pizzle: male animal’s sexual organ
pounded, being: having sex
ragze: long-term homosexual partner in Carthak
ragzewi: homosexual in Carthak, any individual who is homosexual
Realms of the Gods: another term for the Divine Realms, the home of the gods and the creatures known as immortals
rue: hardy evergreen plant with a nasty odor and bitter, nauseating taste; for health and for clearing the mind and house
Saturday: day of the week set aside for religious observances
Shakith: blind goddess of seers
sigil: sign or figure
Sign (against evil): drawn on the chest as an X with a straight line through it; it is a star, a sign of protection against evil accidentally caused by oneself, as in thoughts that might be bad, or against harm that might come to one
soppish: soppy, sentimental, milksop, weak
spinster: woman who spins thread from fiber: wool, flax, or cotton; usually a young, unmarried woman of the lower or slave classes
stain(s): bum stain, scoundrel
stillroom: room in houses or small facilities in which herbs are dried and kept and medicines made and stored
sunbird: dull in color; the size of a heron as adults; able to control their size in the Mortal Realms; in the Divine Realms they fly straight up during the day, spinning, wings outstretched, flashing brilliant colors in salute to Mithros
Sunday: Sun’s day, best day of the week to start new ventures
sunwise: from right to left
Thak: contemporary common language of Carthaki Empire
thaka: gold Carthaki coin
thaki: silver Carthaki coin
Upper Academy: senior school for the Carthaki School for Mages, usually for students sixteen and up
walk out: form of dating; couples went walking
wandermage: mage who travels and does not answer to any one employer
ward: protect, particularly with magical spells
widdershins: counterclockwise, preferred direction for magic working
Winter’s Crone: in the Eastern Lands, the ancient goddess who introduces the deepest cold of the season; she holds good fortune for those with the courage and stamina to seek it from her. She is a goddess of northern magic: her chief temple is in the City of the Gods.
working: alternate term for spell-work
zoeg: Thak term for a homosexual relationship
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I want to thank my home team, the people who help when I’m stuck, get my writing and makeup supplies (I’m just no good at judging makeup, or clothes, for that matter), gather to care for stray and feral cats, and ensure that I’m fed and that I don’t duck my doctor appointments: my beloved spouse-creature (thirty-two years of marital something in 2017!), Timothy Liebe; my extraordinary assistant and fellow writer, Julie Holderman; and my writing partner and buddy, the djinn of middle-grade fiction, Bruce Coville. My gratitude to the new Tamora Pierce LLC staff for their work on the new webpage format, layout, and updates: Donna Burke, Jeremiah Tolbert, MJ Erickson, and Farrah Nakhaie. Thanks also to the Sunday Night Bollywood Team, writer Kathy Coville, Cynthia Bishop, and brother-in-law Craig, in addition to the Home Team.
As ever, I have the best professional support team a writer could ask for: Mallory Loehr and Chelsea Eberly at Random House Children’s Books, with the powerful forces of the art department, the sales department, and the publicity department. For their meticulous work, my thanks to the copy editors. All of these people have introduced me to strange new magics. In concert with them are the excellent people at Harold Ober Associates, my agent and friend of many years, Craig Tenney, and the president of Ober, my onetime boss, Phyllis Westberg—both of you have my love always.
I have my Manhattan buddies Raquel Starace and Denise Robert to thank for years of friendship, and my sisters Kimberly and Danielle: they are the real-life heroes who guard people’s lives. To my stepmother, Mary Lou; my mother-in-law, Margaret; my brother-in-law Craig; and my nephew CJ, because family.
To my fans, who are passionate, funny, intelligent, creative, caring, and strong—you make me glad I took the path I did each and every day.
My nuclear family’s deepest thanks, and the thanks of approximately fifteen to twenty stray or feral cats, go not only to the fine people who are named in the dedication, but to those listed here, and another number who will be listed on my website in the future. Thanks to them, those cats received housing, food, medical care, and in some cases new homes in 2014–2015: Cynthia Bishop; Isabelle Cseti-Wall; Nicola Drakeford; Wendy Elrick; Mary Evanov; Lacey Ewald; Christine Gregory; Marybeth Griffin; Ruth Heller; Rachel Ossmann; Beth Parker; Jesi Pershing; Amber Phillipps; Rhiannon Pretty; Danielle Putinja; Caroline Rivard; Brittany and Jared Rubio; Karrin Ryan; Siobhan Simpson; Karen, Liam, and Anastasia Smith & Becker; Dawn Thompson; and Adrienne Wiens. Those who took part in this fund-raiser that we did not reach in time for mention in this book we will include in the second book of this series. Again, our thanks!
is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over eighteen novels set in the fantasy realm of Tortall. She first captured the imagination of readers with her debut novel, Alanna: The First Adventure. Since then, her bestselling and award-winning titles have pushed the boundaries of fantasy and young adult novels to introduce readers to a rich world populated by strong, believable heroines. She has been the guest of honor at numerous conventions, and her books have been translated into many languages and are available on audio. She is the winner of the Romantic Times Book Reviews Career Achievement Award, the Skylark Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.”
Pierce lives in Syracuse, New York, with her husband, Tim, and their cats, birds, and occasional rescued wildlife.
TamoraPierce.com
@TamoraPierce
Tess quit the house, her family, and her entire life before lunch.
It would be exactly like Papa to arrive early, so Tess eschewed the front drive. She cut across broad lawns, through a yew hedge and a garden of old, twisted rosebushes (not even leafed out yet), across a field of sheep bleating anxiously to their lambs, and over a stile in a stone wall. The field beyond the wall was full of scrub and bramble, and Tess had hopes that this marked the edge of the Queen’s summer estate. You never could be sure with the Queen, though; anything not explicitly owned by someone else was hers by default.
The stile was an A-shaped wooden ladder over the wall, and Tess paused at the top, the whole of Ducana province spread at her booted feet. Farmsteads and village churches dotted the rolling hills, while hedgerows and stone walls divided them into a chessboard of fields, the yellow-green of new shoots alternating with black, sodden earth. The sky glowed warmly blue, as if it were determined to make the day not merely fine but over-the-top, ridiculously beautiful.
Even Tess’s self-pitying heart found itself a little bit moved.
The cathedral spires of Trowebridge, the biggest town in Ducana province, rose to the southwest. That had struck Tess as the logical place to go first; she might buy supplies there, and then take the main road south. As soon as she descended this hilltop, the town would disappear from view. The direct route passed by Cragmarog Castle (which she could make out, coiled like a snake in the midst of trees), and that was no good. Her parents—or, more humiliatingly, Jeanne’s in-laws—might be encountered upon that road at any time.
Tess, having studied the map, knew the other landmark to look for in this landscape. Directly south was a hilltop ruin, Pentrach’s Dun, which she could reach via footpaths, ancient right-of-ways leading straight through farmers’ fields. From that hilltop, she should be able to see another road, running westerly to Trowebridge.
She had to go the long way, two sides of the triangle, because the hypotenuse was forbidden her. This struck her as perfectly symbolic of her entire life.
/> The sun shone; she put on her gardening hat against it. Her satchel straps dug into her shoulders, and the hedgerows snatched at her skirts as she passed. A great cloud of blackbirds ascended, screaming, and scared her. The wind slapped her cheeks, damp soil clogged her boot soles, and the hem of her kirtle grew steadily dirtier.
In spite of all this—in spite of herself, really—her heart began to lift as she walked, or maybe a weight began to fall away. She’d done it. She’d gotten free of her family (for now, a voice at the back of her mind nagged). Dirt and discomfort and uncertainty were nothing to her.
She was almost smiling to herself as she passed a gang of peasants, red-handed men in smocks and clogs. They were in the next pasture over, shouting and whipping the cows with willow switches, driving them away from their hapless calves. Two men would then grab a lone calf by its knobby legs, bucking and kicking, upside down in their arms, and haul it into another enclosure. The cows mooed, low and despairing, their udders heavy with milk for their babies, and the babies cried for their mothers—an inhuman cry, but unmistakable to Tess.
Tess didn’t understand what mysterious agricultural purpose required tearing bovine families apart. She watched with one hand to her heart and the other to her lips, and she was struck by both the cruelty of the men and the realization that she was a woman, walking alone.
She started walking faster, hoping none of them would look her way.
As if they could read her thoughts, one of the men began to sing:
A little pretty bonny lass
Went forth upon the dewy grass
I followed her down to the dell
She snubbed me with a fare-ye-well
Whereupon the rest of the farmhands took up the chorus:
Upon the heath, the holt, the hill,
My girl, I’ll do whate’er I will.
Tess’s face puckered at these lyrics and fell at the next verse (which was too bawdy for general consumption). She hunched her shoulders and kept walking. She thought she heard someone whistle after her, but maybe it was merely the call of the hedge shrike.
No, that was a whistle. Tess didn’t look back.
The world was full of men. She’d been so desperate to get gone that she hadn’t given that consideration the weight it deserved. All unbidden, Mama’s voice spoke in her head: Men are scoundrels, and they only ever want one thing. They will try every trick in the book to seduce you, and if you won’t go willingly, they’ll find a way to take you anyway.
She shuddered. Mama hadn’t said such things often—preferring to focus on Tess’s own inadequacies—but of course they were the corollary to everything St. Vitt had always said. Why should women avert their eyes and dress modestly and suppress their desires, if not for the sake of men? How was the wolf to blame, if the sheep were roaming free?
Thou shalt not tempt wasn’t a commandment of any Saint she knew, but it could’ve been.
Maybe she could find a way to live alone and support herself—she still believed that—but walking across the entire Southlands, with no protector, to get there? Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a clever idea. She wasn’t going to last out here.
She paused in the shade of a hedgerow, out of sight of prying eyes, to peel a cheese and munch an oatcake. It was a filling enough lunch, but fast walking and the warm spring sunshine had made Tess powerfully thirsty. Salty cheese and dry bannock didn’t help.
All she’d brought was wine. She held the bottle up to the light; the sun shone enticingly through green glass and liquid dark as night. It wouldn’t quench her thirst particularly well. The sensible thing to do would be to go looking for water. Every little farmstead surely had a well…and a red-handed cowherd, or a lecherous shepherd, or any other sort of man with a bawdy song in his head and a gleam in his eye as he realized she was at his mercy.
Some of them were surely fine—most of them probably were—but you couldn’t tell by looking, and that was the problem. She drank about half her wine, staggered to her feet, and carried on, trying to stay out of sight now, keeping to the shadows of hedgerows.
As she sneaked, her mother’s voice came to her: You can’t tell if a man might be good or evil, but do you know what they can tell by looking at you? That you’re not where you should be, and therefore not what you should be. You aren’t at home, so you must be public property. No one’s taking care of you, therefore anyone might claim you.
A gang of men with rakes suddenly crossed the road in front of her, moving from one meadow to another. Tess pressed herself into a hedgerow to avoid them. One of the younger ones winked at her; nobody was fooled.
They know, said her mother. You’re an old shoe that might fit any foot. A sucked marrow bone. A gob of chewed honeycomb, its sweetness long gone. No wonder Will left you; he knew what you really were.
“Stop it,” Tess muttered, wiping her eyes. She pulled the bottle back out of her pack and glared at it accusingly. She’d had an agreement with wine: it would be a good friend to her and mute these kinds of voices, but it wasn’t doing the trick today. It had ceded the floor to them and stripped her naked of defenses.
She drank the rest, still hoping it would do what it was supposed to.
Her mother’s voice followed her the rest of the way to Trowebridge. Tess felt it like hot breath at the nape of her neck, smelled it in wafts of woodsmoke and manure. It wrapped around her ankles like a vine, making her stumble, and snagged the hem of her skirt as she climbed over stiles. The voice told her to hide whenever masculine farmhands came into view, called her a contemptible insect for hiding, and then flew above her like a flag to make sure everyone knew.
Tess missed the ancient beauty of Pentrach’s Dun, missed a salmon sunset and the aching curve of the river, so wholly occupied was she with wrestling the unseen.
She reached Trowebridge at dusk and stood on the eponymous stone bridge staring at the shadowy buildings, her heart in her boots. Even if she had enough money for lodgings, which she very much doubted, she didn’t have the wherewithal to knock on strange doors and ask.
Running away was the worst idea she’d ever had. She regretted everything.
An idea bubbled up from her sludgy mind—didn’t storybook trolls live under bridges? It would provide shelter enough for one night, anyway. She picked her way through the weeds and crawled under the bridge. It was humid, but more spacious than she would have guessed. Tess exhaled, finally feeling safe. Like a cockroach in a crevasse, her mother said, unable to resist one last kick while Tess was down. The wine bottle was long empty (she checked one last time, to be absolutely sure), so Tess chucked it toward the river, where it shattered on unseen rocks.
The earth under the bridge was cool against her cheek, at least.
To Tess’s immeasurable disappointment, she woke up.
She could tell without even opening her eyes that she’d made herself ill. Her throat pricked and stabbed as if she’d swallowed a prickly gorse branch. Every inch of her hurt. Her feet were blistered from the stiff new boots, her muscles sore from seventeen miles of hills. The hard ground had compounded her aches; her joints felt swollen and wrong.
Sleeping longer might have helped, but rumbling wagons and tramping feet rudely imposed consciousness upon her. She lay on her side, curled in her blanket with the gardening hat for a scratchy pillow, listening and resenting and wondering if she could avoid getting up. She curled tighter. Surely she never had to move again if she didn’t want to.
And she might not have, either, had the man not grabbed her from behind.
Panic lifted her to her feet before she could even think, and she stared at the ragged, twig-thin man who’d crept up in the night to sleep next to her. He was old, with barely a tooth in his head, and he yawned grotesquely, his mouth a dark hole in his white furze-bush beard. His right hand, clutching a corner of her blanket to his chest, was missing two fingers. He was disgusting.
Tess’s head pounded from the sudden movement, and her fear condensed into rage.
; “Give me that,” she growled, grabbing at her blanket. It was trapped under his body.
He croaked, incongruously, “Annie?”
Tess shoved him off, rolled him over, but the fellow had an iron grip on the corner of the blanket. She tried prying his knobby fist open, which only made him shriek and flail about. His forearm smacked Tess’s aching head so hard her ear started ringing, and the next thing she knew she was kicking him once, twice, thrice in the ribs. His thorax made a hollow sound.
Tess backed away, panting, horrified at herself. She’d never…she’d been so angry…she could have broken his rib cage as easily as crushing a wicker basket.
“Oh, Annie,” said the vagrant mournfully. He’d curled into a bony ball, his cheek pressed into the dirt. “I know I deserve that.”
Tess snatched up her blanket and whipped it furiously, shaking the dust out.
“What is this place?” he said. He sounded like a child. The dust made him cough.
Fold blanket. Into satchel with both hands. She had to get out of here.
The old man ran his three-fingered hand through his wild white hair. “Did the dragon chase you here? I saw it and came running. I thought I could save you this time.”
The more he talked, the worse her conscience stabbed. She’d kicked a delusional geezer who didn’t know where or when he was. She was a terrible person. Tess swung her pack onto her back and scuttled out from under the bridge. The old man called after her—“Annie!”—but she pretended not to hear.
Tess hauled herself out of the shadows, desperate to leave bridge and beggar behind, up the rocky embankment onto the road. It was so bright up here, she couldn’t open her eyes all the way. She staggered onto the bridge, into horse and pedestrian traffic. Food carts lined the roadway, and the smell of cooking twisted her stomach painfully; she couldn’t tell if she was hungry or nauseated.
Tess hurried like one pursued, pushing past the broad buttocks of horses and the shopping baskets of young wives, toward the market square. Around her, children laughed; the sun shone on the market tents; bright flags flapped in the spring breeze; swallows swooped and sang overhead. Every beautiful thing felt like a fist clamped around Tess’s heart, squeezing.