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Talon has taken a seat at the other end of our table It is obvious she is listening by the flicker of her eyes when Gira invites

My mouth opens and closes Except for Amaya’s excursions with Denya’s respectable fao to the theater when Father is ho on my oith fellow adversaries haed "I don’t know My sister Ahter because of the doohter’s brave uise She often goes with a friend but I’ve never seen it"

"I wanted to see that new play, The Poet’s Curse," says Mis "But it never opened"

Tana halts beside our table, shaking her head "A good thing it did not open The king’s own seal bearer closed the theater’s doors for good and all the actors were sent to the provinces The ’s prison for ht killed so the reputation of the royal fa them in public I heard a rumor that the play concerned a reprehensible story about the honorable and deified Serenissihter of the great goddess Hayiyin who causes the water to rise and the grain to sprout" Her glower cows us "An appropriate theatrical entertain on Trifle Street Or that other old favorite, The General’s Valiant Daughter, as Jes , old enmities, and wicked bandits even for your low taste, Shorty"

The training bell rings, and we hurry to line up for eries Kalliarkos doesn’t show up so it must be one of the days he has other duties Lord Thynos and Inarsis separatesession on Trees They make me climb, and climb, and climb They showuntilto rip off They make me pull my chin up to the bar and lower e than iron Then they count while I stand onon a pole

After this brutal initiation, Inarsis races h Rivers five tiets thrown off by fatigue By the fifth pass I’m not much better than Dusty, but I still beat him

Then they race us on parallel ladders set horizontally across poles We swing froth beats me, which makes him crow out loud and flap his arh helplessly as I drop to the ground in a heap Thynos walks off as Inarsis calls over a pair of stable attendants to adjust the posts

Dusty sits beside lad to have another one likethe only mule"

"There’s not so few children born to Patron men and Commoner women," I object "Nor should it be shameful That’s why I don’t like that word"

"Heh I don’t like it either Is your mother here in Saryenia?"

"Yes She raised us" I glance atodd in my expression

"Good fortune for you! In randmother are both dead I’d no mother’s shield to protect me I had only lad day I was sent off to the city to work"

"How did you corin widens, like he is pleased by my attention "Always ran it The only place the boys who didn’t likeon the court Said it disgraced the garand? They run the warrens here too"

"Dusty, you’re going again," Inarsis interrupts as Thynos appears with Kalliarkos in tow The spotless neatness of Kal’s Fives gear makes me shake

"I suppose servants clean and press your gear every night," I say He glances at his clothes with a look of such utter surprise that I laugh "You’ve never even thought about it, have you?"

"Spider!" Thynos cuts in "You sit out You two lads, up the blind shaft"