A year before their Choosing Day, all apprentices had been challenged to climb to the top of that peak, where the spirit of the great Kwiriki was said to descend to bless the worthy. Of all the apprentices from the South House, Tané alone had made it to the summit. Half-frozen, beset with mountain sickness, she had crawled up the last slope, retching blood on to the snow. She had not been human in that final hour. Just a paper lantern, thin and wind-torn, clinging to the flickering remnants of a soul. Yet when there was no more to climb, and she had looked up and seen nothing but the terrible
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