The document she now studied was the last of the reports she had commissioned on the state of agriculture in northern Talay. It told a dire story. While central Talay had always been arid, the north had been somewhat more temperate. The sea currents and the wind that drove them had brought moisture enough to keep the land fertile, well suited to producing grains and fruits and vegetables that could be traded with the floating merchants for goods from throughout the Inland Sea and from as far away as the Vumu Archipelago. These goods, in turn, were sent south into central Talay, which had its own goods to offer in the form of livestock and mineral wealth. Thus, there had been a balance of farming and trade for generations.

Not so any longer. The damage done to the plains of Talay by the war and by the Santoth magic had left them parched. Something in this had changed the flow of the winds. Now a scorching breeze swept up from the plains and evaporated the sea moisture before it ever reached land. What fog there was, they said in Bocoum, hung offshore, temptingly haunting them like a mirage that appeared each morning but would come no nearer. Northern crops had withered more year by year, and this summer looked to be the driest yet. Even the wheatgrass—usually so hearty—had silvered to straw. It combusted and fed wildfires that blackened the sky.

The last time the merchants docked at Bocoum they found the Talayans had little to trade. Instead of engaging in commerce, the merchants found themselves fighting off assaults from the famished, desperate farmers and townspeople. Considering the way the sea currents whirled trade around the heart of the empire, this break in the chain of commerce had far-reaching consequences.

Who would have thought that a lack of water in one place would affect the prosperity of nations hundreds of miles away? It was, Corinn knew, a threat more formidable than any of the foulthings her sister hunted. It required her focused attention, and she was now ready to offer it. Her answer was a simple thing, really, rooted in a basic need and in her newfound ability to deliver gifts no other living being could. If what she had planned worked as she believed it would, they would surely find another name for her in Talay. A name of praise. Perhaps she would decide upon the name herself and have it whispered among the people until they took it up. She would make them think the name was of their own devising. There was a power in naming, she had come to believe, a great power.

The bone whistle by which her door guards alerted her of arrivals came to her, two notes that identified the person entering as her secretary, Rhrenna, a relative of Hanish Mein’s who had been something of a friend to her during her captivity in the Meinish court. Corinn chose her over Rialus Neptos, the other nonfamilial holdover from her previous life. He was her confidant in many areas, yes, but she could not stand having him around too often. It suited her much better that such an intimate position be filled by a woman, and a woman decidedly indebted to her.