“Someone willing to stand in the face of ten thousand years of tradition and custom,” Kandah said. “To make the tough choices your ancestors made. Oh, if you only knew.” He shook his head. “Let us see if you can when the time comes. I am curious! There are three paths for my kind: to know, to aid, to destroy. To know… but to what end? There are only two paths then. Can knowledge truly stand still at the center of all things… inert? I think not. Until now, my goal had been to know.”

“And not truly aid the high matron,” Taul said.

Kandah pursed his lips, refusing to acknowledge. “My people have an extraordinarily long history, Taul. And our goals are our own, not so different from your ancients, but different enough. Unlike today’s Mornae, who can barely see beyond the next season, I am more like your ancestors, or they were like me. We must see the vast expanse, the long growth—like your orchards. Do you understand?”

Taul did. He knew the layers of history buried inside the ancient trunks, deep in the roots.

“What do you find in those depths, I wonder,” Kandah said. His pale-green eyes deepened.

“I don’t think there would be anything of interest there,” Taul said. “I think we’ve given you enough of ourselves.”

Kandah grinned. “Indeed.”

Taul recalled his baby’s pyre and others he’d seen. How the failed tenders clawed their way out of the pit, weeping, destined to be less, and fade from the goddess’s sight.

Kandah tilted his head, considering them both. “I shouldn’t tell you, but this is your project. We are all together in a cozy conspiracy within the wider conspiracy.” He sighed when they didn’t respond to his quips. “As you wish. I will tell you what five people in all Vaidolin know. It can only help, now that you have guessed what others refuse to see. When your people, the Alcar—yes, Alcar—first came here, they mixed with the locals. A normal thing, so diminished by countless years of wandering and warring. Not to mention the poison of the Dark, which later became like the very air they breathed. These natives had gifts of their own, gifts which became part of Hosmyr’s makeup. Together, they were glorious while seeking the Dark. Such a sweet and terrible thing, your gift. Once entered upon the race, we cannot leave. There is only moving forward or falling away to oblivion. It will take time, I’m afraid. People are like cattle.”

They frowned at him.

“One must herd them to get any outcome,” Kandah said. “Oh, you dislike me saying it? But alas, here we are. Herding! I know you want something of your own, Taul. Give it time. In six or seven hundred years, your beloved will have enough strength to produce a daughter of her own. I will do all I can for her.”

His smile repulsed Taul, but he’d endure it for Ryldia.

“What of these others?” he asked about the samples scattered on the worktable.

“There’s potential,” Kandah said. “We’ll want to make sure they have enough of the native quality to counter the taint but keep them looking like Mornae. Don’t count on the high matron’s support if you ask her to put obvious nomad scum in her precious branches.”

“She said to my face that she’d allow it,” Taul said.

Kandah chuckled. “We’ll do our best, neh? Be happy, pleased with your goddess, that you, of all these Mornae, will save the future for your people. Without this work, not only will we staunch the taint, but the gifts of the valley––the impossibility of the valley––will continue.”

He reached over to a bowl full of fruit pits.

“Who’d think such luscious things could grow in this place?” he said. “Not just grow but fill the body with such strength and vigor.”

“Don’t they make you ill?” Balniss asked. “I’ve seen nomads sickened to death from eating them.”

Kandah stared at him. “We all have our gifts.”

The man and the room and the entire business disgusted Taul. He pulled at his itchy clothes.

Kandah held up a deep red cherry. “Something like this would sell for a hundred silver far south. Not that it would last. It won’t grow anywhere but here.” He pointed at Taul and said, “With you to drive its growth.”

He plopped the cherry in his mouth and savored it, the pale skin around his eyes crinkling at the sour taste.

“Well then,” Kandah said, pouting.

The high matron had warned Taul not to spar with the man.

“I will ask Sinnin to set up another room to solve this problem,” Kandah said. “The two rooms will work together. They must, neh?”

Taul nodded to Balniss, and they stood to depart.

“One more thing,” Kandah said.

Taul encouraged Balniss to exit and then returned to Kandah’s worktable.

“This one marked Sol Lor’Vamtrin,” Kandah said, showing him a silver-gray hair tied with a white thread, “is particularly good. Excellent on both counts. It is of Hosmyr’s ancient trunk.” He held up a slate-gray hair tied with a gray thread. “This one I know well. Your new son.”

Taul stiffened.

“I would get him tutors,” Kandah said. “Let him practice the art of contracts and bookkeeping. Let him master other work.”

Before the man could offer twisted sympathies, Taul rushed out. Only outside the strange man’s chamber could he breathe. Balniss stared at him.

It didn’t surprise Taul that Pemzen had no tending gift. His heart ached for not having a son like himself, his power bound to the trees and fields, to the life flowing there. No matter, he’d bind Toshtolin to Vamtrin, to bring that sweet gift, as Kandah called it, into his house. As master tender, he’d have more sons than any man could wish for.

“Ruthless,” Balniss said with a hiss. “What manner of creature…”

“No, brother. Just nature,” Taul said, surprising himself. “Just vanalo, favored to find another way forward.”

That was the lesson of his people, the seer’s, the orchards with their black bark and fruit.

Balniss’s eyes were wide, amazed. “I wouldn’t trust him.”

“Agreed,” Taul said. “We’ll use him as he uses us.”

Taul led them out into the scriptorium, where diviners bowed to him, and Balniss followed.

EPILOGUE

Fourteen years later

Gishna strolled down an east valley path between two groves. Strong, youthful legs carried her down a gentle slope into a field of blooming lavender. Dense, damp air, the crush of growing things, pressed on her. A swarm of bees bounced over the flowers.

She relished it all and sucked in a honey-laced breeze.

Bells rang gently, a low throb of metal breaking the stillness. Intoxicated by the beauty, she turned about in that sweet, sun-drenched place, searching for the sanctuary.

“Mother,” said a distant, unwanted voice.

Let me stay in this lovely place, she wanted to say. Again, the voice called to her, and the twang and thud of the bells sounded louder, out of place.

Those were not valley bells. They were citadel bells. Her citadel!

Gishna’s eyes popped open.

“What?” she croaked. “Am I dead?”