Inside the barn was a broad, airy space packed with the scent of hay and animals. There was an herbal undertone, one that Grae’s nose traced to a broad bench.

Laid over it, hanging from the rafters, were clusters of drying green medicines. On the bench below were all manner of instruments and tools for rendering those ingredients down, from sharp knives to a grinding bowl.

“Don’t bother with that, piggy. You’ll make yourself sick.”

The girl grabbed his arm and dragged him away before he could investigate the workshop; she’d figured out he was intelligent, but not maybe how intelligent. She thought of him like she thought of the kobolds. A playmate she could order around.

And Grae had no reason to correct her.

Better that he be on his way without them ever knowing his real ability.

She pulled him over to a seat on a bale of hay, nearby a pigsty. Inside the sty an ancient, dark-eyed sow with a stain the color of blood around her right eye grunted as she chewed on corn, staring at Grae.

“Ooh la-la. I think Miss Hen likes you, Mister Piggy.” The child sung, settling down to pull an ancient, leatherbound book out of the straw. She seemed to have treasures stashed across the whole of the farm, and a keen memory for just where this or that was hidden; this place was a palace to her.

“Greh.” He answered.

“Hmm. Today…” And she was already on to the next topic, flipping through the heavy pages.

“The Tale of Rhydneth and The Stairs…”

“Are you listening carefully?”

“Sir Rhydneth was a great and wonderful knight, who’d slain every kind of beast and won every kind of duel. The colors that hung on his shoulder-cape were known to mean honesty and bravery; his sword was known to mean certain death.”

She recited the words with great passion and vigor, and somehow Grae knew she was envisioning her father when she described the knight; it was a good fit. With his fair beard cut square around his dark face, the man had a kingly atmosphere.

“He was a king and a poet, a good man and a loving husband. But then came a day of total silence.”

“Nobody needed the greatest warrior in the land, there were no serpents to cast down. Nobody dared challenge a king on his throne to a duel of blades, and so there was no sport to entertain him. His child had fallen ill and he was powerless for the first time in his life, and all his poetry dried up, leaving him a bare bitter bone of a man.”

“He sat alone in empty chambers listening to the sound of his own thoughts.”

“And then from the depths of the silence he heard a voice, whispering his name. Begging the great knight Rhydneth to save them.”

“But when he searched high and low there was nobody there.”

“Day after day, he heard the voice. It told him that long ago, the earth had been sown shut to seal away old and terrible beasts. That the voice had been trapped alongside them. That only the greatest warrior and poet of the age could save them.”

“And that it could only happen on the day the two stars eclipsed.”

“On that day, when neither beasts nor man held the upper hand, a stair of twilight formed. It led deep beneath the dark earth.”

“Rhydneth followed the steps and descended, past the realm of man, and past the realm of monsters. Past the night-star and day-star and into the black beyond.”

“And there he found the voice, but it was only his own echo, dancing in the hollow caverns beneath the earth. It was his own love of glory and desire to be remembered. It was his power and his pride. And as he realized that, the stairway snapped shut behind him.”

“So Rhydneth joined the dark things below the dark earth, and whether he was eaten or became one of them, there he remains.”

She snapped the book shut.

“What do you think the moral is, Mister Piggy?” She asked, her eyes settled on him.

Hubris leads you to bad places, Grae thought. But what he said was, “Greh.”

“That’s right. Don’t listen to strange voices.”

She plucked a fistful of berries from the kobolds, who were lingering nearby, their heads bowed, fading into the background like dutiful slaves. They played the part too well; Grae could still see the whipmarks where they’d been trained for the role.

What did he feel about this girl?

She was intelligent and in her way, sweet.

But she was also accustomed to being served. He could see her now, leading her slaves on days of forced play, never pausing to think whether they too were having fun.

Servitude used the rod and whip to change how slaves thought, how they held themselves, how they lived.

But it also changed the masters.

It was changing her now; her sharp eyes were going dull, missing things that should have been obvious. She had enough left to tell that Grae was intelligent.

Too little to wonder what he was thinking.

“Lena!” Oriole arrived in the doorway, Sarcer slinking behind him like a shadow. “I ah, promised to show you some magic, didn’t I?” He was sweating. The stress of this deception was weighing on him more heavily than it was on Grae…

“Well, why don’t we do that now.” He’d fetched the spell-shaper from the wagon. The brass contraption gleamed on his arm as he stood in the mouth of the barn. Grae looked at him curiously, carefully. He might- if he was foolish- try to strike at Grae, hoping to take him off guard.

It would be a shame to kill him in front of the girl.

“Alright…” She was timid around humans, Grae noted. Sliding her book back into its hiding place, she stomped along after Oriole in her oversized boots and patchwork dress.

As Grae and the kobolds stood to follow, she paused, pointing a finger at Greenleaf. Her skinny arms were still full of bright, tart berries from the woods. "Right. You can give those to Miss Hen, I guess…"