After composing herself, eating, and seeing to her own needs for a few precious minutes, Jareen sat next to Coir for the rest of the day, continuing his doses of tincture at regular intervals. She piled him with blankets when he shivered, groaning, but at night his fever broke and he soaked his bedclothes. She replaced them with fresh and washed the dirty. Now, Coir slept with some semblance of peace, and so Jareen took herself to bed, finding the light sleep of one who rests while listening.

  After a few hours, Jareen bathed herself in her chamber basin, dressed, and went out to check Coir. Grey dawn light entered through the windows. The archivist was still asleep, though his brow was cool. She held his wrist and counted his pulse and breathing. She used her brass listening horn to hear his lungs. They sounded clear enough.

  From the vestibule, the sound of the maid slopping food onto plates alerted her of breakfast and another pile of murdered vegetables. After setting up Coir’s own breakfast of fried animal flesh and eggs on the little table in case he woke and desired it, Jareen ate her own meal in privacy. The carrots were well past their best. She missed the old dry oranges and limes of the Voiceless dining hall. It was rare to eat fruit in Nosh—at least for those who weren’t wealthy. Scurvy was a perennial problem in the winters, and to ward it off the poorer folk often ate the hips from scraggly roses kept more for that purpose than for beauty.

  Maybe it was hearing her language, regardless of how badly Coir mauled it, or reading the hand of someone from her native country, hearing descriptions of the harvests. Now, she fantasized about the fruits of home, tasting them in her memory. For decades, she had treated eating like a chore, occupying her mind elsewhere as she chewed.

  She heard a rattle of crockery and rose to investigate. She found Coir sitting up. He looked pale and weak as he rummaged through his eggs with his fork. He looked up at her, and his shoulders sagged a little.

  “I will leave you be,” she said. “I just wished to check on you.”

  “No,” he answered. “Stay, if you would.”

  “I know you do not enjoy my ministrations.”

  “Your ministrations are not needed at the moment, but you may be able to explain some things to me.”

  He motioned to the chair she had occupied in the night. She approached and sat.

  “It is not unusual for the slower progression of Seven Isles Fever to have these intermittent hot spells, only to go and come again. They will slowly increase in frequency,” she said.

  Coir passed a hand across his forehead.

  “It is normal to feel weak or light-headed,” Jareen added, but Coir shook his head.

  “It is not about the fever that I wished to inquire. I have read the treatises.” He motioned to a stack of parchment sitting upon the windowsill.

  Jareen raised a thin, white eyebrow.

  “I would speak,” Coir said. “Of your people.”

  “Of the Sisters?” she asked, keeping her tone even.

  “Not those people,” Coir replied, allowing an edge to creep back into his voice. “Don’t be obtuse.”

  “Those are the only people I consider myself able to discuss.”

  “Is it not the role of a Sister to speak and to listen, to comfort the Departing and soothe their mind, to provide relief for their guilt?”

  “It is.”

  It was the whole reason that the Voiceless were sworn to silence on pain of death. It was an old Noshian belief that confessing one’s crimes to a Voiceless Sister would bring both peace in one’s final moments and a lighter penalty in whatever came next. Both the old Noshian traditionalists and the Erthrusian adherents held the doctrine. Yet families did not want the last confessions of their relatives so much as whispered—strange things often came to light. Most of the Voiceless Sisters’ work took place in the Wards and the poor districts. Few cared about the crimes and secrets of the poor. Yet Sisters still attended the deaths of the wealthy and powerful, so the oath of silence remained mortally serious. She couldn’t help but wonder what guilt an academic had stored up in such a short life.

  “The most comfort I could receive at this time is to discuss the Vien people,” he went on. “The culture, natural history, and spiritual beliefs of the Vien have been my chief personal study and interest for the entirety of my tenure as Arch Archivist. I have been writing an atlas.”

  “Is that why you know my Vien name?”

  She was a bit surprised at herself for asking so forwardly, and judging by the way he recoiled, he was surprised as well. But her curiosity was strong, aided by fear.

  “Your Vien name? Why do you think I know it?”

  “You spoke it to me in your fever.”

  “I thought the fevered ramblings of the Departing were sacrosanct to the Voiceless?”

  Jareen rolled her eyes. Some Departing were easier to have compassion on than others. It was possible for a Departing—or their family—to complain about the treatment or care provided by a Sister, but the odds were that Jareen was going to be the last person who saw Coir alive.

  Instead of being insulted by her break in decorum, Coir must have found it amusing, for he chuckled and took a sip from his mug of lukewarm tea.

  “I told you, I have made your people a special study of mine. I have tried to find congenial members of your people in the embassy, only to fail. Apart from the exchange of letters with a few gracious individuals in Findeluvié, expedited by my title, I have limited sources. A certain fourth son of Aelor, Tirlav, provided the most." Here, Coir gave Jareen a pointed look that made her flush. She was thankful as always for her veil.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Do you know him?"

  "Why would I know him?"

  "Are not the members of the High Trees well known?"

  Jareen shrugged.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Perhaps in their own heartwoods."

  "So you are not of Aelor?"

  "You were telling me why you know my name," Jareen countered, irritated that she had given even that much away.

  "Yes. Well. When twenty years ago I found out that there was a Vien Sister of the Voiceless, I wrote to your Arch Sister to request permission to interview you, only to be rebuffed and informed of what I already know—that it is forbidden for the Voiceless to speak in such a way. I attempted to use my title in the archives to arrange a special dispensation, but to no avail, though I have tried every five or so years since, always with the same results.”

  This was all new to Jareen. She had never known anyone had tried to speak with her. If he had tried every so often, then surely he must have petitioned Noreen. She had never mentioned it.

  “I even tried to leverage the assistance of the Vien embassy, and they were quite surprised to hear that there was a Vien Sister. They even thanked me for the information with uncharacteristic sincerity, and they promised to make inquiries.”

  Jareen’s stomach sunk, and she had to intentionally relax the muscles of her shoulders as her heart raced.

  “However,” Coir prattled on, “I heard nothing, and when I inquired again, I was told they had no interest in you, that you were not their concern, and would I please desist from inquiring after you.”

  Jareen frowned.

  “How long ago was that?” she asked.

  “That was in the month of Jars in the year seven-sixty-three,” he said.

  She breathed deep. That was eight, almost nine years ago—too long for anything to come of it even for the Vien. At least, so she hoped. She was glad she wore the veil, but Coir was watching her closely, even as he made a point of playing with his food.

  “That was odd, of course,” he said. “The Findelvien do not believe that any of their people can renounce allegiance to the Embrace of their ancient patriarch, but then they appeared genuinely surprised to learn of you.”

  Jareen held her tongue. Coir appeared to wait for a reply of some sort, and getting none, he took another sip of his tea.

  “Of course, it was natural to make inquiries about how and when you came to be a Sister of the Voiceless. That was no difficulty. The Order does not store its own records for long—they are not gifted at the care of manuscripts, and the Wards are far too damp. So every year they pass their records into the safe keeping of the archives. I located the year of your arrival and referenced it with the manifests of every ship making port at that time. You gave your Vien name to both the harbor master and the Arch Sister.”

  “They did not name me until they accepted me,” Jareen said.

  “Quite so.” Coir pushed the plate away and slouched back against the couch, sticking his lanky legs out in front of him. His shins stuck out from his night robe. They were nearly hairless—unusual for a human man. It made him look even more sickly and pale.

  “Of course, this all seemed rather odd to me. It was not exactly a secret that there was a vien among the Voiceless, and then I realized that it was unlikely for Vien to take any interest in the Departing or those caring for them. That did not explain their later reaction, but when I saw you for the first time here. . . I think I begin to understand.”

  Jareen tensed again. How much did this human really know of the Vien? She thought of the dossiers of letters and how freely the correspondent wrote. It struck her as odd, again, that a Vien would write so openly to a human. Coir must know much. Still, she would not offer more.

  “Why is that?”

  “The Vien embassy may consider me a nuisance. I have always pestered them with my persistence. They even arranged for some of my correspondents in Findeluvié—especially when I threatened to pursue communication with Isecan instead. I never failed to attend any open event hosted by the embassy, and I always tried to meet the Vien ships as they came into harbor. But one thing I have never seen before. A Vien with translucent skin and hair, and eyes like an overcast sky. Your veil does not hide that.”

  Jareen wanted to stand up and storm out of the room, but she would not let this Departing steal her composure. Yes, perhaps she had grown more terse since the plague. Silesh may be right about that. But she would not sink so low as to flee. She forcibly relaxed her clenched jaw.

  “I have read of Insensitives,” Coir said. “Those who cannot absorb power from the Wellspring.”

  “We have a disease, that is all,” Jareen answered.

  “A disease? You do not believe in the elven lore?”

  “I have studied the ways of physiognomy, illness, medicine. Life and death do not come at the behest of hot springs or the reflections of stars. I simply have a disease that shortens my life.”

  “Ah yes,” Coir said, a bite of sarcasm in his tone. “The study of one thing must determine all else.”

  “I have no reason to think otherwise.” Jareen was a little surprised. She would have thought one of the most learned of Noshians would not fall prey to the children’s fancies about the Vien so prevalent in Noshian tales and fables of Elfland.

  “And yet your life remains much longer than those of humans,” he said.

  “So it is.”

  The first sign that a Vien child was an Insensitive was simply the fact that they grew faster than expected and flowered sooner into adulthood, at least in terms of the body. An adolescence that should have taken half a century to reach would arrive in two decades.

  “Do you likewise believe that Findeluvié is a natural phenomenon?”

  “I do not follow your meaning, sir.”

  “Call me Coir, please.”

  She didn’t respond. He sighed.

  “When I say Findeluvié, I mean it in the oldest sense. Findel’s Embrace, I think it would be translated. The power over nature. The climate of your land—”

  “Sea currents,” she said. “Warm waters driven up by winds from the south.”

  “You believe that?”

  “The warm currents are renowned there. Ask your own sailors.”

  “Indeed, I have.” Coir wiped a hand over his forehead again. “I was not always interested in the Vien, not like I am now. It came about through the study of botany of all things. I had a particular interest in the differences in flora between the three major landmasses. The regency funded my research in the archives, hoping to discover more efficient edible plants to import and grow on this rock. We run a deficit in the area of food imports, you know. But climate matters, not just seeds. Growing seasons extend in more southerly climes, but shorten in the north.”

  “Except the sea currents warm Findeluvié,” Jareen said again. "They even call their superstition 'the Current.'"

  “That is the common argument of those who have not studied it, yes,” Coir said. “But if that is true, the sea currents should warm the channel isles and the other nearby shores. They don’t. The unique climate of Findeluvié only extends a few miles out to sea. In the winter, sheets of ice flow down from the north and choke the passage west of the Channel Isles, with howling winds enough to kill a man in hours. Icebergs sometimes flow as far south as the passage between Isecan and the Gulf of Laith. Where is your sea full of warm currents? The sea freezes, yet just onshore, the land experiences growing seasons similar to the far south.”

  Jareen frowned, and then realized she was folding her arms. She clasped her hands back in front of her belly, the correct posture for a Sister standing with the Departing.

  “There is also hot water that flows up from deep below the ground. My people call it the Wellspring and believe it powerful, but I have heard such things exist elsewhere in the world. There are even mountains of fire. No doubt they warm the ground.”

  “Ah yes," Coir said. "Thermal pools and such. They do exist elsewhere, yet snow will lie right up to their edges. Even volcanoes will wear a mantle of snow—so say the accounts.”

  “Just because a thing is so in one place does not mean it is so in another. One cannot map the winds and waters,” Jareen said. “Just because you do not understand does not make it sorcery.”

  “Unless such sorcery is real. Then it is simply a matter of not understanding it.”

  Jareen shook her head. He was determined to believe this.

  “With all that said,” he continued. “You must forgive me. I meant no offense by speaking your name. I was delirious.”

  “There is no offense,” Jareen replied, waving away the comment. “It startled me is all.”

  “I can imagine.” Coir closed his eyes, resting his head on a pillow. “If you wouldn’t mind—I thank you for listening, but I find myself fatigued.”

  Jareen stood. She was all too happy to retreat to her private chamber.

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