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Chapters (61)
  1. Dedication
  2. Prologue
  3. Ashyn: One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Moria: Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Ashyn: Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Moria: Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Ashyn: Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Moria: Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Ashyn: Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Moria: Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Fifty-two
  55. Fifty-three
  56. Fifty-four
  57. Fifty-five
  58. About the Author
  59. Back Ad
  60. Credits
  61. About the Publisher

Her father’s entire selection of clothing fit on one shelf. There was a separate room given to the raw materials—furs and leathers and fabric and buttons and clasps and threads and baubles. The people in the empire viewed ready-made clothing as emergency wear only. It might be cheaper, but only because the tailor fashioned it from ends and scraps. The one cloak they found was for a man—too large, made of patchwork leather without fur.

“You’ll need a sleeping fur if you take that. Otherwise, you’ll freeze. The deeper you go into the Wastes, the colder it gets at night.” Gavril looked around. “Does your father keep orders anywhere? Perhaps something waiting to be picked up?”

He did. While it might make sense for a person to buy the raw material and take it to a tailor, that wasn’t how it worked. A tailor was an artisan, two castes above a merchant. He ought not soil himself with matters of trade. So the merchant gave him the order and materials, then sold the finished item back to the customer, and returned a portion of the cost to the tailor. Which meant that the tailor was still selling his goods—just to the merchant instead of the client—and losing money in the bargain. A ludicrous arrangement to Moria, though it seemed perfectly reasonable to everyone else.

She took Gavril to where her father kept commissioned goods awaiting pickup. There were no cloaks. Nothing that could substitute either. She was about to take the plain leather one when Gavril said, “Moria?”

He held out a parcel wrapped in paper. On the top of it, in block writing, it read: This is NOT your Fire Festival gift, Moria, so do NOT peek in it.

It was her father’s writing. Gavril put the parcel in her hands. She opened it carefully, as she’d never opened a gift in her life. First the string. Then the paper. She laid the parcel on a table and opened it to find . . . a cloak. A magnificent butter-soft leather cloak with a removable fur liner.

As she lifted it, a note fell to the table. In her father’s neat, precise handwriting, it read:

Fire Day blessing to my Fiery Child

I know you haven’t quite outgrown your old one yet, but it is starting to look rather ragged. Please do try not to get any dagger holes in this one. And tell Daigo the hem is not for claw sharpening.

All my love, always,

Father

Moria read the note twice. Then she dropped to her knees and she wept. Finally, she wept.

Ashyn: Twenty-three

Ashyn

Twenty-three