Emberwake

The wheat at Ky'thaal Sek goes gold the way a held breath goes gold — all at once, as if the valley had decided to finish a sentence it had been writing since spring. Jyteek Rhalen stands on the south ridge with a sickle and watches the river Aen drag light toward the mill. Eighteen years he has watched that braid. It has never once looked like a future.

Julta Myrren comes up the ridge the back way. She is the same age, the same height if you do not count the way she stands, and she reads we...