THE TESTAMENT

THE COLLECTION

Maren's house stood at the bottom of Weaver's Lane, a narrow stone cottage with blue shutters and a roof that had been patched so often it looked quilted. By the time Ala reached the lane, the six riders had already turned into it.

They did not gallop. That was what frightened her most. They rode at a walk, unhurried, the rain hissing off their red cloaks. Each horse was a tall, glossy bay, taller than anything in Elaren, and each rider sat very straight with a sword at the hip and a dull, banded ring of copper on the left hand. Steam rose from their shoulders, their faces hidden with the hood of their Cloak. Ala realized that the rain was evaporating off them before it could soak in.

The lane emptied as they passed. Doors closed. Wooden windows slammed shut one by one, people who were in their stall , hid behind their goods . Peering only after they had rode past them .

Ala hoped maren was back from delivering threads. She ran, skidded on the wet cobbles, and reached the gate just as the lead rider reined in.

"Maren!" she hissed through the garden. "Maren, they're here, get him inside"

The cottage door was already open. Maren stood in the doorway with her mother's hand clamped on her shoulder and her brother behind her legs. Tomas peered around her with huge brown eyes. He was clutching his cotton blanket in one fist.

The lead rider swung down from his saddle. He was a lean man . His cloak was trimmed in black thread instead of copper, which Ala didn't understand yet but would later. He took a rolled parchment from his belt , his face still hidden in the hood .

"Seasonal register review," he said. His voice was even and courteous. "I am Envoy Brannoch of the Ignivar Court. This is a routine visit under the Concord Accords. No one is in any trouble."

"Good afternoon, Envoy," said Maren's mother, in the thin, careful voice . "We are honored. If you require the register, the town clerk keeps it at the—"

"We have a copy." Brannoch glanced at the parchment. "The house on Weaver's Lane. Two children. One girl, one boy. The boy is six." He looked up. "I am required to ask if any of them have manifested a gift unusual for an Urger household."

"No," said Maren, fast. Too fast. "Nothing unusual. Thread. Just thread."

Brannoch's eyes moved to her, and for a moment something that wasn't quite amusement crossed his face. "Of course. Thread."

Then the rain stoped. Strange.

It stopped falling on the doorstep.

Not everywhere. Only there, in a small circle around the doorframe. The drops hit an invisible line a hand's breadth above the threshold and burst into steam, and the steam drifted upward in a thin white column. It took Ala a while to understand what she was seeing, and a second to find the source.

Tomas's hands.

He had let go of his blanket. He was staring at his own fingers, and from them, small and orange and perfectly steady, flame had begun to dance. Not like a candle. Candles flicker. This flame stood straight. Burning

"Mama," he whispered. "I didn't do it. I didn't do anything."

"Tomas, put it out," Maren said, in a voice so thin it barely held together. "Put it out, love, please, you can, you've done it before—"

"I can't—"

The flame grew. It leapt from one hand to the other and licked up the doorframe. The wooden post blackened and smoked. Maren's mother snatched Tomas's arms and pulled him against her, and the fire guttered and then gushed across her sleeve, and she shrieked and tore the cloth away.

.The rain hissed. The child wailed. Ala was already moving.

She didn't think. Not knowing what else to do. She grabbed the wet linen washing off the line, threw it over Tomas's shoulders and wrapped it tight, and the fire spat and went out with a hiss of white steam.

Silence. Tomas, shaking, held out two clean pink hands, unburned.

Brannoch had not moved. He was watching the boy with the quiet satisfaction .

"Unusual gifts," he said gently, "are not a misfortune. They are an honor."

The rest was done with terrible politeness.

Brannoch produced a second scroll, a letter of acknowledgment signed and sealed in red wax. He read it aloud in a mild voice. The Ignivar Court recognized the boy Tomas Oduya as bearing the Flame. He would be received at the Cinder Academy in Ignivar, where he would be fed, housed, educated, and trained in his gift. His family would be compensated for the loss of his labor. Visitation might be arranged annually, subject to distance and the discretion of the Academy.

One of the riders, face still hidden in a Hood. counted out coins onto the kitchen table. Silver, not copper. More money than Maren's father probably earned in two years. It sat gleaming among the bread crumbs and spilled milk.

Maren's mother had not said a word since the fire. Maren's father had come in from the field with his boots still muddy and stood in the corner staring at the floor. Maren just held Tomas sobbing . Nobody argued. Ala, standing awkwardly by the door ,realized with sick clarity that nobody ever did. There was nothing to argue with. No one in Elaren had ever refused. The great nations did not need to threaten. They only had to be what they were.

Powerful.

"You have until the rain stops to say your goodbyes," Brannoch said, quite kindly. "The road is long. We should not delay."

The rain, Ala noticed, showed no sign of stopping.

Tomas had been crying quietly into his sister's neck. Now he pulled back and looked around the room with a small, blotchy, bewildered face.

"Where's my blanket?" he said.

Nobody answered. The blanket lay on the doorstep in the mud where he'd dropped it, one corner scorched black.

Ala was out of the door in a dash. She snatched it up and wiped the mud off on her skirt. Scorched at one corner, soaked, but whole. She came back in and knelt in front of the boy and held it out.

"Here," she said. "It's fine. It's a very brave blanket."

Tomas took it and held it under his chin. He looked at her for a moment with eyes far too vague for a six-year-old.

"Ala," he said. "Will it hurt?"

She had no idea what he meant. The fire? The journey? The Academy, the strangers, the place without his family? She opened her mouth to say no, and the lie lodged in her throat like a stone .

"I don't know," she said instead. "But Maren will send word. And you'll send word back. And you'll learn to put the fire out whenever you want, and then you'll come home and burn all of our curtains on purpose."

His lip wobbled. Somewhere in the back of the room, Maren made a small noise that might have been a laugh or a sob.

"All of them?" said Tomas.

"Every single one."

He nodded slowly, visibly happy at the thought of burning the curtains . He cleaned his tears with the back of his palm , and hugged the blanket tighter.

They left as the light was fading. Tomas rode in front of Envoy Brannoch on the great bay horse, a tiny figure in a borrowed red cloak, still clutching his blanket. He did not cry again. He looked back once, only once, at the lane and his sister standing in the doorway. Then the column turned the corner and was gone.

The rain thinned and stopped.

Maren stood in the doorway long after they had gone, arms hanging, staring at the empty bend in the lane. Her mother had gone inside. Her father had not moved from his corner. After a time, Ala came and stood beside her. She didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.

"He's going to be great," Maren said at last. Her voice sounded rubbed raw. "Isn't he? That's what they'll say. That he's going to be someone."

"Yes."

"He's six."

"I know."

"I don't want him to be great. I want him to be here." Her hand found Ala's and gripped it hard. "Why don't I get to want that?"

Ala could not answer. She stood there with her friend's fingers crushing hers, and underneath the grief, a mocking voice in her head whispered.

Tomas will be great.

And you are the one left behind, still waiting for a gift that never comes.

She winced , hoping no one heard her thoughts.

When she finally let go of Maren's hand and turned to leave, she saw her father at the end of the lane.

Davin was standing at the corner, still in his leather apron, soot on his forearms. He must have run all the way from the forge. His chest rose and fell. He had not come for the family whose child was just taken away.

He was looking at her. And in his face, for the first time ever , she saw naked fear.