with the Hosmyr fox embroidered across the front was the finishing touch. He looked more like Maunyn’s man servant than a thief. That suited Ren fine.

He checked his pockets again for his knives, needles, picks, and other tools of his trade. All in place. Ready to serve his master. He glanced about, making sure no one was looking, and summoned a tiny ball of shadow, rolling it about in his palm. His fingers closed in a fist around the shadow, and it sunk into him, shading his skin pitch black for a moment. Someday he’d be doing more than bribing children with candies and plucking their hairs for the high matron’s use. Someday he’d get a real order, and he’d unsheathe his blades for more than bullying.