>>6309580<span class="mu-i">Your… what’s the thing in the middle of your chest? Beastbone? Whatever it is, it hurts.
You are holding something in your right hand. It’s—metal.
Memories crawl up from the abyss, like bubbles from a fresh batch of red wine.
You are sixteen.
Master’s disciple.
His first one in so many many years.
That’s what you are—more than a girl and yet not a woman in the recount of your people.
Any chance of marriage and a normal, decent life have been ripped away from you by your wine’s cultivar falling out of fashion; by the blight; by the smirking merchants of Frigéia, purchasing your ruined vineyards for a handful of silver.
That only lasted so far as the Landing Strip.
Your family is waiting for you to save them.</span>
[cont.]
