Shale thrust her bonewood sword back and forth. She slid in and out of stances, practising quickly and changing forms until her clothes were sodden with dirt and sweat. Once satisfied with her performance, she deposited the sword into the hollow and exchanged it for the bow.

After darkening the target with blackberries, she paced right to the edge of the clearing, about fifty yards back, then nocked a slender arrow, set her feet, and aligned her eye with the target. The bowstring thrummed as she pulled it back and let go. The arrow flew so close to the target that it flayed the bonewood tree of some bark on its flank. One more try, she told herself, as she nocked a second arrow.

A hissing sound washed over the canopy.

Wrenching her head up, Shale saw them to the east. A fleet of dark, ominous clouds were coming this way. With a heavy sigh, she collected up the arrow and left the bow and quiver back into the hollow, before ambling back to the monastery.

She pushed the loose slab free easily. Her arms were accustomed to its weight by now. Then she slid through the gap into the storage room.

Mere years ago, her body went through cleanly, but now her adolescent curves scraped the cold edges. It wasn't a gap suitable to adults, but luckily she was small for her age and her training kept her trim.

Her footfalls were padded as she crept across the corridor, lithe, like a fox. She skipped past the open door of the prayer room, then spun around the corner, ready to dart up the stairway. But she drew to an abrupt halt as she came face to face with the one person she wanted to avoid most in all of Yim.

SanMother Zeera cradled a steaming clay cup to her chest and glared. "Stupid girl. You almost made me spill that."

"I'm sorry, SanMother."

"No, you would've known sorry had you scalded me. What's my policy on punishment?"

"That the punishment will fit the crime elevenfold."

"As the Gods intended."

"Yes, SanMother. Of course, SanMother. I apologise for being so hasty, San-"

As Shale attempted to sidle past, Zeera caught her forearm and pulled her close. Her breath wreaked of cloves. "You are drenched to the bone, girl, and is that mud on your shift? Where have you been?"

"I was in the yard," she replied promptly. "I like the early morning air. But I was caught in the downpour."

Zeera's cheeks twisted, as if sucking on a particularly bitter lemon rind. "You couldn't have gotten soaked so quickly."

"The rain was only light at first. I liked how it made the gajips smell. I suppose that's where the mud came from. I didn't realise how wet I was until it grew heavier."

Zeera, who'd never thought much of Shale, seemed to have little trouble believing that she'd simply forgotten how rain worked. "Well why are you just dallying about? Go and get bathed and changed. There are chores to be about."

She had to swallow the desire to inform the senior SanMother that it was barely past dawn. Everyone else would only be getting up, which meant their chores were yet to begin. But it was no use in trying to make the unreasonable see reason, so Shale wordlessly rushed off to the bathing chamber.

It was there that she approached a brass tub of tepid water and began to scrub her skin with scented lye soap, washing off the grime of the forest. She was shocked at how brown and dusty the water became. How did she manage to always get so dirty? Once dry, she dressed in her SanMother uniform, which consisted of a sky blue robe with a dark blue mantle and shawl. The lightgirls ensured the uniforms were fresh each morning. It was one of the small pleasures of the day, to feel the clean cottons kissing one's skin.

When Shale and the other junior SanMothers were ready, they descended down to the refectory, where they broke their fast on oatcakes filled with walnuts and dried fruit.

After that, Shale fetched her dustpan, broom, and duster from the storage room.

In the morning, the lightgirls worked the kitchen and scullery, preparing the food, serving it to the SanMothers, eating their own portions, then cleaning up the mess. The SanMothers took the prayer room, overseeing morning prayers and ceremonies. Shale's role, however, was more specialised. Most of the senior SanMothers simply addressed her as sweeper girl.

Her route started in the prayer room, where she lit the candles that filled the room with the smells of jasmine and lavender. Long ago, she'd found such smells pleasant, but now they made her skin crawl with the association of years trapped within these walls.

She gave the prayer room a cursory sweep before moving onto the refectory, then the kitchen and scullery. There was no shortage of rooms to clean within the monastery. There were guest chambers, senior solars, junior dorms, lightgirl dorms, the old lightboy dorms, stairways, hallways, privies, bathing chambers, studies, and the library.

Then, even with those finished, that was just the main building. She crossed through the yard, passing the lightgirls tending the gardens and swept her way up the spiral stairway of the belltower, all the way up to the loft.

It was easy to become bored, but over the years, she'd learnt ways to use her imagination to keep herself occupied. The broom became a Salmanian sword and she was Isaltru the Bold, defending the Eternity Bridge from the Sky Crawlers. Other times, it became a bow and she was Novilum the huntress, climbing the Dhadric Spire to face the evil elder dragon Perzanigul.

When she finished with the belltower, she was permitted to study until evenfall. Usually, this entailed concealing a violent book within the pages of a more tasteful one. This ensured no nosey seniors would spot it and realise a fun book had accidentally been hiding in the library stacks. After her study, she revisited the refectory for a meal of rye bread, a wedge of peppered cheese, and a stew of turnips, carrots, and lentils, along with any other pickings from the monastery gardens.

This was a game of odds. Once, she'd been pleasantly surprised by a mouthful of sweet potato, but on another occasion, her eyes watered upon biting into a hard, raw clove of garlic.

After that, she swept through the corridors again and finished the night where she began, in the prayer room. This was where she engaged in her third favourite pastime of the day.

Eavesdropping.

Sweeping her way down the aisle, she drew to the partitioned benches where confessors spoke to SanMothers. It was a well known fact that the best confessions were told during the darkening hours.

A young, muscular man, with hair as black as pitch, was speaking to SanMother Emeari. "So you see, SanMother, I've been telling the girls in town that I'm a descendant of Magizyra, so they would..." He trailed off, too ashamed to finish, but Shale fancied she could fill in the rest. He was telling the most attractive girls in town to do his bidding, else fall foul to his hexes. In which case, he was correct to be ashamed.

In another booth, a middle-aged woman was speaking to SanMother Dairina. "-and Yushir would stay out to all hours of the night. Then he'd come home, a couple of hours before dawn, wreaking of ale and brandy. I'd try to ask him where he'd been, but he's always so full of secrets. So, a few nights ago, I took vengeance."

"What manner of vengeance?" Dairina asked.

"Well, Yushir has a mighty appetite when he comes home. Eats just about everything in the pantry." She rang her hands. "So rather than let justice serve itself, as a godly woman should, I concocted a plan." She then went on to describe how she'd cooked a stew filled with special ingredients procured from the cellar. "More worms and dung beetles than you can imagine, SanMother. I left it in the pantry and when Yushir came home, he slopped it right up. Then the worst happened."

"He retched?"

"No, SanMother. He asked for a second helping."

Shale veered away from the conversation quickly. She was shaking. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to quell the laughter.

Soon, she approached the altar, where within eleven marbled alcoves stood alabaster statues to each of the Hekkari Gods.

As she dusted, she listened to the closest booth, where SanMother Alora was speaking to a man in conspiratorial whispers. The golden-haired girl was the same age as Shale. She could be a bit too pious at times, but she had a good heart. She even laughed and jested occasionally, which was a rare sound within these walls since the lightboys had left.

The man she spoke to was a farmer. That much was clear from his grubby skin, thick hillman accent, and large calloused hands. "I tell you, SanMother, things just feel all wrong about it."

"How so?"

"It was odd." He sniffled. "Jaspris was eating food by the trough. Never seen someone so small put away so many turnips and potatoes. But he just kept gettin' skinnier."

"Some sicknesses deprive the body of the nourishment of food."

"And I could well believe that, SanMother. In fact, that were my very first thought. I took him to every physician this side of Yern, but all of them told me the same thing; that the boy was in the finest lick of health. One even accused me of starving the boy myself."

"No man, no matter how educated, is privy to all the workings of the world." Alora lay a delicate hand upon his balled fists. "The Eleven are mysterious. There are some sicknesses which perplex even the wisest of physicians."

Bending and ducking her head into the alcove, Shale began polishing one of those mysterious Gods now. Sadly, Talquiras, God of War, had been one of the busiest of the Eleven throughout history. Though not quite as busy as the last one in the row, Oszila, God of Death.

"I know that too, SanMother. Maybe you'd had to have seen him for yourself. Were he just changing on the outside, I'd have believed that. But he were..."

"Changing on the inside?"

He nodded. "He were a kindly boy, if a little odd. The sort that were shy around people, but loved animals." The corners of the farmer's eyes wrinkled as he chuckled. "I remember one night, finding him asleep in the pen next to the pigs. Oattie were his favourite. Would just sit and rub his belly for hours."

"What changed?"

"Instead of petting and hugging the pigs, he'd yell at em and sometimes hit em. When I caught him, I gave him a good telling off, then he snarled at me. It's hard to tell it, SanMother, but the eyes he looked at me with were other eyes, like animal eyes, but worse. Like something wore his skin in those times and he weren't his-self anymore."

"Some sicknesses can even alter the pers-"

"It were no bloody sickness!"

The farmer's voice rang through the prayer room. A few SanMothers glanced to Alora's booth, checking for the signal to call for assistance, but the golden-haired SanMother raised an open palm to indicate she had the situation under control.

But her demeanour had changed. Even the kindest people have their limits and now her expression was cold and humourless.

"Sorry, SanMother." The farmer rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That were not proper of me. S'pose recent times have changed me too."

"That's quite understandable. Do go on."

"I just need you to know. I thought this were the best place to explain such things. It was an old evil. Maybe the oldest evil there is. If you were there, you'd have felt it too."

"I know what you're getting at. You believe it was the Shaedri."

Shale gripped Talquiras' shield so hard it was a wonder it didn't come loose. Had she just heard that right? Shaedri?

The farmer mopped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. "I know how it sounds. Like I'm bloody mad. The old enemy from the unknown ages, risen again. But you live here, in town, with thousands in shouting reach. Easy to be brave. You should hear the tales folk tell in the hills."

"What tales?"

"All sorts. Some tell of livestock gone missing with no sign of bandits or predators. One man told a story of trees appearing in different places from one day to the next. Said if he ever got too close, he could hear them, whispering."

"It isn't unheard of to hear men tell tall tales in their cups."

"Beggin' your pardon, SanMother, but I've lived in West Yern thrice the years since you've been born. I know these hills and I know the difference between a man out for attention and one that's afraid for true."

Shale was so transfixed by this exchange that she'd almost failed to notice SanMothers Zeera and Luriene entering the prayer room together. As they surveyed the area, Shale sank behind Momuria, into the alcove, wishing she too was like the Goddess of Fertility and had dozens of eyes to keep watch from all angles.

"I was in the Ol' Banshee, no less than a moon ago, knocking back ales and telling folk about Jaspris. You know the folk of West Yern, SanMother. Kindest in all of Yim. Wanted to buy me drinks and hear all the tales 'bout my boy. At the end of the night, an old woman comes up to me and tells me 'bout her family dog."

"A dog?"

"Tida, she said his name was. A hound. Tells me he's the gentlest creature that ever lived. More likely to lick you to death than to bare teeth. Wouldn't scratch to kill a flea. Then she pulls up her sleeve and shows me it."

"Showed you what?"

"A scar."

"A scar?"

"A scar as big as a butcher's blade." He pulled up his sleeve and traced a long finger down his arm to exhibit it. "Says she was lucky not to bleed to death, and I well believe it. Says it was just like how I'd said with Jaspris, where he were getting skinnier and skinnier, and they thought he was sickly, until the day he attacked."

Shale shuddered. She peered over Momuria's shoulder to Zeera and Luriene, who were locked in deep conversation while they scanned the room.

"That's terrible," SanMother Alora said, "But I'm sure, as with all things, there is a perfectly logical explanation."

The farmer's face folded, like a building, sinking into rotten foundations. "I'm telling you, SanMother, things just ain't right in these lands right now. Something's amiss. I ain't ever told anyone this, but the day I found him, I followed his trail into the bogs. Some of the pushed down grass was red and shiny. I was already panting as I followed it down to the Burish River. That was where I found him, on the bank." He swallowed hard, his eyes growing distant. "I told everyone he'd drowned, but that ain't the truth. The truth is there was... a hole... in his belly, and blood on his fingers."

SanMother Alora became as white as the alabaster Gods. "Blood on his fingers?"

"Don't you see, SanMother?"

She shook her head.

"He were trying to get it out. Trying to claw out the evil that got inside." The farmer fell forward and wept into his huge palms.

Alora reached around and rubbed his back, whispering soothing comforts. Shale just knelt there, becoming the twelfth statue.