The dream drew down Ariana’s eyes, and she was dragged into a world within, a nightmare that tasted like a memory, of a distant pce intimately connected to her heritage.

  She was a girl, perhaps six years old and already a firebrand like her father. She pyed in a coy pond at the heart of an eborate garden, a rooftop oasis in the city of Haru, which was framed on four sides by long houses with tiled roofs, each of them outfitted with an array of sliding, paper doors. Across those corrugated doors were painted images in vibrant watercolor, grand murals depicting scenes of summer, autumn, winter, and spring, and their corresponding animal guardians.

  An end milled about in tall grasses, the white stripes along its fnks helping it blend in with shadows cast by warty trees whose canopies were verdant and full of life in summer. Smaller creatures peered out from behind low shrubs and ferns, and all seemed at peace in the creature’s presence. Its horns were twisted like those lowest, sweeping bows, and a thick waddle dangled under its neck, and almost touched the ground as in stasis, it dipped its head to take its meal.

  A samander lounged on a rock amid trees to reflect those in the summer scene, and the leaves were cast in fire colors to reflect the evening sky breaking through where those heavy boles parted. Ink bck and far rger than any newt she had seen, of size with a horse to her eyes, its tongue slithered out from a wide, toothless mouth, and fire rippled across its spine.

  In the mural on the northern side was a forest deep in winter, with heavy snows bnketing the earth and fat snowfkes drifting down amid bare branches. A white bull stamped its hoof in the center, its body spyed across doors on rollers which let into her uncle’s chambers.

  The st, a spring scene of cherry and apple blossoms, and budding leaves frosting twisted bows just liberated from winter. The earth was bare and brown except for those ferns, and scattered ice and sleet broke up the terrain. A boar tested the air with hooked horns, its steady gaze fixed on the bows, and there was anger, or perhaps passion, in its eyes.

  The doors against which the End was posed spread open, and her father emerged from within. He was tall for a harua man but would appear short when set next to someone from the surrounding city states of Trom or Duyaire Bense or Ashvein. From him she inherited the subtle tapering of her eyes, the way her cheekbones and chin made a vague triangle of her face, and hair like obsidian, glossy and dark. He dressed in a green tunic of fine silk, and bck trousers today, and went barefoot as was his custom when he was home.

  Several baubles and trinkets dripped from his wrists, and an ornate pendant outfitted with an aquamarine stone the size of a thumbnail y against his chest. The gem trade ran strong in Haru, was the spine on which the Hoga family built their empire, and it was this dominance in the trade that granted them estates atop the tallest tower in the city, though she could see only the faint reflection of lights popping on throughout the city below, sure sign that evening was fast giving way to night.

  Her father was not alone. With him was a man he shared only incidental resembnce to. Where her father was slender, the other, her grandfather, was round bellied and thick in the limbs. Where his face was angur like hers, her grandfather’s was round, his eyes wider set and his cheekbones made less apparent by meaty cheeks and a blunted chin.

  He was dressed as her father was, though more fineries dripped from him than his son, and his tunic was tucked into his waistband, snug behind a leather belt with a buckle in the shape of a fox’s head.

  “Ompa!” she shouted, and ran to her grandfather. She could not remember the st time she had seen him. She vaulted down a river stone path and unched herself into his waiting arms, embracing him around the belly.

  He ruffled her hair with a calloused hand, and as she looked into his face, her excitement was abated, repced by confusion. The man, so often full of joy, wore a stony expression. So easy to make smile, a dark scowl touched his lips.

  “What’s wrong, Ompa?” she asked.

  There. The smile came to his lips, but it not the easy thing she was accustomed to.

  “Nothing, little girl. Nothing at all.”

  Her father stepped forward. “We’re taking a trip, Ariana.”

  “To the mountains?” she asked, her excitement returning.

  Her father and grandfather exchanged a look. There was something in it she could not quite pce, a sense almost of dread.

  “Yes, I think that is best.” He said.

  “We don’t know if we can trust them.” His father said. “It may be better to take her to Duyaire Bense. Or to Shadal. Priest Samos would not betray us.”

  “Jorin has his king’s ear. She will be afforded all the protection Del Zaros can give her.”

  “They are still worryingly close to the border.”

  “So is Duyaire Bense.”

  “A different border. They are farther removed than us.”

  “And again, of uncertain loyalty.”

  Her father’s grimace told her of his frustration. This was not to be the trip she wanted. Not a holiday outside the city, but something she had been told might become necessary just months past, when her grandfather had st been inside Haru the family estates. This was flight.

  “The way to Del Zaros poses complications, as well. He will expect us to move for their protection. Shadal is closer, and we have close ties with the giida there. Can I not convince you to reconsider.”

  “Hugo Silvanes will also have to pass through there. I have word from Trom that Timothy has been dealt with already. He might have spared him, but he will not spare me, which means you and your siblings will have to take up my mantle, secure your ties to the Cross, if I cannot best him.”

  He peeled her away from him, and passed her into her father’s custody. “I’m sorry, granddaughter. But be brave. Our path will take us where it leads. You need only remember that the Hoga do not bend to the winds. We move with the changing seasons.” he gestured expansively to the murals. “As we have always done.”