Читать книгу The Oracle’s Queen - Lynn Flewelling - Страница 15

Niryn stood on the battlements, enjoying the damp night air. Korin had gone up to Nalia’s tower again. As he watched, the light there was extinguished.

“Labor well, my king,” Niryn whispered.

He’d removed the blighting spell from Korin; the boy would father no monsters on Nalia. It was time at last, the time of Niryn’s choosing, for an heir of Skala to be conceived.

“My lord?” Moriel appeared at his elbow, stealthy as always. “You look pleased about something.”

“I am, dear boy.” This lad was proving useful, as well. For all his faults, that odious pederast, Orun, had groomed Muriel well, to sneak and spy and sell his loyalty. Niryn could well afford it, and knew better than to trust him too far. No, he had spells around young Moriel for that, and the boy would do well not to cross him.

“Have you been keeping an eye on that new lord for me? The one who rode in yesterday?”

“Duke Orman. Yes, my lord. He seems quite taken with the king. But Duke Syrus was complaining again, about how Korin shows no sign of marching on the usurper.”

Moriel never referred to Tobin by name. There was bad blood there, and Tobin wasn’t the only Companion against whom Moriel harbored a grudge. “How is Lord Lutha faring?”

“Sullen, and hanging about Lord Caliel, as usual. I caught them whispering together on the battlements again tonight. They don’t much like the way things are right now. They think you’ve led King Korin astray.”

“I’m quite aware of that. What I need from you is proof of treason. Solid proof. Korin will not act on anything less.”

The boy looked crestfallen. “Everyone has retired. Is there anything else I can do for you, my lord?”

“No, you may go to bed. Oh, and Moriel?”

The boy paused, his pale, harelike face uncertain.

“You are proving most valuable. I depend on you, you know.”

Moriel brightened noticeably. “Thank you. Good night, my lord.”

Well, well, Niryn thought, watching him go. It seems you do have a heart to win. I thought Orun crushed that out of you long ago. How very useful.

Niryn returned to his enjoyment of the night. The sky was clear, and the stars were so bright they turned the dark sky a deep indigo.

The men he passed on guard greeted him respectfully. Many of them were his own Guard, and those who weren’t had the good sense to show him proper courtesy. Niryn had touched the minds of the various captains, and found most of them fertile ground, well sown with doubts and fears for him to manipulate. Even Master Porion’s had been surprisingly easy to slip into; his own stolid sense of duty to Korin did Niryn’s work for him. There was no need to meddle there.

Niryn’s own master, Kandin, had taught him that the greatest talent of wizards of Niryn’s sort lay in their ability to see into lesser men’s hearts and prey on the weaknesses there. Korin’s flaws had been an open door to him, despite his burning dislike for the wizard. Niryn had simply bided his time, waiting for the seasons to turn. He took his first careful steps in the last year of the old king’s life, when Korin had already led himself astray with doubt, drink, and drabs.

In the days after the old king’s death, when the prince was lost and foundering, Niryn seized the advantage and wormed his way just as securely into the heart of the boy as he had his father.

Erius had not been so easy. The king had been an honorable man, and a strong one. Only when the madness began to eat away at his mind did Niryn find a foothold there.

Korin, on the other hand, had always been weak and full of fears. Niryn used magic on the boy, but lately a few carefully chosen words and skillful flattery worked just as well. His beloved cousin’s betrayal could not have been better timed.

Looking around the dark fortress, Niryn savored a swell of pride. This was his doing, just as the burning of the Illiorans and the banishing of countless headstrong nobles had been his work. He especially enjoyed bringing highborn lords and ladies down into the dust. He enjoyed being feared and cared not one whit how many hated him. Their hatred was the hallmark of his success.

Niryn had not been born a nobleman. He was the only child of two palace servants. During his early days at court, certain people who’d considered themselves his betters had been anxious not to let him forget that, but once he’d caught favor with the king they’d soon learned not to cross the soft-spoken wizard. He took no direct action against them, of course, but Erius had been quick to show his displeasure. Some of Niryn’s early detractors now found themselves without title or lands—many of the latter having been since given to Niryn himself.

Niryn did not regret his lowly birth; quite the opposite, in fact. Those early years had left an indelible mark on him and taught him some valuable lessons about how the world worked.

His father had been a simple, taciturn man who’d married above himself. Born to a family of tanners, his marriage had allowed him to leave behind that malodorous trade and become one of Queen Agnalain’s gardeners. His mother had been a chambermaid in the Old Palace, often working in the rooms of the queen before Agnalain went mad.

His parents lived in a tiny thatch-roofed cottage by the north gate. Each day his mother woke him while the stars were still out and they set off with his father up the long, steep road to the Palatine. They left their own humble quarter in darkness, and he could see the sky brightening as they ascended the steep streets. The houses grew larger and grander, the higher you went, and once inside the Palatine itself, it was like a great, magical garden. Elegant villas clustered around the walls and ringed the dark bulk of the Old Palace. There had been only one, back then, and it had been a lively place, filled with color and courtiers and good smells; it didn’t fall into disrepair until Erius had left it behind, after his mother’s death. The young prince could not abide the place after that, fearing his mother’s mad, vengeful ghost would come after him in the night. Years later, when Niryn had gained the young king’s trust and access to his inner thoughts, he learned why. Erius had killed his mother, smothering the mad old woman with a cushion after he learned that she’d signed an order for his own execution and that of her infant daughter, having decided they were both conspiring against her.

But when Niryn was a child, the Old Palace was still a wondrous place, with fine tapestries on the walls of the rooms and hallways, and fancy patterns of colored stone on the floor. Some of the corridors even had long, narrow pools, filled with flowering water plants and darting silver-and-red fish, set into the floors. One of the understewards had taken a liking to the red-haired boy and let him give crumbs to the fish. He was also taken with the palace guards. They were all tall, and wore rich red tabards, with handsome swords at their hip. Niryn secretly wished he might grow up to be a guard so he could carry a sword like that and stand watching the fish all day.

He often saw Queen Agnalain, a gaunt, pale woman with hard blue eyes, who strode like a man in her fine gowns and always seemed to have a group of handsome young men around her. Sometimes she had the young prince with her, too, a boy a bit older than Niryn. Erius, he was called, and he had curly black hair and laughing black eyes and his own pack of playmates called the Royal Companions. Niryn envied him, not for his fine clothes or even his title, but for those friends. Niryn didn’t have time to play, and no one to play with if he had.

He sometimes went in with his mother very early in the morning to bring the queen the ale and black bread she broke her fast with each day. Soldier’s food, his mother called it, disapproving. Niryn didn’t see why it wasn’t a proper breakfast for a queen. She sometimes gave him the crusts the queen didn’t eat and he liked it very much; it was dense and moist, rich with salt and black syrup; much nicer than the thin oatcakes the cooks gave him to eat.

“That sort of food might be good enough on the battlefield, maybe, when she was still a warrior!” his mother sniffed, as if the great queen disappointed her.

She got the same look on her face at the way there was often a young lord in the queen’s bed in the morning. Niryn never saw the same one twice. His mother didn’t approve of this, either, but she never said a word, and cuffed him on the ear when he asked if they were all the queen’s husbands.

During the day the corridors teemed with men and women in wonderful clothes and glittering jewels, but he and his mother had to turn and face the wall as they passed. They were not allowed to speak to their betters or attract any attention. A servant’s duty was to be invisible as air, his mother told him, and the child soon learned to do just that. And that was just how the lords and ladies treated him, and his mother and all the host of other servants who moved among them, carrying the nobles’ dirty linen and night soil buckets.

The queen had noticed him once, though, when his mother didn’t pull him back in time to avoid her notice. Agnalain loomed over him and bent down for a closer look. She smelled of flowers and leather.

“You have a fox’s coat. Are you a little fox?” she chuckled, running her fingers gently through his red curls. Her voice was hoarse, but kind, and those dark blue eyes wrinkled up at the corners when she smiled. He’d never gotten a smile like that from his own mother.

“And such eyes!” said the queen. “You’ll do great things, with eyes like that. What do you want to do when you’re all grown up?”

Encouraged by her kindly manner, he’d pointed shyly at a nearby guard. “I want to be one of them and carry a sword!”

Queen Agnalain laughed. “Would you now? Would you cut off the heads of all the traitors who creep in to murder me?”

“Yes, Majesty, every one,” he replied at once. “And I’ll feed the fish, too.”

When Niryn was big enough to carry a watering can, his visits inside the palace came to an end. His father took him to work in the gardens. The great lords and ladies treated the gardeners as if they were invisible, too, but his father did the same with them. He cared nothing for people, and was shy and backward even with Niryn’s sharp-tongued mother. Niryn had really never paid the man much mind, but he discovered now that his father was full of secret knowledge.

He was not patient or any less taciturn, but he taught the boy how to tell a flower seedling from a weed sprout, how to bind an espaliered fruit tree into a pleasing shape against a wall, how to spot disease, and when to thin a bed or prune a bush to make it flourish. Niryn missed the fish, but discovered that he had a talent for such things and a child’s ready interest. He especially liked using the big bronze shears to cut away dead branches and wayward shoots.

There was still no time to play or make friends. Instead, he came to love seeing the garden change through the seasons. Some plants died without constant tending, while weeds thrived and spread if you didn’t fight them every day.

No one realized Niryn was wizard-born until he was ten years old. One day several of Erius’ Companions decided to amuse themselves by throwing stones at the gardener’s boy.

Niryn was pruning a rose arbor at the time and tried his best to ignore them. Invisible. He must remain invisible, even when it was perfectly apparent that the sneering young lords could see him very well and had excellent aim. Even if they’d been peasants like him, he wouldn’t have fought back. He didn’t know how.

He’d endured taunts and teasing from them before, but had always ducked his head and looked away, pretending he wasn’t there. Deep down, though, something dark stirred, but he’d been too well trained to his station to acknowledge anything like anger toward his betters.

But this was different. Today they weren’t just taunting him. He kept at his pruning, carefully lifting the suckers away and trying not to let the long thorns pierce his fingers. His father was just beyond the arbor, weeding a flower bed. Niryn saw him glance over, then go back to his work. There was nothing he could do for Niryn.

Stones pattered around the boy, striking his feet and bouncing off the wooden trellis next to his head. It scared him, for they were trained to be warriors and could probably hurt him badly if they wanted to. It made him feel small and helpless, but something else stirred again, deep down in his soul, and this time it was much stronger.

“Hey, gardener’s boy!” one of his tormentors called out. “You make a good target.”

A stone followed the taunt, striking him between the shoulders. Niryn hissed in pain and his fingers tightened on the rose cane he’d been trimming. Thorns pierced his fingers, drawing blood. He kept his head down, biting his lip.

“He didn’t even feel it!” one of the other boys laughed. “Hey, you, what are you? An ox with a thick hide?”

Niryn bit his lip harder. Stay invisible.

“Let’s see if he feels this.”

Another stone struck him on the back of the thigh, just below his tunic. It was a sharp one and it stung. He ignored it, nipping a stray shoot with the shears, but now his heart was pounding in a way he’d never felt before.

“Told you. Just like an ox, stupid and thick!”

Another stone hit him in the back, and another.

“Turn around, little red ox. We need your face for a target!”

A stone hit him in the back of the head, hard enough to make him drop his shears. Unable to help himself, he reached back and felt the stinging place where the stone had hit him. His fingers came away smeared with blood.

“That got him! Hit him again, harder, and see if he’ll turn.”

Niryn could see his father, still pretending he didn’t know what was happening to his son. It came to Niryn, then, what the real gulf between commoner and noble was. Niryn had been taught to respect his betters, but he’d never fully appreciated until now that the respect was not returned. These boys knew they had power over him and delighted in using it.

A larger stone hit him on the arm as he bent to retrieve the shears.

“Turn around, red ox! Let’s hear you bellow!”

“Throw another one!”

Something larger hit him in the head, hard enough to daze him. Niryn dropped the shears again and fell to his knees. He wasn’t quite certain what happened after that, until he opened his eyes and found himself lying under the arbor he’d been tending, watching unnatural blue flames devouring the carefully tended vines.

His father did come then, dragging Niryn away from the scorching blaze.

“What’ve you done, boy?” he whispered, more alarmed than Niryn had ever seen the man. “What in the name of the Maker did you do?”

Niryn sat up slowly and looked around. A small crowd was gathering, servants and nobles alike, while others ran for water. The three boys who’d been tormenting him were gone.

Water had no effect on the blue fire. It continued to burn until the arbor was reduced to ash.

Guardsmen came with the water carriers and their captain demanded to know what had happened. Niryn couldn’t answer them because he had no idea. His father remained dumb, as usual. At last a broad-shouldered man pushed through the crowd, dragging one of Niryn’s attackers by the ear. The young lord cringed beside him.

“I understand this young rascal was using you for target practice,” the soldier said to Niryn, still holding the boy almost up on his toes.

Even in such an embarrassing position, the boy was looking daggers at Niryn, letting him know what his fate would be if he told.

“Come on now, lad, find your tongue,” the man demanded. He wasn’t angry with Niryn, it seemed, just impatient to complete an unpleasant task. “I’m Porion, swordmaster to the Royal Companions and I’m responsible for the behavior of the boys. Is he one of them who hurt you?”

Niryn’s father caught his eye, silently warning Niryn to keep silent, stay invisible.

“I don’t know. I had my back to ’em,” Niryn mumbled, staring down at his dirty clogs.

“You sure about that, lad?” Master Porion demanded sternly. “I had it from some of his fellows that he was one of them.”

He could feel Master Porion’s eyes on him, but he kept his head down and saw the young lord’s fine bootheels settle in the grass as the older man released him.

“All right then, Nylus, you get back to the practice yard where you belong. And don’t think I won’t keep an eye on you!” Porion barked. The young lord gave Niryn a last, triumphant smirk and strode away.

Porion remained a moment, staring pensively at the ruined arbor. “Word is you did this, lad. That the truth?”

Niryn shrugged. How could he? He didn’t even have a flint.

Porion turned to his father, who’d been lingering nearby. “He’s your boy?”

“Aye, sir,” his father mumbled, unhappy not to be invisible to this man.

“Any wizard blood in your family?”

“None that I know of, sir.”

“Well, you’d better get him to a proper wizard who can judge, and soon, before he does something worse than a little fire.”

Porion’s face grew sterner still as he glanced back at Niryn. “I don’t want him on the Palatine again. That’s the queen’s law. An unschooled wizard-born is too dangerous. Go on, take him away and get him seen to, before he hurts someone.”

Niryn looked up in disbelief. The other boy had gotten away with hurting him, and now he was to be punished? Throwing caution to the wind, he fell at Master Porion’s feet. “Please, sir, don’t send me off! I’ll work hard and not make any more trouble, I swear by the Maker!”

Porion pointed to the ruined arbor. “Didn’t mean to do that, either, did you?”

“I told you, I couldn’t—!”

Suddenly his father’s broad hand closed over his shoulder, yanking him to his feet. “I’ll take charge of him, sir,” he told Porion. Gripping Niryn’s thin arm, he marched his son like a criminal out of the gardens and away from the palace.

His mother beat him for losing his position and the small pay that went with it. “You’ve shamed the family!” she railed, bringing the belt down across his thin shoulders. “We’ll all go hungry now, without the extra silver you brought home.”

His father stayed her hand at last and carried the sobbing boy up to his cot.

For the first time in Niryn’s life, his father sat by his bed, looking down at him with something like actual interest.

“You don’t remember nothing, son? Are you telling me the truth?”

“No, Dad, nothing, until I seen the arbor burning.”

His father sighed. “Well, you done it, putting yourself out of a position. Wizard-born?” He shook his head and Niryn’s heart sank. Everyone knew what happened to those of their station unlucky enough to be born with a touch of wild power.

Niryn didn’t sleep at all that night, caught up in dire imaginings. His family would starve, and he’d be set out on the road to be marked and stoned, all because of what those young lords called fun! How he wished he had spoken up when he had the chance. His face burned at the thought of his own fruitless obedience.

That thought took root, watered with shame at how he’d let a single look from the guilty one silence him. If he’d spoken up, maybe they wouldn’t have cast him out! If those three boys hadn’t used him for their sport, or if his father had made them stop, or if Niryn had moved or turned sooner or tried to fight back—

If, if, if. It ate at him and he felt the dark feeling well up again. In the darkness, he felt his hands tingling and when he held them up, there were blue sparks dancing between his fingers like sheet lightning. It scared him and he thrust them into the water jug by his bed, fearing he’d set the bedclothes on fire.

The sparks stopped and nothing bad happened. And as his fear subsided, he began to feel something new, something else he’d never felt before.

It was hope.

He spent the next few days wandering the marketplaces, trying to catch the attention of the conjurers who plied their trade there, selling charms and doing fancy spells. None of them were interested in a gardener’s boy in homespun clothes. They laughed him away from their little booths.

He’d begun to think he might indeed have to starve or take to the road, when a stranger showed up at the cottage door while his parents were away at their work.

He was a stooped, ancient-looking man with long dirty whiskers, but he was dressed in a very fine robe. It was white, with silver embroidery around the neck and sleeves.

“Are you the gardener’s boy who can make fire?” the old man asked, staring hard into Niryn’s eyes.

“Yes,” Niryn replied, guessing what the old man was.

“Can you do it for me now, boy?” he demanded.

Niryn faltered. “No, sir. Only when I’m angry.”

The old man smiled and brushed past Niryn without an invitation. Looking around the spare, humble room, he shook his head, still smiling to himself. “Just so. Had your fill of ’em and lashed out, did you? That’s how it comes to some. That’s how it came to me. Felt good, I expect? Lucky for you that you didn’t set them on fire, or you’d not be sitting here now. There’s lots of wild seeds like yourself, that get themselves stoned or burned.”

He lowered himself into Niryn’s father’s chair by the hearth. “Come, boy,” he said, gesturing for Niryn to stand before him. He placed a gnarled hand on Niryn’s head and bowed his own for a moment. Niryn felt a strange tingle run down through his body.

“Oh, yes! Power, and ambition, too,” the old man murmured. “I can make something of you. Something strong. Would you like to be strong, boy, and not let young whelps like that take advantage of you ever again?”

Niryn nodded and the old man leaned forward, eyes glowing like a cat’s in the dim light of the cottage. “A quick answer. I can see your heart in those red eyes of yours; you’ve had a taste of what wizardry is, and you liked it, didn’t you?”

Niryn wasn’t certain that was true. It had scared him, but under this stranger’s knowing gaze, he felt that tingle again, even though the man had withdrawn his hand. “Did someone tell you what happened?”

“Wizards have an ear for rumor, lad. I’ve been waiting for a child like you, these many years.”

Niryn’s pinched, parched young heart swelled. It was the closest thing to praise he’d ever known, save for one time; he’d never forgotten the way Queen Agnalain had looked at him that day and how she said she thought he’d do great things. She’d seen something in him, and this wizard did, too, when all the rest wanted to cast him out like some rabid dog.

“Oh yes, I see it in those eyes,” the wizard murmured. “You have wit, and anger, too. You’ll enjoy what I have to teach you.”

“What is that?” Niryn blurted out.

The old man’s eyes narrowed, but he was still smiling. “Power, my boy. The uses of it and the taking of it.”

He stayed until Niryn’s parents came home, and made his offer. They gave Niryn over to the old man, accepting a purse of coins without even asking his name or where he would take their only child.

Niryn felt nothing. No pain. No sorrow. He looked at the two of them, so shabby compared to the old man in his robes. He saw how they feared the stranger but didn’t dare show it. Perhaps they wanted to be invisible now, too. But Niryn didn’t. He’d never felt more visible in the world than that night when he walked away from his home forever, at the side of his new master.

Master Kandin was right about Niryn. The talents that had lain dormant in him were like a bed of banked coals. All it took was a bit of coaxing and they leaped to burn with an intensity that surprised even his mentor. Master Kandin found Niryn an apt pupil and a kindred spirit. They both understood ambition, and Niryn found he lacked nothing of that.

Through the years of his apprenticeship, Niryn never forgot his time at the palace. He never forgot how it felt to be nothing in the eyes of another or the way the old queen had spoken to him. Those two elements combined in the crucible of his ambition. Kandin honed him like a blade and, when his mentor was done, Niryn was ready to return to court and make a place for himself. The lessons of his childhood were not forgotten, either. He still knew how to seem invisible to those from whom he wished to hide his power and purposes.

He’d missed his chance with Queen Agnalain. Erius had put his mother out of the way before Niryn could establish himself, and taken his young sister’s rightful place on the throne.

Niryn, now a respectable young wizard and loyal Skalan, had gone to pay his respects to the girl one day at the pretty little house her brother had installed her in on the palace grounds. By rights she should have been queen, and there was already muttering in the city about prophecies and the will of Illior. Niryn put no stock in priests, considering them nothing but skilled charlatans, but he wasn’t above putting their game to his own uses. A queen would be best.

The lessons he’d learned among the roses and flower beds came back to him then. The royal family was a garden in its own way, one that needed proper tending.

Ariani, the child of one of her mother’s many lovers, was the rootstock of the throne. As the only daughter of the queen, her claim was strong, perhaps strong enough to overthrow that of her brother, when she was old enough and carefully groomed and supported. Niryn had no doubt he could nurture a faction on her behalf. Sadly, he found the stock to be diseased. Ariani was very pretty and very intelligent, but the fatal weakness was in her already. She would suffer her mother’s fate, and earlier. It might have made her easier to control, but the people still had dark memories of her mother’s mad ways. No, Ariani would not do.

That decided, he insinuated himself into Erius’ court. The young king welcomed wizards at his feasts.

The young king was made of stronger stuff than his sister. Handsome and virile, strong in body and mind, Erius had already won the hearts of the people with a string of impressive victories against the Plenimarans. As weary of war as they were of royal madness, the Skalans turned a deaf ear to dusty prophecies and ignored the grumblings of the Illiorans. Erius was beloved.

Fortunately for Niryn, the king also had a strain of his mother’s weakness in him, but just enough to make him malleable. Like his father’s espaliered fruit trees, Niryn would trim and prune the young king’s pliant mind, bending it to the pattern that best suited his use. The process took time and patience, but Niryn had a great deal of both.

Niryn bided his time, finding other wizards he could use and forming the Harriers and their guard, ostensibly to serve the king. Niryn chose carefully, taking in only those he could be sure of.

With Erius he prepared the ground, discrediting any who stood in his way, most especially Illiorans, and gently coaxing the king into killing any female of the blood who might challenge his hold on the throne.

Erius grew more malleable as his mind became less stable, just as Niryn had foreseen, but there were always unforeseen events to contend with. Erius had five children, and the eldest daughter had shown great promise, but plague struck the household, killing all of the children save one, the youngest and a boy. Korin.

Niryn had a vision then, of a young queen, one of his own choosing, who would be the perfect rose of his garden. It was a true vision, too, that came to him in a dream. Like many wizards, he paid little more than lip service to their patron deity, the Lightbearer. Offerings and the drugged sacred smoke of the temples had nothing to do with their power. That came with the blood of their birth; a tenuous red tie back to whatever Aurënfaie wanderer had slept with some ancestor and given the capricious magic to their line. Nonetheless, he found himself offering up a rare prayer of gratitude when he woke from that dream. He had not seen the girl’s face, but he knew without question that he’d been shown the future queen who, with his careful guidance, would redeem the land.

Prince Korin would not have been the child Niryn would have chosen to breed his future queen from. There’d been other girls, and one of them would have made his task easier, letting the disaffected have their queen and their prophecy again. Even he could not discount the years of famine and illness that had blighted Erius’ reign. A girl would be best, but like any good gardener, Niryn must work with the shoots that matured.

It was about this same time that he found Nalia. He’d gone with his Harriers to dispatch her mother, a distant country cousin of the queen, with royal blood in her veins and that of her twin babes. One girl child had been comely, like her father. The other had inherited her mother’s disfigurement. Something like a vision stayed Niryn’s hand over the marked child; this was the next seedling for his garden. She would bear daughters of her own, if left to grow and properly tended. He secreted her away, making her first his ward and then, when the humor took him, his concubine. Wizard-born, he had no seed to plant in that fertile womb.

Korin was not a stupid boy, or an ignoble one, not at first. He instinctively distrusted Niryn from an early age. But he was weak-spirited. The wars kept the king away, and Korin and his Companions were left to run wild.

Niryn lent only the occasional small encouragement here and there. Some of the Companions were quite helpful, albeit unwittingly, as they led Korin into the wine houses and brothels of the city. Niryn began more rigorous tending when Korin began to spread his seed about. It was an easy matter, with his wizards and spies now well established, to put any royal bastards out of the way. Princess Aliya had been a regrettable pruning. The girl was healthy, and intelligent, too, but lacked the usual sort of flaw that he could exploit. No, she would in time prove to be a dangerous weed in his garden, strengthened by the prince’s love.

By the time Erius died, Korin was a dissipated young rake and a drunkard. The death of his pretty wife and the horror of the misshapen fruits of her womb left him broken and lost, and ripe for the first harvest.

Niryn broke from his pleasant reverie and looked up at the darkened tower again. There, high above this sheltered haven, the seed of the next season was being planted.