We wait as Pash leaves to ready herself, returning with a magnificent pole-arm and and armored head-to-toe in gilded plate covered in ornate Morovani motifs of knotted vines and blossoms. It's a challenge at first just to take my eyes off her.

the High Steward insists we take a lift to get up to the main grounds.

"It's a very long way, Dhajia, I really don't think you want to take all those stairs. And besides, I don't have the time."

I clamp my eyes closed as the lift trundles up its shaft. This is no skylift—it's cramped and windowless. At last we reach the top. The instant Pash opens the door for us, I push past her to get through it.

We're in a long, curving hall, lined to one side with arched windows that look out onto a forest. Everything is made with bricks of slate-gray stone, quarried from Grail's Edge itself. Lanterns set with blue-green emberstones hang between each window, and on the other wall decorative stained glass inlays are lit from behind. I study them as we pass. Their opulently stylized panes depict the Legends and their Sentinels—giant creatures of living stone and incredible power from an age so long ago no one's quite sure when exactly it was.

I slow, practically drooling over the one depicting the Sentinal called Ahvorand—pictured striding over a forest on legs taller than any tree, crystalline antlers refracting rays of sunlight into a halo about its head.

Then the Steward tsks at me to hurry up, and I do, reminding myself I can always come back here without her. Every now and then we pass a guard doing his or her best to imitate a statue. Some are normal humans, and some are very obviously beast-eaters. Though they're rigid and quiet, their eyes follow us. After a short time we come to a heavy wooden door with iron fixtures. Pash opens it, and I step out into the cool outside air. Nightbirds whoop and call to one another from the dark canopy.

I've seen plans of Grailhold, read the books of its history. The hall we just exited was the innermost wall, and this is the Wildgrove. I'm reverently quiet as we walk the path that winds up and through the shadowy trees. It's said that this bit of forest has been here since long before the first bricks of the hold were laid. Some even believe that the first wall was initially built here not as the beginnings of a fortress—but as a means to safeguard this place, these trees.

I recognize the hoot of a ghostowl somewhere nearby and pinpoint its ember a heartbeat later. Then the trees part, and rising overhead is a great stone tower—lush with creeping vines and cascades of wisteria. Warm light spills out from its windows, and stony likenesses of the Sentinals ring the walls, peering down at us.

"Welcome to Shkah Toan. Home to all Heirs for the duration of the Turning." Steward Andris declares as my new guardian opens yet another door for us. It means "heart's tower" in Old Morovani. We enter, skirting around a low stone wall encircling a spring that bubbles up from the floor. We take yet another lift to get to my chamber. When we arrive, my luggage is already waiting for me at the foot of a big four-posted bed.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I look around, smiling as I recognize my mother's handiwork. I may not be staying in this room for long, but she's decked it out especially for me anyway— filling it with paintings of animals and the flooded forest back home, dark colors, and soft things for me to run my hands over.

Steward Andris gives me a quick tour around the chambers, showing me the washroom, the balcony, the dumbwaiter and the bird hatch.

"Please order yourself some dinner and get to bed quickly," the Steward says. "You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow."

"Will any of my parents come to see me tonight? I kind of really need to talk to them." I ask, sitting down at the center of my luxuriously plush bed.

"No, Dhajia, I'm sorry. They can't tonight. But you'll see them all in the morning for breakfast." She gives me her clockwork smile again then turns, dips her head and takes her leave.

It's the answer I expected, but I'm still not happy about it.

~*~

I swallow a large bite of herb-crusted honeyfish, looking over at my guardian where she leans against the wall to the side of my door.

"Pash?"

"Yes?"

"What was that, when Thrallin tasted my blood?"

She pauses in her reading and looks up at me. In her full armor, she reminds more than ever of a magnificent metallic statue. One that smirks and opens doors and likes to read.

Normally, she'd be posted just outside of my chamber door, but I'd asked her to come in.

I have questions.

Pash frowns. "It's not something we're encouraged to talk about, but in truth, it's probably better you knew." She shuts the book and sets it aside. "Just...please. Don't speak of it freely."

I watch her, waiting. She sighs.

"There's a reason everyone doesn't just deliberately eat Mireflesh, outside of the physical changes. You'd think it's a pretty good bet, right? You don't have to worry about being transformed too drastically if you just eat a bit, and you no longer have to fear the Mire."

"Yes, I've wondered about that..."

She goes on, her expression twisting. "Once you've had it, though—mireflesh, mireblood...you never stop craving it. And the more you have, the more you long for it, and the more of yourself you lose. Thrall has had a good deal more mireflesh than I, as you can probably tell."

My expression must be horrified, for she takes one look at me and laughs.

"Wh-why would they still assign me beast-eater guardians, then? Why not just give me ordinary ones? Won't I be at more risk, with all of you around?"

I cringe at the words even as they pass my lips.

"That brings us back to the question you asked me back at the Barracks. Why we're so eager to be a part of all this. There's an herb that eases the craving, a great deal, actually. But it only grows in Morovin, and its expensive. As Guardians we receive a free supply of it, in addition to our salaries. And, ah—" she hesitates.

"What?"

"We're also the only ones who can be trusted to protect others against you, should you choose to put your new ability to any unjust use."

I take a long breathe through my nose. I'd suspected that.

I go to sleep that night, wrapped in the ridiculously soft embrace of my down mattress and blankets, my mind racing with questions—ones Pash couldn't answer.

Questions like "what was that strange, powerful ember back in the Dead City?" and "how the chasms am I going to get out of being an Heir?"

The questions chase me into my dreams.