Seeds of Betrayal

Chapter Four

Kelt, Aneira

He went out of his way to be kind to her, showing her courtesies she was certain no one else enjoyed. He hadn’t forced her to climb to the top of the rise since her fourth turn, and recently he had appeared to her before she walked more than a hundred paces. On the other hand, as her time approached he entered her dreams more and more frequently, until she found herself too weary to do much of anything during her waking hours. It almost seemed that the Weaver believed himself to be the child’s father, so concerned was he with Cresenne’s well-being. That was impossible, of course; she and the Weaver had never even met outside of her dreams. But he often asked what she had eaten the previous day, chiding her when the answer she gave failed to satisfy him. One night during the previous turn, he had spoken to her at length of what a glorious future awaited her baby.

“Your child will grow up in a land ruled by the Qirsi,” he said that night, sounding almost breathless with excitement. “Rather than aspiring to be a gleaner or a minister, he or she will grow up dreaming of being a noble, a duke or duchess, perhaps even more. No Qirsi child born in the Forelands has ever had that before.”

Cresenne had entertained such thoughts herself almost from the day she realized she was pregnant. But she nodded and agreed with the Weaver as if with his help, she had glimpsed this possible future for the very first time.

Still, she might have been flattered by the interest the Weaver had taken in her and her child had it not been for the utter terror that she felt whenever she spoke with him. And she might have believed his interest genuine and unselfish, had he not asked her the same one question during each conversation.

On this night he barely made her walk at all, appearing as a great black form against the same blinding light that stabbed into her eyes every time. She was heavy with child by now-she could hardly believe that she would have to wait two more turns before giving birth-and the Weaver said nothing for some time after she stopped before him. It seemed to Cresenne that he gazed at her, admiring her belly, though she could see nothing of his face.

“I have never seen any woman look so radiant as you do now,” he said at last. She thought for a moment that he might reach out and touch her face, and a shudder went through her body. She would have preferred his wrath to this.

It took her a moment to realize that he was waiting for a reply. “Thank you, Weaver,” she said, dropping her gaze. “I don’t deserve such kind words.”

“Of course you do, child. Tell me, what was your supper tonight?”

“Stew and bread, Weaver, with a plate of steamed greens.” Actually she had barely touched the greens. For several turns she had been sickened by their smell. But the Weaver didn’t need to know that.

“Splendid,” he said, much as she imagined her own father would, had he been alive. “Have you gleaned anything about the child? Do you know if it will be a boy or girl?”

“No, Weaver. I’ve seen nothing.” True, but she had a feeling. She hadn’t shared this with anyone, however, and she certainly wasn’t going to share it with this man.

“There’s still time, child. Perhaps you will before long, if Qirsar destines that it should be so.”

She nodded.

“You’re in Kett. Still with the Festival?”

He was like a wolf, circling his prey, each pass bringing him just a bit closer to the kill. She knew where this was headed. The question. It was only a matter of time before he asked her.

“Yes, Weaver.”

“You’ve been gleaning?”

“Yes.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not so far.”

A pause, and then it would come. It always did.

“Have you found him yet?”

Just once she wanted to ask innocently, Who, Weaver? But the kindness he had shown her had its limits, unlike his ability to hurt her, which had none.

“No, Weaver. Not yet. I’ve asked throughout the city, as I did in Bistan, Noltierre, and Solkara. No one has seen him.”

“It may be time you moved on to Caensse.”

“I still believe he’s in Aneira.”

“So you’ve told me before,” the Weaver said, his voice hardening. “Yet you’ve nothing to show for the four turns you’ve spent there. Thus far, your instincts on this matter have served you poorly. You’re searching for a Qirsi man and an Eibithanan noble whose face is covered with scars. They shouldn’t be this hard to find. If they were in Aneira, you’d have heard something by now.”

Not necessarily, she wanted to say. He’s smarter than you thinly He may be smarter than you. But all she could manage was “He may be avoiding the larger cities. I’ve yet to search the countryside.”

“He wouldn’t go to the smaller towns. You told me yourself that he’s probably searching for you, which means he’ll go where the festivals go.”

Again Cresenne nodded, though she felt her heart clenching itself into a fist. For the first several turns she had assumed that Grinsa would come after her. He didn’t know that she carried his child, but he had loved her, and that should have been enough. She knew there was a new king in Eibithar and she had no doubt that Grinsa had gone to the City of Kings to see him invested. The Revel had been there too, of course, so Grinsa would have learned from one of the other gleaners, probably Trin, that she had left the Revel. At the time she told Trin that she intended to return to Wethyrn, but Grinsa was too clever to believe that. He’d head south.

Or so she thought. Because recently it had become clear to her that he hadn’t followed her at all. He should have found her by now. She had done everything she could to lead him to her. She found the assassin she had hired to kill Brienne, she joined the Festival, she sat in every Qirsi tavern between Mertesse and Noltierre. Everywhere she went, she asked about him, and not subtly. She had done all the things he might expect her to do, and more. She had done everything but stand in the sanctuary bell towers and yell, “Cresenne ja Terba is here!” A blind man could have found her. If he’d been looking.

He loved her. She was certain of it. It had to be the boy’s fault, that stubborn, spoiled brat of a lord. But for all the times she told herself this, there were twice as many when her chest ached as if someone had buried a dagger there. Even now, speaking with the Weaver, when she needed so desperately to hide her feelings, she could not keep the hurt from welling up again, like blood from a wound.

“What is it, child?” the Weaver asked, clearly trying to mask his impatience.

She shook her head, cursing the single tear that ran down her cheek. “Nothing.”

“You’re worried that I’m angry with you.”

Cresenne said nothing. She might be able to lie to him, but if he caught her, he’d kill her right then. And the baby, too. Not for the first time, she used her fear of him to mask her true thoughts.

“I’m not,” he said. “I want to find this man, that’s all. I don’t believe he’s in Aneira.”

“I-I don’t want to go to Caerisse,” she said in a small voice.

He exhaled slowly, as if struggling to keep his ire in check. “Why not?”

“The winds are already blowing cold from the north. The snows are going to be fierce this year. And I don’t want to be up on the steppe when my baby is born.”

There was enough truth in this to conceal her real reason for wanting to stay in Aneira. Snow had already fallen on the steppe, and the cold turns up in Caerisse promised to be brutal. If she was going to travel with one of the festivals after her child came, she preferred to be at least somewhat comfortable.

Besides, she knew that Grinsa was near. She sensed it, just the way she sensed that this baby she carried was going to be a girl. She’d gleaned nothing. She’d had no visions of Grinsa or the Curgh boy. But her body and her heart told her what her mind couldn’t. He was in Aneira. Perhaps she should have explained this to the Weaver, but she feared that he would understand all too well.

“All right,” he said at length, just as she knew he would. When it came to this child, she could get him to agree to almost anything. “Remain in Aneira. Continue your search there. When the rains come and the air grows warmer, you’ll go to Caerisse.”

“Of course. Thank you, Weaver.”

He seemed to stare at her again, his wild white hair stirring in the wind, his features still masked by shadows from the brilliant light behind him.

“If you have a girl,” he said, his voice softening once more, “I hope she looks just like you.”

She will. “Again, thank you,” Cresenne said, making herself smile.

“We’ll speak again soon. If you find him, or hear anything of his whereabouts, remain in Kett, even if the Festival leaves. Make some excuse, but stay there. I don’t want to have any trouble finding you.”

The dream ended abruptly and Cresenne opened her eyes to a room so dark she could barely see to the edge of her bed. The inn was quiet, as was the street outside her window. It must have been well past the midnight bells.

“Damn him,” she whispered in the blackness. She needed to sleep more, but already she had begun to sift through her conversation with the Weaver, searching for anything that might tell her who he was and where she could find him.

She felt the baby move and smiled, placing a hand on her belly.

“Are you awake, too?”

She sat up, propping up her pillow against the bedroom wall and leaning back against it. These encounters with the Weaver always woke the child. Cresenne thought it must be because of how her body reacted to fear-the quickening of her pulse, the tightening of her stomach. How could the baby not notice? A part of her wanted to believe that he or she woke up to offer comfort. Certainly nothing made Cresenne forget the Weaver and all that he represented faster than feeling that tiny body turning somersaults in her belly like a festival tumbler.

“Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?”

A tiny foot pushed against her hand, then a second.

“So you know, but you just don’t care.”

The feet moved away, but an elbow dug against her side.

“Where’s your father little one? Is he really in Aneira, or am I just fooling myself?”

Not too long ago she had been ready to concede that she must be wrong, that Grinsa couldn’t be in Aneira. But then she heard of the assassination of Bistari’s duke. Immediately she knew that it had to have been the work of the Qirsi. Others were not nearly so quick to reach that conclusion, and she gathered from what she had heard that the use of the garrote and the scrap of Solkaran uniform had succeeded in fooling Eandi nobles and Qirsi ministers alike, including the duke of Kett. Of course, they didn’t know the movement and its tactics as she did. Cresenne thought it had been poorly done, the signs pointing to the king too heavy-handed. To her mind, it bespoke a dangerous overconfidence. More to the point, however, she felt reasonably certain that the murder had been carried out by the same man she sent to Kentigern. Cadel, whom she last saw in Noltierre when she told him of the death of his partner. The killing so closely resembled an assassination he had been hired to carry out in Sanbira a year or two before that she thought it had to be his work.

And since he had pledged himself to finding and killing Gnnsa in order to avenge Jedrek’s death, the fact that he was still in Aneira gave her some cause to hope that the gleaner was as well. It wasn’t much. It was pitifully little, really. But taken with the nameless sense she had that Grinsa was nearby, it was all she needed.

The baby’s movements began to grow more gentle and infrequent. Cresenne lay down again and hummed a lullaby that her mother used to sing. Eventually, she must have fallen asleep herself, because when she next opened her eyes, sunlight streamed through the window and the mid-morning bells tolled from the city gates.

“Demons and fire!” she whispered, sitting up so fast that her head spun.

She should have been at the gleaning tent already. No doubt the line of children wound almost completely around the tent by now. Aneira’s Eastern Festival had other gleaners, but she had promised to be there early today, having taken the later gleanings the previous two days.

She threw on her clothes and walked as quickly as she could through the narrow winding streets of Kett until she came to the tents and peddlers’ carts of the Festival.

Meklud had already started the Determinings for her, and he glared at her as she entered the tent, a scowl on his narrow, pale features. A small girl sat across the table from him, gazing at the Qiran, though the stone showed nothing yet.

“I’m sorry,” Cresenne said, standing in the tent opening.

“I should think.”

“Do you want me to start now, or wait until you’re done with her?”

His mouth twisted sourly. “You might as well let me finish this one. I’ve already had her tell me most of what I need to know.”

“All right. As soon as you’re done with her, come outside and find me. I’ll do the rest.”

She stepped back into the sunlight, only to find several of the children watching her.

“Are you the gleaner?” a boy asked.

“One of them, yes.”

A girl stared at her belly. “Does that mean you know what your baby is going to be?”

Cresenne almost laughed aloud. Why was everyone so interested in her baby? Everyone except its father.

“No, it doesn’t. I’ll be just as surprised as any other mother.”

“My mother says that Qirsi babies are born so small that they can fit in the palm of my hand.”

Cresenne stared at the girl, fighting an urge to slap her. It was true that Qirsi women gave birth to smaller babies than did Eandi women. Indeed, romances between Qirsi women and Eandi men were forbidden by the gods and prohibited by law in most kingdoms because Qirsi mothers were too frail to give birth to the children of such unions. More often than not, the women died in labor. The sin of the moons, it was called, for Panya and Ilias, a Qirsi woman and Eandi man who defied the gods and loved each other anyway, only to be punished by Qirsar, the Qirsi god, who placed them in the sky as moons so that all might see how they suffered for their love.

Still, though Qirsi babies were small, they were not abominations, as the tale repeated by this girl implied. For centuries the Eandi had told such stories about her people, perpetuating ancient fears of the Qirsi and their magic. No matter what she thought of the Weaver, Cresenne still shared his desire to see the Eandi courts destroyed.

“Your mother is wrong,” Cresenne said, unable to keep the ice from her voice. “And she ought to be ashamed of herself for filling your head with such dreadful lies.”

The girl gaped at her, her eyes wide as an owl’s. Cresenne turned away and merely stared at the tent opening, waiting for Meklud to finish with the gleaning. The old man would be furious with her if he learned what she had said to the girl-Festival gleaners were supposed to be courteous to all the Eandi, no matter how they were treated-but she didn’t care. Let him throw her out of the Festival. At least then she’d have an excuse to defy the Weaver and leave Kett in search of Grinsa.

Meklud stepped out of the tent a short time later, fixing her with a look that made it clear he would have liked to replace her, even without knowing what she had said to the girl.

“You’re ready now?” he asked, arching a pale eyebrow.

“Yes. Again, I’m sorry for being late.”

“I was supposed to replace you at the midday bells,” he said, leaving the thought unfinished, but looking at her expectantly.

You bastard, she thought. It was only one or two gleanings. But he left her little choice.

“I can continue for a time beyond the bells.”

“To the prior’s bells?”

Enough was enough. “No, Meklud, not to the prior’s bells. I’m with child and I have to eat and rest. I’ll go four gleanings beyond midday, but that’s all.”

He frowned, but after a moment he nodded. “Very well.”

The old Qirsi stomped off without another word, but at least he didn’t have a chance to speak with the girl.

Cresenne glanced at the boy who stood at the head of the line. “I’m ready for you,” she said, stepping into the tent.

They were afraid of her now, but she didn’t mind that. It tended to make the gleanings go faster.

The rude Eandi girl was the fourth child to enter the tent. She came in reluctantly, as if pushed by some unseen hand, but then hurried to the empty chair across the table from Cresenne, her eyes lowered and her cheeks pale. The Qirsi woman watched her for a time, saying nothing and allowing the girl’s discomfort to build. It would be some time before this Eandi child said something hateful about her people again.

“What’s your name?” the gleaner finally asked.

“Kaveri Okaan. But everyone calls me Kavi.”

“Is that what you want me to call you?”

The girl shrugged. “I guess. What’s your name?”

The Qirsi hesitated briefly. Most of the children were too afraid of her and the stone to ask. “Cresenne.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Cresenne had just been thinking the same thing about Kaveri, her hand straying to her belly.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “What do your parents do, Kavi?”

“My father is a cooper in Tabetto, and my mother works sometimes for the village tailor, though usually she just takes care of us. She’s going to have a baby, too.”

Cresenne had taken a few moments when she first entered the tent to read the list of names given by the city elders to Meklud. The list included the last name of all the local children who were in their twelfth year and thus old enough for their Determinings. Next to the names of some of them-all the boys and a few of the girls-were written the words “wheelwright” or “blacksmith” or “seamstress,” the professions chosen for them by their parents. Cresenne and the other gleaners were expected to steer the children toward these professions with the images they summoned from the gleaning stone. That way the children could begin their apprenticeships now, while they were still young enough to master their trades. Cresenne had seen the name Okaan on the list, but as with so many of the girls, the space next to Kavi’s name had been left blank. She was expected to be a wife and mother, but beyond that her parents had few expectations.

“Is there anything you want to ask the stone?”

The girl looked up for an instant, her pale blue eyes widening once more. Looking at her now, Cresenne realized that she was quite beautiful, with fine features and olive skin. She had long black hair that she wore to her shoulders, and her clothes, though roughly made, were clean and fit her well.

“I want to know what my husband will look like. Will he be handsome like my father?”

Cresenne suppressed a smile. “Anything else?”

She shrugged again. “Will he be rich?”

“Only the stone knows,” Cresenne said. “When you’re ready, speak the words.”

The girl nodded, swallowed. “In this, the year of my Determining,” she began, her eyes falling once more to the stone and her voice dropping to a whisper, “I beseech you, Qirsar, lay your hands upon this stone. Let my life unfold before my eyes. Let the mysteries of time be revealed in the light of the Qiran. Show me my fate.”

There was nothing on the list, nothing she was supposed to show the girl, and so Cresenne merely offered her magic to the Qiran, opening herself to whatever the god might send through the stone.

Slowly the white glow of the stone began to change, greens and blues and reds spreading from the center like petals on a blossom opening for the first time. As the image took form, Cresenne saw Kavi, grown to womanhood, standing at its center. She was pretty still, though the years had left their mark upon her. Her fine black hair hung to the center of her back and her face was round and flushed. But there were tiny lines around her eyes and the smile on her lips seemed forced, as if pain lurked behind it. She was nearly as heavy with child as Cresenne. Two small children played nearby, one a girl who looked remarkably like young Kavi, and the other a boy with wheat-colored hair and dark eyes. The house behind them appeared solid and large enough for a family, but something about the vision troubled Cresenne.

Is that really me?“ Kavi asked, a smile touching her lips.

“She certainly looks like you. Don’t you think?”

The girl nodded, her eyes never straying from the stone.

Cresenne continued to look as well. And then it hit her. In the image, Kavi and her children wore light clothing and stood amid flowers and green trees. But the windows of the house were shuttered. There had been a death within the last turn. Kavi’s husband, no doubt.

The gleaner’s eyes flew to the child sitting before her, but Kavi didn’t notice. The image in the stone held her, and the small smile lingered on her face. Cresenne looked into the stone again, hoping, against all she knew to be true, to see a man emerge from the house. None came.

Fool! she railed at herself. This was an image better suited to Kavi’s Fating, four years from now. The girl was far too young to learn of such a dark fate. It would have been so easy to create a vision for her, to give her a handsome man and beautiful children, to put them all in a big house. She conjured such images all the time for children of Determining age-all the gleaners did. Thinking that perhaps it wasn’t too late, the gleaner tried to alter the image. How hard could it be to add a husband to the glowing scene before them?

But the stone would not allow such a thing. Maybe if she had used her magic to create the image in the first place, as she usually did for Determimngs, she could have changed it. Once she summoned the power of the stone, however, Cresenne was helpless to do anything more than watch and hope that Kavi would not notice the closed shutters and the look of loss on her own face.

Finally, mercifully, the image began to fade, retreating into the white glow of the Qiran as if swallowed by a mist. When it was completely gone, Kavi looked up at Cresenne, blinking once or twice.

“I was almost as big as you are,” she said. “I was going to have another baby.”

Cresenne nodded, eyeing the girl closely, searching for any sign that she had noticed. “I saw that.”

Her head spun slightly, and her stomach felt hollow and sour. It occurred to her that she had eaten nothing all morning. The baby kicked once and rolled over lazily.

“Did you see my daughter? She looked just like me.”

“She was quite pretty.”

“Did you see the house?”

Cresenne held herself still. “What about the house?”

“I think someone died. The windows were all closed, the way they are when a person dies.”

The gleaner took a breath, making herself hold the girl’s gaze. “Yes, they were.”

“I didn’t see my husband. Do you think he’s the one who died?”

“I don’t know, Kavi. People shutter their windows for a lot of reasons. Maybe a storm was coming, or maybe you were getting ready to leave your home for a time. And even if they were closed because someone died, that doesn’t mean it was your husband. Sometimes we close windows when the king dies or a duke.”

“I looked sad,” the girl said. “I’m not sure I’d look that sad if the duke died.” She looked down at her hands, as if ashamed of what she had said. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“No. And just between us, I know what you mean.”

Kavi smiled again, though she kept her eyes on her hands. “Do you have a husband?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“Did he die?”

Cresenne nearly laughed, though she felt tears stinging her eyes. Gnnsa wasn’t dead, though she had done her best to have him killed, sending one assassin to keep him from reaching Kentigern Tor after he left the Revel, and then giving his name to the assassin’s partner, who all but vowed to avenge the first man’s death. She didn’t want him dead-in truth, she never had-but she had pledged herself to serving the Weaver long ago, and his desires ruled her own. Even now she searched for Grinsa, not knowing how she could find him without betraying him to the Weaver and thus endangering his life a third time.

“I don’t think he’s dead,” she answered, looking off to the side. “To be honest, I don’t know where he is. We had… a fight, before I knew about the baby, and he left.”

“Does he know about the baby now?”

This conversation had gone on long enough. “That’s not any-”

“If he doesn’t know, you should tell him. It might end your fight.”

Cresenne’s head was beginning to hurt. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. I need to eat. The baby kicked again, as if agreeing with her.

“Are you all right?” Kavi asked.

“Yes.” The gleaner opened her eyes and made herself smile. “I’m sorry about your Determining, Kavi. I shouldn’t have-” She stopped herself. Most children had no idea that a gleaner could make images appear in the stone. They assumed that like a Fating, a Determining came only from the stone and the god, as this one had. “I wish it had shown something different.”

Kavi shrugged. “That’s all right. Maybe you’re right: maybe it was the king or someone else.”

“Maybe. I hope so.”

She waited for the girl to stand and leave, but Kavi just sat there.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Cresenne said, “but I have more gleanings to do this morning.”

She nodded, but still she didn’t move. “I’m sorry for what I said about your baby,” she said at last, her hands twisting together in her lap. “I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

“I know,” Cresenne said quietly. “I didn’t think you were.”

“But you think my mother is mean.”

“I don’t know your mother.”

“She’s not,” the girl said, her voice rising. “She’s not mean and she’s not a liar!”

Cresenne felt her anger returning and she almost responded with the first words that came to her mind. But once again her baby moved within her, and the gleaner realized that she would want her child to defend her just as passionately.

“Your mother must be a good woman,” she said instead, choosing her words with care, “if she can raise a daughter like you who loves her so much.”

Kavi eyed her suspiciously. “She is a good woman.”

Cresenne allowed herself a small grin. “I’m willing to say that I was wrong about her before, if you’ll admit that she was wrong about Qirsi babies.”

The girl smiled. “All right.”

“Now go. There are other children waiting.”

“Thank you, gleaner.”

For what? Insulting your mother or revealing your dire fate four years too early? “You’re welcome.”

The child stood and walked to the tent entrance. Cresenne closed her eyes again, resting her head in her hands.

“Are you sure you’re not sick?”

She looked up. Kavi was still there, watching her from the tent opening.

“I’m just hungry. I’ll be fine.”

“Want me to get you some food?”

“No, thank you. I’ll eat later.”

“I don’t mind.”

Cresenne hesitated. It would be hours before she would be able to leave the tent, and the pain in her head was growing worse, settling at the base of her skull.

“Really?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

The gleaner dug into her pocket and pulled out two silvers.

“Anything you can find. There’s a Sanbiri woman on the west end of the commons who sells spiced breads and dried fruit. That would be perfect.”

Kavi took the money, seeming pleased to be able to do something for her, though Cresenne couldn’t imagine why.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Thank you,” the gleaner said, watching her leave.

She put her hands on her stomach, but the baby had grown still again, one of its feet pressed against the center of Cresenne’s stomach.

As she had so many times in the past few turns, the gleaner found herself thinking of her mother and the time they spent alone together after Cresenne’s father died, traveling with Wethyrn’s Crown Fair. There had been one night in particular when, after a performance in Strempfar, her mother offered to let her join the rest of the Qirsi gleaners and performers when they went to a tavern. Cresenne had just turned fifteen, and was reluctant to go anywhere with her mother, but tempted nonetheless by the thought of spending time with the older Qirsi.

“I suppose I could go with you for a little while,” Cresenne told her, trying her best to mask her eagerness.

“Oh, I won’t be going,” her mother said. “I’m tired tonight. You go and tell me about it in the morning.”

Only later, when she was older and her mother long dead, did Cresenne understand that her mother hadn’t really been tired at all. She had merely known her daughter well enough to see that Cresenne would enjoy the experience more if she was alone.

Her mother, it seemed, always knew exactly how to take care of her. It didn’t matter that her husband was dead, or that they had little money. She just knew.

“And I just told a twelve-year-old girl that she’s going to be a widow before her third child is born.”

She felt panic rising in her chest like a cresting river. What did she know about caring for a baby? What did she know about children at all? Aside from these gleanings she did every day, she never spoke to them. She didn’t know how they thought, or what they feared, or when it was time to treat them as adults rather than children. She wasn’t even certain what to feed her baby once it was weaned.

“I’m going to be a mother in less than two turns,” she said softly, gazing into the glowing stone. “I’m not ready.”

She could almost hear her mother’s reply, you have to be.

She took a long breath and looked down at her body, smiling at the changes she saw. Not only her belly. Her breasts had grown large and firm, so she knew the child wouldn’t starve. And even in the midst of her fear, she could feel as well that she already loved this child. Perhaps for now, until she found Grinsa, that would be enough.

At least I’ve found a name, she thought. Kaveri.

She stood, stretching her back and legs before walking to the tent opening. The other children were waiting, and she couldn’t look for the baby’s father until these gleanings were done.

Peering out from the tent, she saw that the line had grown longer since she started the gleanings. There must have been thirty children waiting now, some of them twelve, others sixteen. So many faces, so many expressions, so many shades of fear and wonder and excitement. Had their mothers been as frightened as she was?

“Is it my turn?” the girl at the head of the line asked.

Cresenne nodded. “What’s your name?” she asked, as the child stepped past her into the tent.

“I’m Sunya Kilvatte.”

The gleaner smiled, following the girl to the stone. Sunya. That was a pretty name, too.