Priscilla felt her throat seek the words and was surprised by it—she’d sung no chant since she’d been thrown here. She closed clamped her mouth on the words, and then relented. Tenth Chant Wardsday was Moonhawk’s Chant.

She began then, low and quiet, eyes raised in the darkness. But all was not dark: high up was the silver glow of moonlight on the cold stone walls.

Priscilla had held the original of the chant in her own hands in the Library when she’d been permitted the boon of study of her namesake. She covered the trail of history entire: Moonhawk had helped build the world she lived in, had helped create the chants, had designed spells, had defined powers—Moonhawk had been there over and over when the Temple needed help. Priscilla had caressed the pages of those chants, had seen that the words were penned by two hands, not one—and she’d never gotten an answer to that question of why the other hand was a masculine hand. Sister Dwelva denied it, as she denied so much.

Sister Dwelva refused to discuss the notation on the side of the chant, in that second hand:

“Here’s a truth, for the survivor bold, always take silver, rather than gold, it’s less the weight and more easily sold!”

NONSENSE, even arrogant—

Yet the front of the page was purity itself, words and feeling so perfectly meshed… she sang harder.

As the chant came stronger to her throat she saw that page again in the moonspot, felt she caressed the words and paper yet again—

“It was Lute, my dear,” came the voice in her head. “It was Lute who made me write that one down. Lute who knew the value of silver and saved me through it. It was Lute you looked for, all unknowing, when they trapped you—aiiieee, girl; they have never let me at Lute again in all these centuries! And what shall we do for you now that they’d make you lie or have you stoned for truth?”