Farin wiped her face face with a linen rag and hung her apron on the wall. She set her hammer, tongs and chisel on her tool rack, washed her hands in the basin, then went to her larder. She snickered when she saw a block of butter next to a three pound stack of bacon. I could give that girl something to winge about.

She filled a kettle with game stock and set it over her firepit, lit the coals with flint, then went to work dicing an onion. I’ll cook those partridges Nava bought this morning. When she was done with the onion she put a pan on the grate over the pit and laid eight rashers of bacon on it. She then defeathered and gutted the birds and set them on her spit over the coals. When they were done, she set three boards with a hen each, drizzled the game stock over their seared skins, and laid out a spread of dried apples, bacon, hardbread and cheese. Her cider cups needed washing, so she set three mugs on the table instead. Inside her cupboard was a large earthenware jug of carmalled milk. She reached for it with both hands and knocked the bottle of liquor the Prince had gifted Koll. It rolled off the shelf, hit the floor and shattered. Only a a few drops splattered on the floor. Farrin let out a heavy sigh, set the milk jug on the floor and swept up the fragments of the liquor bottle. She felt a wave of anger when she looked at small damp spot where the paltry remnants of the liquor splattered. She decided not to wipe it up, to let him know she saw how quickly he drank the bottle down.

He doesn’t see himself when he’s under its sway. He insisted it helped him sleep, which it may have, but after a few cups of it he became a different man. He was distant, quiet, and unconcerned with even Nava. And if it helped to fall asleep, it failed utterly to keep him abed. Every night he would rise and she would hear him stumble his way to the cupboard, open the door, and drink directly from the bottle. He’d then return to bed and try to kiss her, often missing her head altogether. His breath reeked like a furnace and she usually tried to avoid his drunken kisses. Then it would be hours sometimes before she could fall asleep again herself. He’d roll about in bed like a swine on a spit, mumbling and whimpering in his sleep. Farin had determined herself to tell Princess Klar of the trouble the liquor caused him. Hopefully she’d be able to caution her brother against sharing any more with him.

Ror had brought it the one time he was able to visit them in their home. He was there less than an hour, and spoke mostly of the human princess and her illness. He did mention that the drink was uncommonly strong, and Farin thought he may even have warned Koll against daily drinking of it. That day was a foggy memory at best, though. She had hoped to tell the Prince of the riots they had twice been swept up in. Koll had taken to wearing a cap or a hood when about in Ormazum. He had spoken to their Fel Steward about the matter, hoping for some sort of protection from the order. “Novian scum,” he’d said, “they’re the ones stirring up all this dissent. They’ll take advantage of any chance to cause us trouble.”

“Farin!” Nava screamed outside the door. Farin ran across the forge and opened it. Nava’s cheeks were wet with tears, and she looked afraid. “What’s happened?” Farin asked, fearing the worst. Nava took her wrist and pulled her out of their home and into the city. They ran like the wind through the Iron district, past the lesser guild halls, through the alleyways of the outer slums and to the ohr-tempus that rose from Ormazum’s depths to the Grand Bazaar.

Farin need not wonder what was happening at that point. A crowd had gather on the stage and a fat old man with stoutly muscled arms pushed an entire row of people aside. “Make way for his wife!” he boomed. Nava and Farin hurried onto the tempus just as it whirred to life. “The Iron Maiden is under my protection!” the old man shouted to the crowd. Farin felt a braid of the man’s grey streaked beard bunch up on her shoulder as he leaned close to her ear. “Rise,” he whispered.

Farin felt relieved. When her and Koll took the rites and joined the ranks of the Risen, Farin had doubted they would benefit from joining the Fel. They had prospered in their business, and her work had earned twice the fame it had before, but when Koll was taken from her the order had ceased to be of any worth. It gladdened her one of their fellow Risen was on his way to save her husband from whatever had befallen him. She turned to the old man. “Is it the Nove?” she asked. “You’ll see,” was all the man said.

When they stepped off the ohr-tempus into Ormazum’s surface district, the entire space before them was empty. Shops were left unattended, some even with goods and coin on the purchasing tables, as if merchant and patron both left in a hurry. There was faint shouting to the east, and the crowd on the ohr-tempus hurried as one up the wide stairs that wended their way up the tiers of the city. Here and there a lone dwarf would appear and be swallowed up by the crowd. It had grown by almost half by the time they found Koll. His face and knuckles were bloody, and one of his eyes was swollen almost shut. There were a half dozen other men with far worse damage done to their faces standing across from him. A throng of people had gathered in a crescent around him, and between him and the other men was a smaller crowd with weapons drawn. Six men were piling boxes and crates into a sort of makeshift dais. Farin tried to push her way through the crowd, but it was useless. The people were pressed against each other, forming a wall between her and her husband a hundred feet thick.

“I have to stand by him,” she desperately told the old man. He nodded, and began to bore through the crowd, forcing men and women aside with his stoutly muscled arms. “Make way for the Iron Maiden!” he bellowed.

It took some time, but they made their way through. Farin heard Nava thank the old dwarf behind her as she cut across the empty space between her and the smaller crowd. Three men were standing on the pile of crates by the time she took hold of Koll’s arm. She saw with horror that he had been stabbed in the side. Someone had hastily bandaged the wound. “I’m alright,” he said insistently. She threw her arms around him. “I should have been with you,” she said. “You are now,” was his reply.

The men on the crates thundered at each other and down at the crowd. One was crying out for Koll to be exalted, and for all the doomed to have new inquests. The one across from him demanded over and over he either be sent back to the doomed or made an example of right there in the plaza. “Thrond does not harbor wanton men!” he shouted repeatedly. “He’s innocent,” the other man would shout back. The other man then shouted that Koll had been found innocent no more times than he’d been found guilty. “Are we to have a third inquest?” the man then argued. “Would you have a second and third inquest for every doomed man and woman?”

The third man seemed to watch the other two, only speaking up when one made a more valid statement than the other, his loyalty shifting from one man to the next. “Three and three and three again would change nothing,” the angrier of the men carried on, “the doomed belong to the Underguard, and Valung!”

Koll shuddered at the mention of that name. Farin clung to him more tightly. She felt Nava clinging to both of them and reached so that her arms engulfed her entire family. The small relief she’d felt when Koll told her that Miser was not a real person was gone completely.She would gladly trade the scorn of her fellow tradesmen over having half the city in an uproar. Even as she clung to Koll she cursed herself for having dared to accept a hope that was not meant for her. Since she was a little girl, Farin never saw the joy in other people’s lives as hers to have. She had resigned herself to a melancholy existence, being content to do well at her craft, and since taking Koll into her life had been punished with false hope and denial. Why should she have expected any different? If only she had never accepted his love, then at least he and Nava would be spared their suffering. She wanted to give herself to the crowds, to offer her life in exchange for his, but she knew it wasn’t truly even Koll they wanted. Their plight and injustice was merely an ember fanned by the wind. A fire will consume any fuel to burn, and the wind was fanning these flames with a fervor.

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"We need to to leave," Koll said urgently.

"This way brother," Farin heard a nearby man say. The old man from the ohr-tempus had come near as well, and with a guard of a half dozen men they tried to edge their way around the back of the crowd.

"He's trying to escape!" shouted a gaunt old woman. "He's guilty!" shouted a young man. The crowd pressed around them and it was all the six men could do to keep angry hands from dragging them away. Farin was nearing the point of panic when she heard swords clanging on shields. The crowd was pulled away from them and a line of armored guards formed a wall of lowered spears. More soldiers formed a line behind them spears and aimed crossbows. People screamed and soldiers shouted threats, then a horn rang through the air.

The storm calmed at the sound of the horn. The crowd gathered in a tight circle as the guards ringed them in with brandished weapons. Other than a few hoarse and angry whispers the plaza was dead quiet.

"What has happened to our kingdom?" said a deep, hollow voice that cracked like a burning log. An old man with hair as black as the Worm stepped through the guards. He was clad in a long robe of indigo velvet and wore rings of many large, dark gems on each of his fingers. He looked familiar to Farin. When he stepped close to them she recognized him as the Chieftain of the Guilds. She and Koll bowed in unison to Urum Brann.

"Are these the only guildsmen here?" the Chieftain croaked. One third of the gathered crowd promptly bowed. Urum looked to the men on the crates. "Who are you men, to stand above your fellows? Are you men of office? Are you masters of guilds? Are you of the line of Narvi? Come down from your false tower and kneel before your fellow citizens."

When the men had bowed, Urum ordered them bound in manacles. "There are two of the doomed returned to us. Our Army Chief's nephew came back from the doomed. Why do you not harass Buri Yormun as well? Does he not stride about Ormazum as brazenly as he pleases? Are you too fearful of Yormun? Are you so consumed by both cowardice and entitlement that you must ostracize one of your own?"

He then stood close and put his arms about all three of them. "The Throne erred when it sent Koll away, and the Throne showed its quality when it brought him back. You here are showing yourselves privileged and spoiled with this shameful display. Koll Ladhu is guilty of no crime. I myself approved the findings of the inquest. If any of you doubt my decision, then come to me in the Citadel and present proof of your case. Any man or woman or child who treats this family abusively will be treated as lawbreakers, and you all know what happens to them."

Urum nodded at the nearest guard and the man blew his horn. The crowd was quickly dispersed and the three men on the crates were hauled away. "How fare you?" Urum asked, looking from Koll to Farin to Nava.

"We're well," Koll said. "Thank you Chieftain. We're forever in your debt."

"Nonsense. The Throne is in yours. As the King's servant I share in that burden. I've come with an offer. I can't give back the years you've lost, but I can improve the years that remain. Will you agree to live with us at the top of the mountain, and join the ranks of the Citadel smiths?"

Farin felt her jaw drop open. She wanted this, more than almost anything. Since she stoked her first forge she’d dreamed of crafting armor for the Red Spears and the Sunderers. Was this truly happening? Everything Farin had thought she'd known was being shaken. As a small child she never expected to be happy as other children seemed to be. They'd play their games, learn the stories, read from the Tides, and practice their crafts, and she watch from afar, a pack of one wolf, a ewe with no ram. When her father had fallen to the heat death plague in the mass forge, she felt a quiet acceptance. When she took up the hammer to keep her mother and little brothers from starving, she'd dreamed of smithing in the citadel, while knowing in her heart of hearts that her fire would never rise that high. All seemed to wither about her as she plodded head down through life. Even the happiness she found with Koll was short lived, and while it rent her heart to lose him, it made sense to her. Now he was back, a bolt of lightning that struck again to heal the scar left by its first blast. And when her life began to make sense again, when Koll seemed about to be torn away from her again, her girlhood dream was being offered to her.

"Am I adequate, Chieftain?" her voice was so quiet she could scarce hear her own words. Koll and Nava, who were standing close enough to kiss her, were both straining to hear her, but the Chieftain of the Guilds knew what she'd said.

"More than adequate," he said, "and your husband and daughter are masterful at their crafts as well. I have need of a man adept at sums, and surely our Army Chief can find work for our brave explorer, so long as she can find the privy."

Nava laughed hard. "I'm famous!"

Chieftain Brann bowed. "The Dung Wraith is known far and wide."

"I do love the guild," Nava said, "but I've got to stay here to be with dad. Oh Farin please say yes. You'll be great as a citadel smith, I promise. Dad make her say yes."

"Chieftain," Koll said, "I hold no grudge against the Throne. The false case against me was well crafted, the arbiters had no cause for doubt. If you wish to keep us safe, then so be it, we'll be honored to live in the citadel. But I know my wife well. Farin will find no joy doing work she is unfit for. I beg you you, Dread Chieftain, only offer her this status if you truly deem her worthy."

Farin wanted to hold Koll's scarred face in her hands and kiss him. He does know me well. The Chieftain's face was grave, but his eyes seemed kind. "I do want to see you kept safe, but the Iron Maiden is beyond adequate for the citadel forges. In fact, I have a very important task for her, should she agree to my offer. A task that requires discretion as well as skill. Her work will send all our enemies through the hidden door, and make our soldiers impervious to harm. I'll send my own personal guards to help you move your belongings to your apartments in the citadel, and I'll speak with Gund about a non combat scouting post for young Nava. Farin, will you be one of my citadel smiths?”

Tears welled in her eyes and she fought to keep her lower lip still. She was wrong. Her whole life, she'd been wrong. She was meant to be happy, and joy was hers to claim. Since girlhood she had been fighting against what was rightfully hers and she would fight it no more. She opened her mouth to speak but no words were there, so she simply bowed.

Nava leapt up and down and clapped her hands, and Koll was smiling upon her with happiness and pride.

"Good," said their Chieftain. "I will keep my eye on each of you, closely, and I have no doubts that you'll do well."