“Ryldia has given me a command.”

“At least she’s speaking again.”

Taul nodded slowly, deciding how best to tell his brother. He leaned close, whispering, “She wants a girl. She commands me to get her one.” He sat back, stomach tight with excitement, lightheaded, the need to please her building heat at the base of his skull, down his neck; an all-encompassing, demanding, intransigent master. “Should I try to convince her otherwise?” he asked.

“And she ordered it?” Balniss asked, far too loudly. “Commanded?”

“Yes,” Taul answered forcefully. The reminder of her command was a powerful tug within him, driving him to fulfill it. “She wore the matron’s ring while seated in audience.” He placed his hand on his chest, fingers splayed open, as Ryldia had done.

Balniss looked at him with concern, even pity. Then he looked to the ceiling beams, his gaze held there. Taul could almost hear Zeldra’s branches swaying in his mind, the rattle of limbs and leaves as the winds roared through them. Here he was again, the younger brother in the elder’s stead, making a mess of things, driving his matron to outrageous demands. It was at times like this that he secretly hoped Balniss was Ryldia’s consort in his stead. He was so level-headed and thoughtful.

“Don’t risk upsetting her. If it’s a command, then you must do it,” Balniss said, returning to him, eyes bleary but alert. “This is nigh impossible. A girl?”

Taul nodded. “I must try. No, I must do it. I will not sour our bond.”

“She may be the one to cause it.” Balniss shook his head.

Taul wanted to say something, to correct him, but his brother’s words felt true.

“A girl will not acquiesce like the boy,” Balniss said. “From their earliest days, boys learn they will someday leave their houses. They know their place is outside their birth house. Quite the opposite with a girl. Her house will groom her for rule from her first breath. They see the world differently, even from a tender age. They are of the goddess. Do you understand?”

“Even if it’s before declaration?”

“These days? In the past, maybe? Most houses don’t even wait five years, and before that, they hide the girls like chits in a vault.”

Taul imagined the thief—an unfortunate trick of the mind that the thief looked just like Ren—climbing through the halls of a great estate, past guards, past alarms, and sweeping away a child with a shadowy arm.

“She must be of a good line that will not fail to have offspring,” Taul said. “We must have an heiress!”

“Are you hearing me, brother?”

“A valley child?” Taul asked, feeling buoyant, encouraged by the conversation. Yes, that is an excellent thought. It had to be easier in the valley. “Hearty and fertile. She can consort a fine lad later to smooth out the rough bits. Pemzen’s consort can help arrange that.”

“Taul! Are you listening?”

The tavern’s patrons huddled closer around their drinks. Balniss blushed, his jaw tight.

Taul hissed at him. “What? I have a command. Should I neglect it? It will eat at me day and night. She won’t even look at me until it’s done. You don’t know what this is like, do you?”

His brother had given up that life to live among papers, scrolls, and dusty chambers long forgotten by people who had more practical concerns.

Balniss stuttered. “A girl, Taul. Goddess above.”

Despite all his talk of superstition, Balniss looked utterly disturbed. Even though a girl was not truly sacred until declared and anointed as an acolyte, the words of the old prayers were like a mantra in the head of Mornae men. The flesh of the acolyte is of the goddess. The flesh of any female Mornae. Another law, or rule broken when necessary—or inconvenient. Taul’s skin prickled and tingled like it had in the tunnels where Maunyn killed Ren. Terror threatened to overtake him, and he found no courage in the brandy like Balniss did. He snorted out a held breath.

“It must be done,” he said.

“Do you have any idea how it can be done?” Balniss asked. His voice was low, deflated. He’d lost his courage.

Taul leaned out from the booth and scanned the room. The tavern had grown quiet, and none sat close enough to hear. He swallowed the hard knot in his throat.

“I will go to those that have been doing this for a very long time,” he said.

Balniss scratched his head, the tattoos darkening under his fingers. “Now you play with a wicked fire. That fox will snap off its leg if trapped.”

“I know. But I have a command.”

Balniss downed his shot, eyes crinkling, and exhaled the heat of the drink. Taul let him think. That’s why he valued his brother. All that reading and pondering had to be of use. Balniss leaned over his growing collection of tumblers.

“If you do this, we must prepare,” he said. “You must let them know you back your request with strength. That they can’t bully you.” His eyes drifted up, prayerfully. “Because they will threaten and press you, threaten to take the very stones beneath your house. And they can! Remember that.” His hands rose in supplication. “Oh, to be a valley house with room to maneuver! Here we are beholden to a liege.”

The word liege was like a slap on Taul’s face. The Mornae had come to Vaidolin fifteen cycles ago to be free of such words, to live beholden only to their bloodlines, represented by their matron.

Indignation sprouted in him. “No one must know what they are up to,” he said. “The other high houses. How Hosmyr is surviving, I mean.”

He’d never thought himself rebellious, but Hosmyr, the name he so loved and respected, had pushed him to it. He felt ashamed now for holding it in such high regard.

“Neither do we. Not really,” Balniss said.

“You can find out though, can’t you? You have sources among the diviners?”

Balniss exhaled deeply, pushing back from the table and his drink. “Maybe. I can’t just ask questions about a high house. Not those kinds of questions.”

“Do what you can.”

Balniss’s eyes rolled up, already thinking of whom to ask. He was always strategizing. A wave of relief washed over Taul. It was good to have an ally.

“I think you ought to write a testament in the temple,” Balniss said. “It’s a sacred trust. No one would dare reveal it.”

“Another superstition?” Taul asked, grinning.

Balniss shrugged. “No one would know its importance until it was unsealed. If something should happen to you or Lor’Toshtolin, if Maunyn is the thing you describe, then you should have leverage. Only if needed.”

“And this voravin thing… will you look into that?”

Balniss frowned. “It’s a legend, an aspiration only. Everyone wants to claim a legendary bloodline. What use is it?”

“I think it will comfort Ryldia. You could look in the records for any sign of one?”

“I could.”

Balniss didn’t look enthused, but it would give him an excuse to visit the temple library and the archives of the other high houses.

“Carefully, though,” Taul said. “I have the feeling this city, all the crater, is a layered web of opposing forces. And we can’t know whence the spider comes.”

“The one you need to worry about is the prime consort. I fear he will come at you—in the darkness—when you least expect. And you are no warrior.”

Taul rubbed his chin and tugged on the silver tuft. He knew it, and hid his terror well. “There is one thing I have which he must respect,” he said.