Luviara went on. “If you wish for my opinion, gleaned from many years of harvesting the fields of the empire, I would tell you that the aivur are no more each alike than any two of us are alike. Among the supposedly peaceful forest folk there may be ill-tempered and violent individuals, and likewise, among the marauding Sea Wolves, there may be those who sail for a boundless love of the sea alone and wish no harm upon anyone. The aivur who now live on the borderland of the Desolation seemed, to me, to wish merely to replant the Desolation so it can grow again. As for the Blood Wolves and their spiders, they are an army. Who’s to say what their cities or encampments are like, far from the border where battles are fought?”

“Do you defend their aggression?” Simo demanded. “I have lost friends and kin on the eastern frontier!”

Luviara pressed a hand to her chest. “I beg your pardon, Captain. I do not mean to trouble your heart. It’s true I’ve never found opportunity to speak to any of the aivur who ride in that dreadful host. When I was traveling in the east some years ago, I heard a prisoner from the host had been taken alive. Naturally I hurried to the fort, where it was said the prisoner was being held, but when I got there…”

She paused, considered the demolished platters, and eased the last slice of pie onto her plate. Elen could tell she was aware of everyone leaning forward. Like any storyteller, the interlocutor enjoyed their anticipation.

Which was startlingly and rudely interrupted by Xilsi.

“This isn’t funny to me. My brother died in the east, fighting the host. In his last letter home, he said their mages cast Spore. We didn’t believe it, we thought it was just a story, but then we got a dispatch that he had died after being warped and mangled into a Spore-ridden monster, so his company had to burn what was left of his body in the field and couldn’t even send his ashes home. That was what made me decide to Declare to become a warden. So I could learn to fight Spore.”

“You didn’t always want to be a warden?” Kem asked. Everyone looked at him curiously, since it was the first time he’d spoken since the discussion began.

“Oh, no, not at all.” Xilsi grinned, flexing her strong hands, good humor restored. “I wanted to become an embroidery master. Did you always want to become a warden, Kem?”

There was a faraway cast to his gaze. “Yes. It’s what I always dreamed of.”