“Tell her, then,” she said. “There is no easy way to start this tale of woe.”

Kandah's chuckle grated on her nerves. She said nothing. She needed him, and he asked so little. The man had worn nothing but a diviner's tunic and hood, covering his unusual appearance when traveling. Though he traveled little, preferring instead to stay in the chamber among his books and papers, his life's work, or in his garden, surrounded by plants which should not have been able to grow there but did.

“Come, young matron,” he said to Julissa. “Let me show you my work.”

He opened a large folio on the table. A fine but unfamiliar script covered the vellum. It wasn't like Mornae script for which each glyph could hold a thought. This was a stream of tiny glyphs, more like the writing of southerners. Mornae used such a script for mundane tasks, but for the temple and higher functions, like sorcery, they used the ancient system. Julissa peered at the script, trying to read it, but failed. Next to each line was a strand of hair glued to the page. He turned the pages to the back third of the folio.

“I am a student of the Mornae,” he said, and then added, “studying their inmost nature. I catalog their qualities.” He was so proud of his work—even as Hosmyr was failing. His enthusiasm never dimmed.

Julissa's hands curled into fists. Gishna smirked. She too had felt ire at the suggestion that anyone could catalog them like sheep in a pen. Kandah just continued. He seemed to know more about their true nature than they did.

“See here?” Kandah asked. He waited patiently, focused on her, devouring her. His aura flared with each word. “This is your brother Saugraen's hair.”

Julissa placed a hand on her chest. She did not like where this was going. Cataloging other Mornae may be acceptable, lesser Mornae certainly, but not the Son of Hosmyr. How she admired him! Julissa's emotions fluctuated wildly in the shadows.

He fetched a large canvas and unfurled it on the table. “And you see, he is here.” Kandah's finger traced Saugraen's bloodline.

“This is our script,” Julissa said. “I can read it.”

Julissa gasped, but Gishna didn’t meet her questioning gaze. Nowhere would Julissa read her mother's name in that line. Saugraen was not her brother by blood.

“But this… this cannot be. Mother?”

Gishna waved for Kandah to continue.

“You are hers,” Kandah said, dismissing the obvious next question in her mind. “But you were the last. To survive, anyway.”

“I feel faint,” Julissa said.

“Of course you do,” Gishna muttered. “Get her a seat, magister.”

Kandah shifted books and folios and uncovered another stool for Julissa. He then recounted the failures of Gishna's house. One after another, he spoke the names of her relations and her own sons. None of them were trueborn.

“Sabria?” Julissa asked. Her voice trembled. She was tenderhearted and loved her younger sister and her brothers. Such a rarity to have so many siblings and of such close age. A sign of the times, no doubt. The softening of their spirit came as they swelled in numbers, no longer seeking the excellence for which they had first come to this black crater. It hurt Julissa to learn they were not really her siblings at all. She must overcome this aversion if she was to be their matron.

“Here, see?” Kandah asked.

“But that makes her a... a Lauxyn,” Julissa said. Her voice had a touch of envy.

“Far up the line, yes,” Kandah said. “It's not a perfect science. Just a guess.”

Gishna shook her head. “He is being modest. His is a most exact science.” She was counting on it. It needed to be.

“But how?” Julissa asked. “Lauxyn would never give away one of their own.”

“He has been doing this a very long time, girl,” Gishna said. “He knows what he's about. Continue, magister.”

“Your diviners,” he said, “the temple ones, I mean, only track official births, formal ones. I track everything else.”

“You have some help,” Gishna said with a grunt. He'd no idea the fortune she'd spent, the sacrifices made to let his work continue.

“Of course, matron,” he said. “An army of scribes tracks every point of departure and every point of union.”

“But it isn't a matter of history only,” Gishna said.

He lifted a hair from a small white box. As he did, its energy, still present, throbbed in the Dark. As it passed through time, it altered, never to be the same. But something remained, struggling within, pushing forward into the next second even now.

Life.

“No, of course not,” Kandah said. “That is never reliable. The lies men tell themselves are all recorded in the histories.”

“Alongside many truths,” Gishna croaked.

Kandah chuckled too loudly, and Gishna cringed.

“Explain what she must do,” she said.

He offered a small bow.

“You will have at your disposal, an army of seekers,” he said to Julissa, “who will go out into the valleys, the low houses, the forgotten bloodlines in the mines and lumber yards. And all the way to the frontiers… and beyond, if necessary.”

“The colonies?” Julissa asked. “Exiles?”

“Precisely,” he replied. “This army will bring me samples with as much history as can be learned after so long a time.”

“And?” Julissa blurted out the word and her aura, as weak as it was, quavered.

“I study the samples,” he said. “Then your scribes write the names upon the trees. Together, we identify their origins. We make recommendations to the high matron on pairings. What happens after is not my concern.”

“No,” Gishna said. “It is not. But it will be yours, Julissa.”

“I don't understand,” Julissa said.

“It is much to bear, but you will bear it,” Gishna said.

“I will be here to help,” Kandah said.

Gishna sensed tension in her daughter, and she understood. She still wanted to know how and why the man did what he did, locked up for so long in this chamber. What manner of life was that? Yet he did it, as if time didn't matter and with joy.

“My line has studied your people for many generations,” Kandah said. “I can't stop now.”

“He is modest again,” Gishna said. “He is of the valmasin. Before the Fall, they determined the fitness of a Mornae child to bear the name to which it was born.”

“A what?” Julissa blurted. Her voice strained, tears building with each utterance.

“Before the Fall, dearest,” Gishna explained, “Mornae houses cared for one thing: to gain greater access to the Dark. It was the reason our people came here. To seek perfection. Of mind, body, and power. If a child was born to me, I would take it to the valmasin council. They lived in the temple. There were more valmasin then. They peered into the child's nature. Each had his own gifts and talents. I could then decide which of the observations mattered most to my line. Whether beauty, mind, or strength. Most Mornae children had all three qualities, but sometimes… what did you call it?”

“A bad stitch, matron,” Kandah said, grinning.