"Good morning, Francine. I have some interesting news to share with you."

Francine did her best to ignore the voice. Missus Follickken had explained to her that the voice wasn't actually a person. It was just a fragment of Francine's own mind. The Listener was nothing more than an imaginary friend she had made up to help her handle the weirdness that came with having a Mark.

Most of the time, it was easy to believe it.

"Remember, I told you about being a Champion? What it means, how it will make some people jealous?"

Francine remembered. It had only been two days since Mister Hildesman had left to go back to the city. Missus Follickken expected him to return with supplies soon. But the Listener had been chatty ever since Francine had settled in on the little cot in the corner of the sitting room. Her mind must have fragmented all of the talking bits to make the not-woman.

"Well, one of my brothers is making a move. Thought you'd like to hear about it. He's trying to recruit your friend Mister Hildesman. Wants a Champion with some teeth." The voice chuckled, as if she had just told a joke "Never had the mind for the more subtle aspects of war."

Francine froze in the middle of packing her blankets away for the day. Mister Hildesman? A...Champion? She didn't really understand that. According to the voice, a Champion was supposed to help in some way with an upcoming war. But a war by who, and against who? Missus Follickken had explained that there was no way for such a war to really exist, at least not in this part of the world. The forest kept the other city-states out, and the people of Mett Vell in. Heretics were too few and too far apart to form anything like an army. War, according to Missus Follickken, was only waged against the forest itself. Everything else was "a waste of effort".

"Still don't believe a war is coming, dear?" The Listener often seemed to be aware of Francine's thoughts. Which, she supposed, made sense if the woman was imaginary. She knew whatever Francine imagined her to know. "Oh, it is coming. And sooner than you think. The first shots are already being loaded into their cannons. The first blood is already pumping onto the ground. And you, child. You know you can't hide away in this cabin forever."

Francine didn't answer. Instead, she fetched some water from the filtered cistern and lit the fire to boil it for the morning mash. Missus Follickken was not in her narrow pallet bed, but she had wasted little time in giving Francine responsibilities. Fortunately, most of them were similar to what Francine had grown up with, back on her father's farm. There were a few chickens, kept in a well-fortified stone coop. They needed feeding, and occasionally there would be eggs to collect. Today, there were none. There was a lone mule, given run of the little yard. Francine filled its trough with filtered water. It would not be needed for pulling stones or carts today, so she left it to roam.

As Francine tended the animals, Missus Follickken emerged from the forest east of the house, and clambered nimbly over her little stone fence, despite her age. She had her rifle slung over one shoulder. She didn't say anything to Francine, but she did return a little wave. Missus Follickken was nice, but Francine could tell that she wasn't used to having another person around. That seemed strange to the farm girl, who had grown up in a house filled with the sounds of cousins, but she supposed that Missus Follickken must like it that way.

"Ooh, this is even more interesting. It seems like your friend actually refused the job. Stubborn fellow, wouldn't you say? Didn't he seem that way to you?" The voice kept talking as Francine worked. She continued to not respond to it, as best as she could. "Yeah, the Huntmaster told him to chase down some injured beast and finish the job, and instead your new friend settled in for the night, then left in the morning. Beast unhunted. The Huntmaster is furious. It's actually kind of hilarious. Now he needs to find a whole new champion. You might not know this, but that's quite an undertaking. I spent months trying to reach you. And my brother isn't as good at this as I am. No, I suspect he's been at it for at least a year. All his efforts, wasted."

Francine finished checking the perimeter wall for damage and went back inside. Missus Follickken was just pouring the hot water over the mashed grain. Francine took one of the wooden bowls and they both sat and ate their food.

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As she scraped the bottom of her bowl clean with a spoon, Francine spoke up first. The first words said aloud by either of them.

"The voice is still talking to me, Missus Follickken."

Missus Follickken set her own spoon in the bottom of her bowl. "It won't ever stop, kid. I've had that little voice in my hear for nearly forty years at this point. And I can't think of a single day where it didn't try to talk to me. You learn to ignore it, eventually. You have to, otherwise you start talking to yourself."

Francine fiddled with the edge of the table, where an old knife mark had been worn almost smooth again with time. "It's saying more things about Champions. You said you wanted to know if it did that."

Missus Follickken leaned forward and seemed to be searching for something in Francine's expression. Francine wasn't sure what it was. She imagined she looked like a normal person. Or at least as normal as a person could look in her place. In the distance, a songbird sang out. After a moment, the old trapper woman leaned back. Francine wasn't certain if she had found what she was looking for or not.

"Tell me." Francine hesitated. Missus Follickken noticed. "It's different this time?"

Francine nodded. "She...it...the voice. The Listener. She says that her brother tried to make Mister Hildesman a champion."

Missus Follickken held up a hand for Francine to wait while she grabbed the well-worn little notebook from a shelf in the side room. "Start over from the beginning. Every word you can remember."

"Okay," Francine said, feeling herself shrinking under the older woman's intensity. She repeated everything she could remember. At a couple points, the Listener corrected her. She repeated that too, for Missus Follickken's benefit.

"And the Listener, she said that the other Sponsor...her brother. She said he was called the Huntmaster?"

"Yes," Francine confirmed. "She said he tried to get Mister Hildesman to chase down some animal and Mister Hildesman refused. Like he wasn't even interested in being a champion."

Missus Follickken nodded. "He wouldn't be. Not after hearing your story." She looked up and seemed to sense that Francine's fear was coming to the front. "Not to worry, kid. You're just...something new. Aaron--Mister Hildesman--doesn't like the unknown. Plus, he wouldn't want a Mark even if it wasn't tied up in the newest strangeness. He's heard me complain about the consequences too much to have any interest in that. He'd rather have his Tessenium kept outside his body."

Francine didn't feel reassured. But she managed to find her courage, as her uncle had taught her. 'Fear is for later', he would say. 'You can feel it, but you still have to keep moving right now.' She nodded.

"Is that everything?" Francine nodded again.

"That's everything I chose to share with you so far." The Listener spoke into Francine's mind. "I'm always listening in to everything. All you need to do is ask. I can tell you all sorts of things."

"Umm. The Listener says she knows more, but only if I ask for it?"

This time it was Missus Follickken who hesitated. Her little pencil stopped scratching on the page. She tapped it on the table a few times, staring down and not meeting Francine's eyes. "No. It isn't real, Francine. I'm only interested in the stuff about Champions because nobody's Sponsor has ever talked about that before. But its knowledge is just your knowledge. Maybe more than you knew you knew, but it couldn't possibly know anything about Mister Hildesman that has happened since you left."

"Oh no?" The Listener's voice seemed slightly offended at what Missus Follickken had said. Francine didn't repeat it.

"That's why Mister Hildesman turned down the offer. You know, after your days following him through the forest, that he wouldn't trust a voice in his head. So when your Sponsor, this fragment of your thoughts, this representation of your subtle senses, constructed this story about Champions, you filled in the most reasonable response for him to take to it. One of the physicians in the city might even have a guess as to why your mind chose this story. It's like dreams, sort of. Some people think they mean something. Sometimes the Sponsors work the same way."

"Sure they do. That's why your supplies will be delivered not by Mister Hildesman, but by a Junior Administrator. Not even a Frontiers' Corps. And it won't be until after sunset today. She's going to arrive on a skimmer. Wanna know why?"

Francine didn't answer. She trusted Missus Follickken. The woman was stern, but good. She reminded Francine of her grandmother. But she didn't trust the Listener, whose voice sounded too much like the heretic that had burned her home down. Something in the accent, maybe. Francine didn't like thinking that she had created such a creature to represent her new ability to shout blasts of energy.

But then again, Francine wasn't entirely convinced that she had created the Listener. After all, Francine didn't have anyway to know about the supply delivery. And yet, that night, just after the sun had disappeared behind the trees in the west, a skimmer touched down silently just inside Missus Follickken's fence. And a Sister Administrator climbed out of the basket and unloaded a large canvas sack behind her.

"You must be Francine. Is Gertrae in? I have messages for her from Sister Porriss and the trapper Aaron Hildesman."

Francine just pointed to the house.

Maybe it was a lucky guess? She did her best to ignore the faint laughter that echoed from one ear to the next. Laughter that came from a woman with a distinctive voice, but no face, body, or name. Just a title.