Tembe wandered through the grove as too many transgressors climbed three-hundred-foot trunks to harvest seedpods or hack boughs. Freckle-skinned, yellow-haired Meera climbed higher than anyone and lopped off new red leaves for high priest Hezram’s dream conjure. Meera was tough. Nobody caught her off guard and pinched her seedpod sack. She’d have kicked them out of the tree. Besides warhorses and bees, Meera was Awa’s only friend in Holy City. Who could count trickster crows?

Iyalawo Tembe urged Meera on. Tattoos on Tembe’s dark face lit up. She had northlander and floating-city ancestors, yet turned against her mountain, her people, herself. She urged everyone to climb higher for Hezram. Middle-aged trees fell over and rotted, a catastrophe for the soil, crows, and bees. Muddy mountain streams ravished fields in the valley. The Amethyst River complained, groaning day and night. Tembe ignored the wailing river and trees. She loved Hezram more than her mountain. Love was strange.

Cathedral tree oil for most of the Empire and beyond came from Holy City. The spirit debt for chopping and draining healthy trees to death was high, so this work was forced on transgressors who faced torture to the edge of death if they refused. Shrieks echoing inside mountain cells kept transgressors awake at night and hard at work killing trees in the day. Awa, with only one strong arm and a crooked leg, siphoned oily resin from the roots. After breathing tree-oil fumes for hours, she passed out. Meera hauled her to the temple for bleeding, and the afternoon shift took over root work.

After being bled twice in three days, Awa was no good for an evening shift siphoning oil. Hezram sent her to the fruit groves beyond the Green Gates to tend warhorses. These temperamental beasts were two hands taller than ordinary horses, strong as elephants, and fast as cheetahs. They stomped everybody—priests, acolytes, transgressors, but never Awa. The ancient Master of Horses was grateful for help the warhorses tolerated. Awa buried her face in Fannie’s red mane—a shock of color against shiny black. Fannie nickered, happy to see her.

Cleaning hooves and brushing out burrs was the delight of any day. Fannie and the others enjoyed Awa’s calm strokes, Green Elder songs, and occasional gush of sentiment. Nobody else dared to hug Fannie. Why not gush? The Sun Festival was coming. On this feast day, fickle ice gods might smile on anyone, even transgressors. Awa could hold on that long.