Chapter 24: Moonvein Hill

Moonvein Hill rises behind the academy, and its east face is carved with names.

Every graduate who ever danced a Rite, or surveyed a pass, or sat on the council, has their name cut into the grey rock.

I had climbed it only once in my first life, years after Niles died, and I had not been able to read a single name.

That morning the sky was clear and cold, and I climbed it with a borrowed chisel in my coat pocket.

Cormick came up behind me, one step at a time, with a thermos in each hand.

"You didn't say it would be this steep," he said.

"You live here."

"I've never walked up it."

"Never?"

"My name was cut by the council the day I was born. It doesn't need a visit."

I stopped in front of the rock face and looked along the rows.

There was a clear stretch of stone near the bottom, under the dancers' names, with nothing around it.

It was the one place on the hill where no one's name would sit beside mine.

I knelt and set the chisel against the grey.

"Seren Strangways," I said aloud.

I struck the first stroke, and the stone rang.

It is slow work, and I did it slowly, a letter at a time.

Cormick sat on a boulder and drank his tea and did not offer to help.

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