Master of Crows by Grace Draven

expected additional acidic commentary about her singing, but he only addressed Gurn.
    “We need rain.  This drought’s lasted too long.  Some of the younger trees are dropping leaves.  If this keeps up, we’ll have little flowering come autumn.”
    Gurn’s normally amiable features went as dark as Silhara’s.  He finished laying out the rest of their lunch and sat down.  The kitchen was dead quiet until Martise, eaten with curiosity, spoke.
    “What will this mean for your orchard?”
    Silhara filled his plate with cheese, bread, slices of smoked pork and small tomatoes from Gurn’s garden.  “A poor harvest for next year.”  He slid the ever-present bowl of oranges toward Gurn.  “Too much leaf-drop means fewer flowers.  Fewer flowers mean less fruit.  Less fruit to sell, less money made.  We starve.”  He wore that familiar, derisive half-smile.  “Good thing I’m a crow mage.  We sell our magic like hourin sell their bodies.”
    Martise didn’t answer.  Everyone knew of Conclave’s distaste for the mages who sold the labors of their Gifts for money.  Silhara’s given title of Master of Crows was no compliment.
    She was content to sip tea and listen to him converse with Gurn and plan their trip to Eastern Prime.  She no longer watched in astonishment while he ate.  The first time he had sat down to lunch with her and Gurn, she’d gawked as he consumed a loaf of bread, half a small wheel of cheese, an entire chicken, five boiled eggs and a bowl of olives.
    She’d expected him to eat more at lunch than he did at breakfast, but he amazed her.  After working hours in the grove, she was starving by lunchtime, and that was with Gurn’s porridge sticking to her ribs.  She didn’t know how Silhara managed to work on so little breakfast.  His scant meal of tea and two oranges in the morning wouldn’t hold a child until midday.  He made up for it at lunch.  It was no wonder the servant baked enough bread for an army and kept a coop full of nesting hens.
    “Have you found anything on god rituals?”  He popped a tomato in his mouth and chewed.
    She paused in buttering a slice of bread.  “Only a few things, and none that speak of defeating one through magery.  The Dalatian chronicles mention a god destroyed by disbelief.  But that took generations to accomplish and the introduction of a new god.”
    Silhara stabbed a slice of pork with his knife.  “Generations?  That’s a luxury of time we don’t have.  I doubt Corruption will be content to wait another few hundred years before seizing control.”
    She nodded.  “Before I came to Neith, there were rumors of strange plagues in the southern provinces.  Crops dying for no apparent cause and famine in the outlying areas.”
    He scowled.  “An impatient god is a dangerous one.”  He steepled his hands together and peered at her over the tops of his fingers.  “Try harder.  My library is extensive.  There must be something.”
    A growl of frustration rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down.  He’d assigned her no easy task.  His library was extraordinary.  A room of shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, filled to overflowing with tomes, scrolls and sheaves of loose-leaf manuscripts.  Some looked almost new, while others crumbled under her fingers, so ancient their ink had faded to mere shadows on the yellowed parchment.  She had no doubt some jewel of information lay hidden in that mountain of knowledge, but the search proved to be monumental and overwhelming.  She possessed a unique talent for remembering every detail she’d read, every conversation she heard.  But she was one woman amongst thousands of documents.
    Silhara helped her at night, when his work in the grove was done for the evening.  They sometimes took supper in the library, with Gurn retrieving books from the high shelves while she and Silhara pored over pages of archaic words, looking for that one ceremony that might aid them.  For all