Even without the ice in its hull, the boat was actually looking like a boat. The boards that defined the area of ice for the hull certainly gave it that impression. And once the upper deck was mostly completed, including a rail at the very top to keep people from falling off, Lori had to admit that the outriggers were probably necessary.

The outriggers for the Coldhold were a line of wooden barrels to either side, the insides to be lined with bone for further waterproofing so that water wouldn't seep in. Given the amount of water they would be displacing, the outriggers would actually be extremely buoyant, which Rian said was the point, as they needed a lot of force to help keep the rest of the boat stable on choppy waters of the sea. He had wanted to extend the deck across the support beams leading to the outriggers, but had apparently decided they didn't have enough time and materials for that.

"Maybe we can add it in when we come back," Rian said over dinner. The stew tasted of mushroom stock, so she supposed that they'd had a fresh harvest from the cave. She might need to expand it soon, or start a second one. "Best to be cautious, since we don't know how well this will handle in waves yet. But at least we'll have plenty of room for cargo and salt. Thanks for adding in the water tank to the evaporator."

"Thank me by ceasing to think of new things for me to build," she told him as she waited for Mikon to finish her move. "I'm busy enough as it is."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "We should be getting that stove installed soon, we just need to put the pipe were it won't burn anyone. Hey, what do you think will happen if we stuck fresh wood into the evaporator?"

Lori gave him an incredulous look. "It would explode violently as all the water in it gets turned to vapor," she said. "What did I tell you about giving me more work to do?"

"But I didn't say anything!"

"Now I have to change the input so people can't just stick anything into the evaporator," Lori sighed, saw Mikon had finished, and made her move to give herself time to calm down before replying. "What, were you thinking you could quickly dry fresh wood for the stove by sticking it in?"

"Er, well…"

"Don't," Lori said bluntly. "It will explode."

"Yes, you said that already."

"It's important, so I'm repeating it. Don't put wood in the evaporator, it will explode."

"Yes, your Bindership. Though…"

A sigh. "What now?"

"Could you maybe use a piece of wood to make an evaporator explode in front of everyone who might need to handle one so that they'll understand that?"

A beat. "Sure, we can do it tomorrow." After all, it had been… well, months since she'd made something explode.

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After an explosion that wasn't as violent as she'd wanted—well, to be expected, it was vapor, not steam, there wasn't as much heat and energy involved—sacrificing a stone urn she'd fashioned since destroying one of their pottery ones would have been wasteful, the tanners and all those who'd be adding to their supply of leather-tanning substances were sufficiently educated as to why they shouldn't put wood or anything else but liquid material into the evaporator. Lori added a grill into their evaporators anyway, just to make it harder to shove objects into them.

The tanners were apparently asking the men of the demesne to use their evaporator as much as possible. The stockpiling of the goldwater had begun to cause a smell that compelled Lori to make a binding of airwisps over the tannery area to funnel the air upward and away, which mostly worked. With the increased amounts of the concentrated caustic liquid for them to work with, they were apparently processing stockpiled skins that had only gotten minimal tanning so that Rian could have a reasonable cargo to bring with him to Covehold, since they were the lightest and most compact plentiful resource they didn't actually use much of.

Though Lori had to wonder how Rian intended to put together the beads for the medicines they intended to acquire. She supposed it wasn't unreasonable to think that other people might have beads hidden away somewhere, but how Rian was going to convince people to part with them for no gain—

Oh, who was she kidding. It was Rian, he'd manage to bilk them of their money somehow.

Well, Rian's problem.

"We have a problem," Rian said as he walked up to her while she sat next to the curing sheds, curing the wood inside them so they'd be usable tomorrow. "I'm in the middle of dealing with it, but I felt that you needed to be informed."

Lori sighed. "What problem?"

"It's… complicated." Rian leaned against the wall of the curing shed in front of her. "But as you know, but probably need some help remembering, River's Fork was settled by the Golden Sweetwood Company. They are, in practice, a group of former and retired militia and their families who pooled together their resources to try settling their own demesne on this continent."

"Yes, of course I knew that," Lori said, nodding. Obviously, she hadn't known at all.

Rian nodded, not seeing through her lie. "Well, the late Binder Koshay was the director of the company for this continent, with another director on the old continent to prepare sending across the next wave. But when he died, Grem became acting director. I told you that when I introduced him to you, remember?"

He might have. "Of course," Lori said. "How is this a problem?"

"We're exiling him to Covehold, the one place on this continent that has regular correspondence with the old continent, relatively unsupervised," Rian said. "And as acting director, he knows who to contact on the old continent to direct the resources of the rest of the Golden Sweetwood Company, which is essentially a whole militia and their personal savings. What is stopping him from lying to them and telling them you killed Binder Koshay or something, and directing all of their resources to kill you?"

For a moment, Lori sat very, very still. Eventually, she nodded. "Yes, that is a problem. We might need to kill Grem."

"In the spirit of our agreement with River's Fork, I've been trying to find out who's next in the chain of succession so they can take over the director position of the Golden Sweetwood Company," Rian said. "I'll let you know what Riz finds. She's not an investor in the company, just family, even if she was militia. Her uncle is, so she doesn't really know the full hierarchy. Hopefully the next time I bring this up I'll know more. But right now, the plan to deal with the problem is to have the next in line write to the old continent that Grem is an attempted child murderer and have them agree to stop recognizing his authority. At the very least, that way they won't be under his control."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Lori frowned. "Why didn't you tell me about this problem earlier?"

Rian shrugged. "Because I didn't have a solution for it earlier. Also, it sort of slipped my mind. I literally remembered the fact he was acting director last night while a bunch of us were talking in my house. Someone mentioned the Golden Sweetwood Company and… well, it reminded me. I'll probably be able to tell you more later."

Lori nodded slowly. "All right. I'll leave this to you."

"Got it. If we're lucky, we can resolve this neatly, although it'll be a few months before we know for sure, since we'd have to send a letter. At best, the reply won't come until spring, or at least we wouldn't be able to retrieve the reply before spring. Hopefully the Golden Sweetwood Company will look favorably on us."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't they? I'm their Binder."

"Yes, but you're not a member of the Company," Rian said hesitantly. "That might matter, to them…"

Lori gave him a flat look. "This sounds like a 'dealing with people' problem. Solve it."

Rian sighed. "Yes, your Bindership," he said.

Lori watched him walk away as she concentrated back on the shed and adjusted the heat produced by the bindings a little so the wood wouldn't char. That was… probably a bit harsh on Rian. A bit. Just a little. The possibility that someone who had a reason to be disgruntled with her demesne would be able to access resources that could be used against her and her demesne was certainly concerning. Perhaps it would be best to have him killed…

But no, River's Fork was sending guards along to prevent exactly that sort of thing… because she'd had Rian imply they should to prevent such a possibility…

Well, that was inconvenient.

Still, Rian seemed to be working on some kind of solution. It probably was the simplest way, just sending a message to the rest of this 'Golden Sweetwood Company' and informing them of what Grem had done so that they would revoke his authority. If they cared, that is…

Lori tried not to worry. This wasn't a problem she was equipped to solve—it required talking to people—but she had Rian and her temporary Rian, and they were quite able at it. Surely they could solve the problem, right?

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At dinner the next day, Lori looked across the table at Rian and her temporary Rian-in-progress, sitting next to each other. "So, what have you learned?"

"Well, we have good news," Rian said. "Riz, you want to tell her? You found out about it, after all."

Riz pursed her lips, glancing sideways at her Rian, but he smiled at her encouragingly.

"I'm waiting," Lori said, making her impatience known.

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said. "So, I spoke to my uncle, and he directed me to…" Riz paused, as if just noticing the further impatience on Lori's face, "well, that's not important. Suffice to say, I was able to find out who was supposed to be next to succeed Captain Grem in the company. Unfortunately, he was one of the men who died in the dragon that killed Great Binder Koshay, so I had to keep looking."

"Be briefer," Lori said flatly.

Riz flinched, but Rian patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. "I found that the next person in the chain of succession is Captain Yllian."

Lori stared blankly at her. "Who?"

Rian, why are you holding your face like that?

"Captain Yllian," Rian said slowly, "is Shana's—"

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori corrected.

Rian, you shouldn't rub your eyes, it aggravates the soft tissues. Did you even wash your hands before you did that? Your fingers might be dirty.

"Captain Yllian," Rian repeated, sounding tired for some reason, "is Binder Shanalorre's lord."

"Oh, is that his name?" Lori said. "I wouldn't know, I've never met the man."

Rian stared up at the ceiling. "Well, in any case, as the one in the succession, he's now the Acting Director of the Golden Sweetwood Company. I talked to him earlier today, and he is aware of the situation. I'm told he'll have a letter ready to send with one of the people he'll be sending to guard the prisoners. So that should deal with the problem. Grem's not getting revenge that way. Though this probably means that the Golden Sweetwood Company will be settling in River's Fork."

"As long as they don't start setting up demesne near us," Lori said.

"No," Riz said, shaking her head. "The plan was that we would found a demesne that would serve as a central base. No building multiple demesne when we could consolidate in a single one supported by multiple wizards."

"I doubt that everyone is just going to blindly follow such a plan, especially not the wizards who now have a chance to become Dungeon Binders," Lori said dismissively. "Still, better they surround and constrain the growth of River's Fork than here." This made trying to expand the demesne more important. She'd have to do that soon, but she'd just been so busy, and it hadn't seemed urgent. The principle wasn't that much different from creating the core…

"Well," Rian said as Riz fell silent. "I suppose if they don't start building their own demesne, we can be pleasantly surprised at their restraint…?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," Lori said. "Who would come to this continent if they didn't intend to found their own demesne to become a Dungeon Binder?"

"Binder Koshay's wife?" Rian said. "After all, she didn't have her own demesne."

Lori hesitated as Riz raised her eyebrows and smirked. "All right, I suppose I must acknowledge that… but I would not rely on the phenomenon repeating."

Umu and Mikon arrived before they could respond, carrying food cups and water. Rian sighed tiredly, but didn't bother protesting as the five bowls were pushed to the middle of the table. Lori selected one and began to eat.

Riz reached for one once it was clear Lori had picked. "Thank you," she said, not looking at Mikon.

"You're welcome," Mikon said cheerfully. "Rian, are you going to eat?"

Rian reluctantly got a bowl. "Thanks," he said. "To both of you."

"You're welcome, Rian," Umu said. "Let's eat."

The four of them did so, Riz casting sideways looks at Mikon, who'd once more sat down next to her.

"Something wrong?" Mikon asked pleasantly, pausing in her eating.

"N-no, of course not," Riz said, looking away. "Just worried about elbow room, that's all."

"Oh, sorry, am I crowding you?" Mikon shuffled a little bit away from Riz. "There, is that better?" She smiled, cheerfully and completely unreadable.

Riz flushed, but shuffled towards her to take advantage of the offered space, and Rian relaxed where he'd been sitting, acting a little more free with his elbow.

The meal finished in silence as the rest of the dining hall buzzed around them. It was so pleasant.

"By the way Rian, temporary-Rian," Lori said, "have you had people asking you about marriage requirements?" Umu's head didn't snap up, but she'd gone very still, and was clearly listening attentively.

"I've had a few people ask me casually about it, so they were probably in a real hurry to get married without letting their parents know," Rian said. "Or at least someone's parent's, at any rate. So, what are the requirements, so I can finally tell people."

Lori waved a negligent hand. "I can't be bothered to remember exactly right now. Ask Mikon, she knows."

Rian and temporary-Rian blinked and looked sideways at the weaver, who smiled cheerfully at them. Temporary-Rian's eyes narrowed.

"Wait, you told Mikon before you told me?" Rian-Rian said, a strange expression on his face. "How did that even happen?"

Lori shrugged. "We were talking, she asked, I told her." Really, how else could it have happened.

Was Rian crying? And crying theatrically at that, with exaggerated sniffs and— "It finally happened," Rian said, wiping tears from his eyes as he let out one such exaggerated sniff. "Our Binder finally made another friend! I'm so proud!"

He sounded disgustingly like one of her mothers had when Lori had mentioned the name of someone she'd talked to at school, ugh.

"I dared to hope when you started playing board games with someone other than me, but to see it actually happen…" Another sniff. "To think I'd live to see this day…"

Lori kicked him under the table. "We're not friends," she said, annoyed. "She's just an acquaintance."

"As that's a prerequisite for friends, I'll take it as the next best thing," Rian said cheerfully.

Lori rolled her eyes and kicked him again before she went back to her dinner, shaking her head. Why did she sometimes feel like she'd gotten a third mother?