pain. You’re going to love how the sun feels, trust me. Ah, here we are.” We arrived at the high-branched station of the Gray Squirrels operating the lift, and they nodded at us as they continued to operate the pulleys and lift us higher, above the First Tree’s topmost leaves. The full afternoon sun hit Pen’s silverbark on her arms and legs, and she gasped.
“Oh! Oh, that’s better. I mean it still hurts, but not as much. I can at least think now.”
“Then think about this: you’re one of the White Gossamer Clan’s three greensleeves now, Pen Yas ben Min.”
Her wince of pain wilted, and a smile blossomed in its place. She even managed a chuckle. “Thank you, cousin.”
—
“Thought you might enjoy that account of a Seeking,” Fintan said, dispelling the seeming with a shattered green stone that sent up a corresponding plume of green smoke. “We will hear more of Nel and Pen in days to come. But now I will take you back to the night of Thaw 17, 3041. Some of what I will say comes directly from the journal of Hearthfire Gorin Mogen, some of it from eyewitnesses, and some of it, I admit, is the privilege of a poet.” A few titters greeted this last. Dipping his hand into his belt pouch, he withdrew a seeming stone and imprinted it. “Though kennings are not hereditary and the giants insist you do not need to be blessed to become a Hearthfire, some blessed member of the Mogen family has ruled Harthrad for the last hundred and thirty years, and it is from that island that the finest smiths in the world can be found. Say hello to a leader of the Hathrim.”
Despite his warning, no one was prepared for Fintan’s transformation into a pale-skinned, broad-boned giant. He disappeared in black gases, and his new bulk rose out of it, a colossus twelve feet tall with a square, black-bearded face punctuated by ice-blue eyes and a snarl. He was wrapped in the fur of some massive white-pelted animal, and when he roared, people screamed. I might have been one of them. He laughed at us, enjoying the fear and no doubt relishing the power of his kenning. When next he spoke, it was in a gravelly rumble entirely unlike his normal pleasant tones.
The only reason I didn’t kill the lad who woke me was that he did it from the door and closed it on the dagger I whipped from under my pillow and threw at his face. I am prone to violence beyond reason when I am woken from a sound sleep. The rest of the time I like to think I have a reason for my violence.
“Hearthfire, you have urgent matters of state to attend to,” he shouted through the door. My dagger still quivered in the wood. Real Fornish wood, not glass or steel. The damn door to my bedchamber was worth more than much of my Hearthroom.
“The matters of state can urgently hump a sand badger until the morning,” I growled, and my hearth stirred beside me, sensuously stretching and curving in ways that soothed my sharp edges. I did not want to leave her.
“We would not wake you if it were not dire.”
Since Sefir hadn’t yet been fully roused, there was no reason to continue the argument and risk waking her, too. I slid out of the sheets, cursed silently, and allowed the moonglow streaming through the skylight to guide me to a chest on which was folded my favorite ice howler fur. Draping it about me, I opened the door and glowered at the lad who’d been sent to fetch me. I didn’t know his name, but he knew enough about the expression on my face to skitter out of throttling distance.
“Your advisers wait in the Crucible, Hearthfire.”
“Understood. Begone.”
He scampered away, and I stalked down the halls to the Crucible. Rumblings from Mount Thayil vibrated through the walls of glass and rock.
My advisers were there as the boy had promised, but none would meet my eyes. My feet must have been in a sorry state, judging by the mournful gazes directed there. These men would plunge their hands into lava for me, charge a wall bristling with archers at my command, but they would not look me in the eye. I sighed and wondered if I would ever meet another again—apart from my hearth—who could match my stare for more than a heartbeat.
“Well? What is it? Report.” They shuffled their feet