In Owlyn Vale Of The Fifth Finger, Events Prepare For The Knife In Brann’s Back

SCENE: Late, the Wounded Moon in his crescent phase, just rising. One of the walled households in Owlyn vale. A small bedroom in the children’s wing. Three narrow beds in the room, one sleeper, a girl about thirteen or fourteen, the other beds empty. The door opens. A boy of seven slips through the gap, glides to the girl and takes her by the shoulder, shakes her awake.

“Kori. Wake up, Kori. I need you.”

The whisper and the shaking dragged Kori out of chaotic nightmare. “Wha… who…”

The shaking stopped. “It’s me, Kori. Trи.”

“Tre… “ She fumbled her hands against the sheets, pushed up and turned in one move, her limbs all angles, her body with limber grace, the topsheet and quilt winding around her until she shoved them away and dropped her legs over the edge of the bed. She swept the hair out of her eyes and sat scowling at her brother, a shivering dark shape in the starlit room. “Ahhh, Ire,”

she said, keeping her voice to a murmur so AuntNurse wouldn’t hear and come scold them, “shut the door, silly, then tell me what’s biting you.”

He hurried over, pulled the door shut with such care the latch went home without a sound, hurried back to his sister. She patted the bed beside her and he climbed up and sat where her hand had been, sighing and leaning his weight against her. “It’s me now,” he said. “Zilos came to me, his ghost I mean. He said I pass it to you, Trago; the Chained God says you’re the one. They’ll burn me too, Kori; when the Signs start, they’ll know I’m the priest now and HE’ll know and HE’ll order his soldiers to burn me like they did Zilos.”

Kori shivered. “You’re sure? Maybe it was a bad dream. Me, I’ve been having lots of those.”

Trago wriggled away from her. “I said he put his hand on me, Kori. He left the Mark.” He pulled his sleeping shift away from his shoulder and let her see a hollow starburst, dark red like a birthmark; he’d had no mark there before, he was born unflawed, she’d bathed him as a babe, part of girls’ work in the Household of the Piyoloss clan.