Unravel

My thumbs prick with temptation, the yearning to thread my magic into the muslin cloth almost irresistible. That cannot happen.

Not on a burning day.

Clutching my embroidery hoop with sweaty, twisted fingers, I follow Isabeau and the others in our orderly procession. Sometimes the magic swells like this, filling me like heavy thunderclouds fast approaching the Valon Mountains. I must hold it tight, else the magic will dribble into my embroidery, my clothing, or any other cloth I brush against.

Voyants are here, close. One glance, and they’ll notice the resulting Otherlight glow. Some voyants aren’t as skilled as others, but I’ll not stake my life on such a chance.

We file past the raised stone platform in the middle of the square. Bundles of kindling lean against firewood lining one whole side of the knee-high stonework. Enough to make a good-sized bonfire. The stone pillory stands stark in the center. A pair of stocks usually flank it, but they’ve been removed. Today’s trial won’t end in a pelting of rotten vegetables. Nor with twenty lashings. Not for a trial of the most grievous offense.

Witchcraft.

Fire stops a witch’s magic from spreading. Without fire, witchery sweeps from one feeble female to another, like a plague. Or so my uncle says, which is nearly the same as official church doctrine.

But fire doesn’t stop witchcraft.

Magic is like breathing, and no one can hold their breath forever.

I’ve been subtle, figuring out the ebb and flow of my Gift’s demands. Making sure I only use my magic when I’m certain no voyant will be around to see my Otherlight aura, or for the two days afterward while I still gleam. Unfortunately, none of us heard about the trial until yesterday, when I was already sloshing full of magic.

We file toward the benches on the south side of the square, already full with the women of St. Clotilde’s Abbey. The nornes study every move from the back, three rows of them in charcoal gray. The novices sit before them in unflattering tones of ash, and in front of them sit the postulants in lighter shades of gray wool. The rest of us, their students, wear the pale gray of dawn. We’ve made no vows to the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. Not yet. We settle on the front row benches like pigeons along a rooftop. The pillory is only ten paces before us. We have the best view and are on full display ourselves.

The abbey and St. Clotilde’s cathedral cast a long morning shadow across half the benches from their perch on the mountain shoulder above us, creating an inviting coolness in the late summer heat. I sit fully under the morning sun’s rays. Any Otherlight shine might be less obvious—

A trickle of wayward magic seeps into the cloth. I clench every muscle.

My skin tightens. My embroidery hoop trembles.

I change tactics.

I’ve a theory I’ve only begun to test. I’ve little affinity with wood, or plants, or metal, or stone. Perhaps if my magic isn’t flowing directly into thread or cloth, and I’m not purposefully using it, any resulting Otherlight will be dim? The magic might soak from the bench into a dozen gray skirts but should still remain faint. My theory has seemed to hold up so far.

Fates, so let it be!

I grip the bench, letting magic dribble undirected from my palms, hoping it’ll pool on the wooden surface. The tightness loosens. I sigh.

As the rest of the square fills with townsfolk, the abbey Threadmistress, Sister Egethe, takes her place before us like a field officer surveying infantrymen. We straighten our spines. When she looks down the line, I realize she’s already speaking. I focus on her serious expression. She stands to my right, so her words are inaudible. The teachers have been told I can’t hear on that side, but they always seem to forget. The left’s not much better, but until she moves, I must watch her lips. Something about embroidery and the trial. My hands lift to the silver combs holding tight, dark curls away from my face. A gift from my godmother years ago, they seem expensive but also ordinary. I press them against my scalp; the teeth of the combs bite my skin and her words amplify to an audible murmur.

… Begin your thread-sketches. Whilst the trial proceeds… stitch the essence… speed, not precision. No colored silks… necessary.

I pull the cloth taut in my embroidery hoop and thread my needle with silk as black as my own hair. Black is good. It’s stark, truthful, dyed with oak galls gathered from groves descended from the Valonian Oak. Each of my grandfather’s seven thrones are carved from that legendary tree, for none can stand before it and utter lies. With black thread, magic feels more manageable. Less wild.

Sister Egethe’s hands move as if offering a blessing. … Your thread-sketches will be used as references for the tapestry commissioned by the Bishop-Princep.

I tighten my jaw. I’ve no love for the Bishop-Princep. His Bonifactum Edict issued last year introduced superstition and suspicion throughout Valonia, sweeping through each village, abbey and manor. I keep my expression neutral; catching the eye of Sister Egethe will bring consequences, which might tempt the Fates’ notice. Notice brings interest. Interest brings curiosity. And when the Fates become curious, they play with the threads of your life, twitching one here or pulling one there. The resulting upheaval rarely proves beneficial.

So, wrapping my left hand’s stiff, twisted fingers around the embroidery hoop, I obediently dip my needle into the cloth. The black silk slips after, again and again, until it outlines the pillory in the middle ground and the three-story guild hall behind it. The building dwarfs a faceless crowd of townsfolk below, indicated with small loose stitches.

The folk grow rowdy until the abbey bells chime Terce hour. The crowd quiets.

My stomach flips. There’ve been burnings in a few villages since the edict passed, but this is the first in the Clair Valley. The first I must witness.

The Moir Brethren from St. Clotilde lead four manacled women onto the raised pavement. I shudder as the clergymen jostle the women into a line. Stained dresses, once pretty, hang on too-slender bodies. There are books in my grandfather’s library with theories that starving a witch takes her power. It’s a backward logic that accidentally lands on truth, and those books have migrated from the library to my uncle’s chambers. Did he direct his men to only feed these women enough to keep them alive while his magistrates searched for evidence? Someone did. Men seem to find starvation a natural precaution to panicked, desperate magic.

Isabeau elbows me. Stop staring. She always sits to my left so I can hear her.

Isabeau’s seventeen, a year older than I. When we were younger, I pretended she was my sister. She’s tall, with hair straight as a mason’s plumb line, yet we look more alike than not: brown eyes, freckles, and dark hair. I’ve trusted her since my first day at the abbey. I’d lined up with the others but missed when a novice gave instructions. Offended at my inattention, the novice grabbed my ear, pulling me toward the door, stating the nornes didn’t need a crippled, deaf girl. She tasted Isabeau’s fist before they were both informed that the crippled, deaf girl was the princess. Isabeau avoided trouble thereafter… apart from our clandestine puppet shows after lights out and regularly misplacing her embroidery needles. Her current needle darts around the nearly complete central image. My stomach curls at the suggestion of figures tied to the pillory, all nearly engulfed by the stitched outlines of flames.

He’s not passed judgment, I whisper. Though the women will not be found innocent, it seems wrong to illustrate their deaths before it happens. Isabeau returns to her needlework without reply, for the Threadmistress swoops before us.

A lovely scene, Princess Marguerite. She over-shapes her words as she points to the empty center. Only the witches left to add.

Solemn drumming saves me from answering. More gray-clad brethren proceed into the town square. Behind the clerics march the Abbot of St. Clotilde and the Lord Mayor of Tillroux. I hunch at the sight of the man marching shoulder-to-shoulder between them.

My uncle Reichard.

Bishop-Princep of Valonia.

He’ll preside over the proceedings, magnificent in his black cassock, the Seven Stars of the Pleiades embroidered with diamonds across his chest. He overshadows the two white-clad voyants following at his heels. My uncle brought a dozen of the witch-hunters with him when he returned to Valonia from his duties with the Knights Pleiades. The voyants’ faces are scarred from initiation rites they underwent at the end of childhood. Their eyes scan the crowd, searching for telltale gleams of magic. Their hands rest on the pommels of their cold-iron long knives. Everyone knows that when a voyant unsheathes his knife, a witch faces her death.

I curl my twisted left hand further under my embroidery hoop and make myself smaller.

The Bishop-Princep only answers to the Seer of the Stars and the Fates themselves. The only being in Valonia who might check his power is my grandfather, the king, and perhaps my father, the crown prince. My uncle, of course, would never heed a word I say. I proceed him in line for the thrones, but I’m too female, too deaf, too maimed, and though he doesn’t know it, too magic for his respect.

The drumming stops. The voyants flanking my uncle, not fifteen paces away, turn my way. They squint, focusing their Sight as they scan the crowd. I shiver, willing my body to imitate a well-corked jug.

Isabeau nudges me. Get back to work. People will notice.

I ply my needle once more, outlining the four figures. Two young, one old and hunch-backed, and the last middle-aged.

The trial starts. The voyants continue looking in my direction, so I keep my head down. I can’t hear much at this distance without watching someone’s lips, but like Isabeau, I know how this will end. It’s better to remember the women’s faces before they beg. Before they scream. Before they’re consigned to a fiery, cleansing death.

The young woman on the far left—her dress has the faintest blue Otherlight sheen—is charged with Skeincraft. The same crime I’ve committed hundreds of times, except my embroidery stitches never kept a child from drowning, and I’ve never been caught. The next, a rather plain girl, doesn’t shine at all. If she ever concocted the love potion she’s accused of creating, there’s no trace of magic about her now. A subtle, green glow lingers about the third, her wrinkled hands hanging wearily. An Herbwitch—the easiest to find and condemn. If voyants sniff too close, folk merely point them to the nearest healer, then sweep up evidence of their own magic and slip away before the voyants return.

The last, a matronly woman, stands tall and defiant, a golden aura glimmering about the iron shackles binding her hands and feet. The brethren should’ve used rope to bind a Forgewitch. The woman crosses her large arms with an air of indifference that draws me into the proceedings. When my uncle turns toward me, my eyes follow his mouth and expression.

… Your children are unnaturally large and strong, I see him say to her. Nine of them. Half the children of Tillroux fell to the Fates when the red pox came through last winter. Not one of your children died. That seems… peculiar.

The woman doesn’t buckle under his stare. My husband, Stars rest his soul, was a big man, as any blacksmith should be. And I’m not a small woman. Her words are easier to follow, for she speaks boldly. Fates determined they’d be stout and steady. I’ve done nothing to alter their destinies, only what a mother should. Fed them, clothed them, gave them work to keep them strong. Can’t see how that’s defying the Blessed Fates.

My uncle holds up a ribbon with a few dozen iron charms strung upon it. They swing ominously. My voyants found charms in your shop.

The voyants shift their gaze from the crowd to the woman. I release my breath.

Those? She doesn’t flinch. They’ve hung from the rafters of that smithy since my husband’s grandfather’s day… hard put to find a smith without such.

Why is that? He seems only curious, but it’s a trap. Stop talking.

Protects the place from errant sparks. Keeps the smith’s eye sharp and his hand quick.

A raised eyebrow. Don’t the Fates have power enough to do that?

She pinches her mouth shut, finally recognizing the snare, but then lifts her chin. Fine. Take them all. You won’t see my sons using the forge without them. She casts a glare at the townsfolk. And if you turn my kin out o’ Tillroux, you’ll have troubled times finding a replacement. See how long you can last without a smith. She says it like a curse and spits to the side as if to seal it.

There’s answering movement in the crowd as others spit. Enough to show defiance, but not enough to earn trouble. Through the shifting crowd an Otherlight glow comes pushing to the front, a boy with golden hair clutching a wilted-looking cabbage. He’s my age, or a bit older, and wearing an odd assortment of clothing. His wool cloak’s too heavy for such a warm day. A sagging tunic, made for a man thrice his girth, is snugged around his waist with doubled-up rope instead of a belt. His leggings are a growth spurt away from being too small, not staying tucked into his worn pair of boots. Strangest of all is his Otherlight gleam, bright as any female magic wielder’s and white as lamb’s wool.

I’ve never seen a male who used magic. Men can only sniff it out. Women give it form in charms, potions, and embroidery.

The drumming resumes.

Brethren push the women toward the pillory, tying them together, backs to the stone column. Other brethren place the wood and bundles of kindling around their feet. Nausea rises within me. I can’t watch. But I must.

Witchcraft is the most insidious of sins against the Seven Fates. My uncle captures my gaze as he circles the pillory. Women, formed in the image of the Sisters… imitate the Fates… trying to mold the destinies of others… meddling, mischief, and ultimately to witchcraft… serving Eris, mother of strife and discord. We must purge Tillroux…

His words fade as he turns away, circling the women. My entire body is taut. Eventually, his voice becomes audible again.

You, madame, shall have your useless charms. He flings them at the feet of the blacksmith’s widow. She shrugs. A brave mistake. He’ll seek higher stakes, something to make her flinch. And each of your children shall be branded. All folk will know what sort of mother they had.

The blacksmith’s widow blanches and tightens her jaw. That seems enough, for he moves to the old woman. Her cottage will be burned, her garden plowed under and sown with salt. A waste. Next winter, the townsfolk will rue that they’ve no herbwoman, no plants to soothe their coughs or bring down their children’s fevers.

The girl accused of making a love potion sobs as my uncle steps before her. She begs, perhaps claiming innocence. He steps closer, making the sign of forgiveness.

The girl sags, relieved—but he doesn’t release her.

I grip my embroidery tight as he turns to the woman with pale blue Otherlight. You claim love motivated you to stitch enchantments… your son’s clothing… highest, holiest gift the Fates give to womankind… twisted… keep a child under control.

To keep him safe… prayed as I embroidered them.

Blasphemy!

No— she protests.

"The Fates will keep him safe. He points skyward. The Fates will see to it that he fulfills his destiny, whether that life is long or short. Where is your faith, woman?"

She straightens and glares at him. Bruises mark her face; a nasty burn puckers her neck. The inquisitors haven’t been gentle.

Your Grace never experienced childbirth.

My uncle draws back as if slapped. Of course not.

Pain… Hours of it. No escape. The woman juts out her chin. Your body rips itself open and pushes this child into the world. You stop breathing… Her face softens. … placed in your arms. Your child… suckles your breast… such tenderness and fierceness. Her eyes narrow. You’d do anything, face any foe, to keep that child safe and warm and fed. If it means borrowing a blessing from the Fates and stitching prayers into the very seams of your child’s clothing, so be it.

My uncle pounces. You admit you defied the Fates.

"My husband died before my babe could walk. I did all in my power to protect my son."

Witnesses state the child should have drowned… because his jacket snagged on a tree root, he didn’t.

I thank the Stars every day they kept him safe.

"It wasn’t the Stars; it was your witchcraft. He plows on. The Fates allowed the child to stray from your side. The Fates let him slip in the river. They determined the boy should die that day and you, woman, snatched him from their loving arms… As Bishop-Princep of the Holy Order, I judge… meddled in the operations of the Pleiades. To appease them, the boy shall die with you in the flames."

No! the mother cries.

No. My gut twists.

My needle, tucked in the cloth, pierces the meat of my palm as I clutch my embroidery. I extract it, releasing a breath. Then pause.

Magic fizzes along my fingertips, pricks at my thumbs. My embroidery work gleams with a faint blue light. Merde! The ends of the cloth caress the bench. I’m unconsciously pulling magic back from the wood. It soaks the cloth and stitches, ready to be put to use. The Otherlight’s still faint, but I dart a glance at the distracted voyants.

My gaze snags on the only person looking my way, the blond fellow who shouldn’t be glowing. He stares for a heartbeat, then winks.

Merde!

I jerk my gaze back to the voyants. They’re scrambling towards the blacksmith woman. She’s freed a hand from the shackles and swings it at the nearest clergyman. She looks like a warrior-saint wielding an odd-shaped flail. She strikes a brother, who falls before her.

You’re no agent of the Fates, she bellows, striding toward my uncle. You climbed from Eris’ bowels.

She’s almost to him when the voyants catch her arms. She pulls and bucks, advancing another step, but my uncle meets her with a backhanded swing of his silver judgement scepter. Her cheek splits open, spraying him with blood. His face is freckled with scarlet, but his black cassock absorbs the blood without stain. The voyants force the dazed woman back to the pillory.

My uncle gestures to the brethren below. Bring in the child.

No. He wouldn’t. I flex my twisted fingers. Yes, he would.

The blond fellow in the crowd shouts at my uncle. Another takes up the cry on the far side of the square. The townsfolk shift like a windy field of wheat. Someone nearby repeats it, and I hear what they call my uncle.

Monster!

I shiver. Blink prickling eyes. They shout what I’ve whispered in silence for years.

More cries join, like a rising storm. The right spark might turn the crowd into a mob. Purposefully or not, the fellow is sowing chaos, distracting the voyants from looking my way.

A grim-faced brother hoists a boy of about three up to my uncle. The crowd growls and surges forward past our island of still-seated nornes. My uncle gestures a command. Brethren circle the raised platform. A jerk of his hand, and they turn their staves around, sharpened ends pointing toward the townsfolk.

We are men of the Klothos, my uncle shouts. We defend the judgments of the Fates. If you feel it’s your time to die, then come and meet your destiny!

The crowd quiets.

Coward! The blond fellow stands five paces to my left. He throws his cabbage over the row of staves, hitting my uncle in the shoulder. Monster! He bends, then throws a cobblestone. My uncle barely avoids being struck in the head. He orders his voyants into the crowd.

The fellow ducks. Disappears.

Another stone hurtles toward the pillory, missing my uncle by an ell. A cabbage flies from a different corner. Then a beet and a parsnip. Soon, it’s raining rocks and vegetables. Girls around me squeal and jostle as the town square heaves in chaos. A norne gestures for us to gather, but I pretend not to see. I dash forward into the melee, unhooping my embroidery and folding it small. I mutter prayers, pouring all my unstoppered power into it. The thrill of the release makes me stumble. Pleasure rushes through my limbs as the cloth glows a clear blue between my fingers, bright enough for any voyant to see.

I crawl forward on hands and knees, wriggling between the armed brethren. Some have Sight. Not enough to become voyants, but enough to detect this bright glow. Scrunching the cloth in my fist, I focus on hiding, being unseen, wishing again that I knew how to trigger the legendary masking effect of embroidery magic. With no teacher, I’ve only overheard stories and read vague references in history books.

At the edge of the raised stone platform, I kneel and peer about. My uncle’s not in sight. The witches are almost within reach, but a wall of stacked firewood encircles their legs. The child knocks pieces off, trying to get to his mother.

Go! she urges him. Run fast!

His chubby hands don’t pause, unaware of his danger. I reach, clambering onto the platform, and grab the back of his shirt.

His mother struggles. Get away from him, abbey-rat!

I want to help. I thrust my cloth against her bound hands. Her eyes widen, then focus sharply. I hold her gaze, hoping she can sense my honesty. She gives a quick nod.

His name is Henri. Her fingers tighten; the cloth flares with her deep blue Otherlight.

Henri, I repeat, tying the embroidery around his neck like a kerchief. Henri pushes away. I exchange one last look with his mother as I haul him under my arm and tuck the cloth under his shirt. Henri resists, scrabbling for his mother. I grip him firmly, scooting off the platform. I’m trusting untrained magic to keep him masked. It has no chance of working if he becomes the center of attention. I duck under clergymen’s elbows and townsfolk’s arms. He’s a solid child and not cooperative. I kneel, wrestling him into a more secure position and wishing the ever-bent fingers of my left hand could flex and grip.

Mama!

Hush. I try to think of comforting words, but all are lies. Hush, I repeat, and press forward. He wiggles desperately. I near the edge of the crowd when Henri arches so violently I nearly drop him.

I’ll take him. The consonants cling together like spring mud. Lowlander accent. The blond fellow, glowing with white Otherlight, is on my left, reaching for Henri.

I clutch the boy closer and hurry away.

Henri halts his crying. He flings himself sideways, just as the Lowlander catches up and plucks him from my arms. It’s like being pickpocketed—if the money had a mind of its own and could jump out of one’s purse.

The blond fellow dashes away, weaving through the crowd and into a narrow street. I chase after, down another street, joining them in the doorway of a closed shop. The fellow’s holding the child as he twists a length of rope in a convoluted mess of loops and knots. It gleams with white Otherlight.

I edge around to his right. I’ll not miss a word the trickster says. What are you doing?

He cocks an eyebrow. "Trying to save this little kleuter."

That’s what I’m doing, and I’ll not trust a Lowlander to do it better. What’s a squelcher like you doing up in Valonia?

Long story. He sets Henri on the street and pulls off his cloak. His rope looks like a net woven by a drunk fisherman. He slips two loops over his shoulders. Hoist him into this.

Eyeing the makeshift harness, I cross my arms. The voyants will sniff you out. If your magic doesn’t tattle, then your accent will. Any Lowlander found in Valonia risks a whipping, and if you’re from Brandt, they’ll hang you.

He shrugs as if told he’d a bit of mud on his shoes, then lifts Henri. "Let’s worry on getting this lad where they won’t kill him for a tad of duw in his stitchery. He looks me over. Pot’s calling the kettle black—some shine about yourself, yes? And you pretending to be a holy girl in that gray habit."

Never been caught, I want to say. But don’t. Boasting only invites the Fates’ notice. I can’t have them twitching my life threads now. If discovered, we might be tied to the pillory with the others. Or my uncle might arrange another—more private—trial.

Give a hand, he says. We’ll both earn a Fates blessing.

I uncross my arms and, taking Henri, wrestle him into the harness of ropes.

Horsey! he says, grabbing at the Lowlander’s hair and making him grimace.

I hide a smile as he loosens Henri’s grip, then hold out my right palm. I’ll show you the best route to travel. He frowns at my hand. More proof he’s not from our mountains.

It’s a map, I explain. Of Valonia. The fingers and thumb represent the five valleys. Stretching southward, see? This is Lake Clair. I circle the hollow of my palm, then point to the base of my littlest finger. We’re here in Tillroux. Go southeast through the valley. At Ligeron —I point to the tip of that finger— cross into Haps-Burdia. That’s the quickest way.

He grazes the side of my palm down to my wrist. What about the northern mountains?

I pull away, pointing over the rooftops to the blue mountains beyond. Those have kept us safe from invasion for centuries. Don’t try it. And not with a child.

He reaches for my hand and unfurls my fingers, as if unfolding a fine piece of lace. His calloused finger traces a similar path closer to the center of my palm. My pulse jitters. He doesn’t seem to notice. Staying in the foothills ‘til here, I could cross the river at Nemeaux." He taps my wrist.

I shake my head. The bridge has been gone sixteen years. You’d pay dearly to ferry across to Brandt. No, you’ll want to—ؙ

Continue westward to Hlaandrs. His finger slips back to my palm, then up to my thumb’s first knuckle. River’s narrower here, and there’s a bridge.

I swallow. Stupid to be all a-flutter because a lad holds my hand. He sees a map, nothing more. It just happens to be my flesh and bone.

It seems you know your way then. I pull my hand away and focus my attention on little Henri. I settle him more securely in the harness. The blond fellow studies me over his shoulder.

Does such a brave and helpful maiden have a name?

Margo, I lie. And you?

He grins. Tys Owlymirror, greatest acrobat south of the North Sea. He swings his cloak around his and Henri’s shoulders so he looks like a hunchbacked, two-headed ogre. I snort at his appearance, and perhaps at his cockiness.

Bragging earns notice from the Stars, more than magic does, I warn.

That so? Must tread lightly in your mountains, then. He grabs my hand and looks at it as if reading the map once more. As should you, Margo. Too much shine. Here…

He snags one of several odd bracelets tied around his wrists, sliding it over our joined hands and down to my wrist. It’s a charm. To make you less noticeable… to voyants, anyway. It’s only a bit of twine that’s been knotted in a pretty fashion and tied in a circle, but when I look up, his face is shining brighter than before.

What about the two of you?

He flips up the cloak’s hood. Henri disappears into shadow and only Tys’ face is visible. He hobbles forward like an old man. I have others. He winks, then totters down the street toward the north gate.

As he disappears around the corner, bells ring out. The big ones from the church at the far end of the square.

I spit to the side like the old grannies do, as if that can hold back misfortune. I can almost feel the weight of the Pleiades’ gazes upon me. I don’t regret rescuing Henri. I don’t regret meeting Tys Owlymirror, but I should’ve taken more thought. Planned. Like I plan everything.

It all happened so fast. For the first time in a dozen years, I acted without thought. The Fates noticed, I’m sure of it, and they will want their due.

A foolish, wistful part of me wishes I could leave Tillroux as easily.

I hurry back to the square. There’s no smoke. Yet.

I stand on an abandoned wheelbarrow. No flames around the pillory, either.

The townsfolk still crowd the center, but the brethren have prodded them into a wider circle with their sharpened staves. None can reach the pillory now.

My uncle is once more on the stone platform, entreating the crowd. His voice is nothing in my ears. I’m dozens of ells farther away than before; his lips are small and impossible to read. He raises a hand and points northward. Movement ripples through the crowd. Folk spit or snap their fingers to ward off evil.

What did he say? I ask a man to my left.

Word’s come from the northern border. An army, led by the bloody Duke of Brandt, is gathered along the River Muse.

Fates, no! Every adult remembers where they were sixteen years ago. The Duke, leading the Haps-Burdian army, swept across the Valonian plains, conquering a third of our country in a matter of days—our family, our neighbors, our best farmland stolen from us. We retreated, like an army under siege. The Valon mountains became our fortress wall, the Muse River our unbridged moat. Now Brandt comes again?

My uncle raises his hands higher, turning to collect listeners from all corners of the square. I could ask my neighbor to repeat the Bishop-Princep’s words, but water’s best from the spring, rather than muddied downhill. Yet I’m probably bright with Otherlight. I hesitate. Thanking the Fates for making me small, I slip through the crowd until I’m wedged between shoulders and bellies, only a sliver of the pillory within view. It’s the sliver that has my uncle within it, gesturing passionately.

I press my combs against my scalp, trying to increase the volume of his voice. I catch phrases, bits I try to stitch together coherently. He recites the history of the growth of Haps-Burdia, how the empire gobbled up one kingdom after another, turning them into ducal states. He doesn’t mention that some are semi-sovereign, like Brandt, but plays upon our people’s patriotism. And fear. He twists them together, warning of worse troubles.

Our worship… Seven Sisters must be more sincere… our existence relies upon…

I grasp the narrative thread, but I’ve heard it enough before. I pull the combs from their places behind my ears, and the world