Siavahda

The first blush of light on the horizon, like milk feathering in tea.

The gale was plastering Da’s leine to her collarbone, rolling around the sky like a miser scraping up soup.

The richest areas of Theobardy and Easteld were not cradled close to the city’s centre but instead pooled out like wax cratering under a signet ring.

Sister Wake formally released Brother Wight from his geis about five times a day. So far, it had not taken.

Abelard remembered the look on the sailor’s face when Netha had sung. Not hungry, but malnourished.

It was as if someone had taken every single cruel story about an old woman, every mean and monstrous caricature, and stacked them thirty feet tall.