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Sunset blazed above Gold Ridge Valley in north E shadows over a company of mounted riders At the head of their train a banner- of Duke Vedris IV, ruler of E, surrounded and followed by his staff, guards, and friends S everyone’s eyes They had been riding through it for two days, watching it stretch over pastures and fields Now at last, as the company entered the forests that filled the northern half of the valley, they began to rise above the thick air
At the very rear of their coluirls and a boy all mounted on sturdy ponies When one of the adults, a woreen habit, stopped and dismounted from her horse, they also drew their ponies to a halt and watched her She climbed out of the sunken road and walked several yards under the ancient trees A big dog with curly white fur who trotted beside the four detached hiroup and followed
“Little Bear!” called Daja Kisubo, a tall, broad-shouldered black girl “Let Rosethorn alone Come back here”
The dog Little Bear obeyed When he reached the closest rider—Daja’s plu the road’s dust with his plumed tail
“Rosethorn?” asked Briar, the boy “Is everything all right?”
“Just stay put,” ordered Rosethorn She picked up a sturdy branch and began to dig in the heavy litter of tree leaves and decaying wood underfoot “I’ll be there in a moment”
“That’s not what I asked,” Briar irls out of the corner of his ht”
Daja turned her ap in the trees
“Daja? Are you all right?” The voice belonged to the third girl in their party, Sandry Everything about her, from her pony to her clothes, spoke of wealth that the other three young people did not have When she turned her ht Daja’s eye, Briar and Tris did the same
In the distance, where ridges of open pasture faded into the base of the southern and western e fire shone Daja shook her head,frohtmare,” she replied “It looks like what the Traders call pijule fakol”
Sandry shivered and drew the gods-circle on her chest for protection She knew Trader beliefs “The afterlife for those who don’t pay their debts,” she muttered
Little Bear rose to his hind legs, planting his forepaws against Tris’s saddle She leaned over to scratch his ears, her brass-ri in the late afternoon sun “That’s the nice thing about believing in the Living Circle,” she reet reborn”
Briar squinted, his gray-green eyes wary “Those fires reach forThis whole country’s dry as tinder”
Rosethorn thrust a clump of tree-litter into a pocket, then returned to her mount Once she was in the saddle, she beckoned to a localhas it been since you people last had a forest fire?”
The man chuckled “Bless you, Dedicate Rosethorn, there’s not been what I’d call a real forest fire in this valley since—oh, since e, him they call Firetamer, he tends to all our fires”
“I was afraid you’d say that,”Circle te left behind”
Sandry urged her pony forward Tris, Briar, and Little Bear fell in beside her
Daja stayed where she was for a moment, her troubled dark eyes still on the blazes How could anything as wonderful as fire look so ? she wondered She worked with it every day; it was her friend What if one day it turned against her as it had against Gold Ridge’s fields?
“Stay in pijule fakol, where you belong,” Daja Kisuboto her pony, she rode to catch up with her friends
The next day Daja entered a small local s beside the rough anvil, then realized that the staff she always carried had fallen to the ground as well Swiftly she grabbed it froainst the wall near the hearth, stopping for a ht, unmarked brass cap That bit of metalwork told those who kne to read Trader staffs that she was trangshi, an outcast, with the worst luck in the world
She turned her back on it and surveyed the cra the forge
Ho Circle, where her e This dismal place was the twelfth san its journey She was alone; the s with the duke about as needed to help this tiny valley survive the winter
The s Even his apprentice was gone, visiting a sick ers She was also tired of back country craftss soft in Winding Circle As if we did no real work of our own, she thought, inspecting the stone forge Here was a pleasant surprise: the smith’s apprentice must have cleaned out the nest-shaped firepit and laid kindling for a new fire He’d left her that much less work
Looking at the kindling, she reached deep inside her to find herout just a touch, she blew it into the firepit Fla up instantly
Next she sent her power outside through the wall, to the other end of the tube through which the outdoor bellows pumped air under the fire inside Since that suics into one, they had been able to talk in thought-form and to enter each other’s minds if they needed to The ability was quite useful, particularly when one of the from the others Tri-is… Daja mind-called
I know, I know The ic under Trisana Chandler’s reply felt like cool winds and heavy ht want to stand away from the fire
Not tooheap of kindling fluttered, then blazed as air from the outside was thrust in under its flames Daja heaped fresh charcoal around the sides of the kindling Once it had caught, she added still ive me some real air, she told her friend
The answer cah the opening under the forge More charcoal caught Daja stacked fuel until she had the right kind of fire to work her iron rods with
Just keep it steady for now, sheto read
She felt Tris settle on a bench near the opening in the wall Using one hand the other girl picked up a book
With the other she drew a skein of breeze from the sky into the bellows-hole
It’s A History of Volcanoes, Hot Springs, and Mud Pots in the Mountains of Emelan There’s a lot of information in it, Tris explained
Sounds ravishing, Daja corabbed a handful of long, thin iron rods, carried thee-fire, and put them in to heat
She felt bad for Tris, stuck behind the forge Her redheaded friend would have liked nothing better than to ride with the duke and their teachers, exploring the valley Unfortunately, when Tris got cross, s ones No one wanted her anywhere near the grassfires they had gone to inspect today
Unlike Tris, Daja had no interest in grassfires and had said as ive her so neork, like the ruddy copper that was ned her the et
Nails, Daja thought tiredly Barehanded, she drew a thin, cherry-red iron rod out of the fire I dreaive me? Nails She carried her rod over to the anvil and exaloryless surface
The light in the se-fire itself was sinking to becoabout that