Claire sat at the main table in the dining hall, between her great-aunt Meghan and Lord Dorran. She and thirteen others sat on the raised dais, served first, and seen by all. Spread across the dining hall were a good hundred or so people sitting at tables. Some of them were related to her. She felt as if she’d never get to know all their names if she lived here a million years, but many of them smiled at her now. No doubt they’d heard how well class had gone with Maen. A couple had already hurried up to her on the way to dinner offering her thanks. She’d almost started believing she was the saviour they needed. She waved at some of them now – there was little Sasha, Blaise and Clothilde’s daughter, and over there, grabbing a hunk of bread and stowing it in his pocket, was her roguish cousin Maet, and three seats past him were Liesel and Toam – she couldn’t keep track of everyone if she tried.

She took a sip of apple juice from the goblet in front of her and tried to be more alert. Her grandfather was telling her about Dorran House’s place in Kelnarium as servitors holding tureens took turns heaping roasted turnip, carrot and potato onto her plate.

“We weren’t always so isolated,” he explained. “We used to send envoys throughout the land, helping anyone who needed us. But for the priests, most had no issue with us.”

“It’s because we don’t worship Brighid and Lugh,” Aed interjected. Claire liked him best of her relations other than warm-hearted Meghan; he was shy and unassuming and had made time to listen to Claire’s questions when they’d walked through the gardens earlier. He winked at her conspiratorially. “We magical users know our powers are natural, not gifted at the whim of the gods.”

“Indeed,” Lord Dorran said. “The common folk make wooden carvings of the god and goddess and we leave them to it. We are left alone, except for the odd mad priest who tries to score points with his makers by attempting an assassination.” He smiled at Aed. “Luckily, I have my brother to act as my faithful double. We look so similar that they attack him instead of me and pay the price for their mistake. Aed is a mean warrior for all his mild manners. But before the Rift, there was a lot more suspicion. It was fuelled by priests who had Selk’s ear in Kelnariat.”

“Selk?” Claire asked.

“He was elected Council Leader of Kelnarium forty years ago and didn’t like the fact that more and more folk were apprenticing to learn magic or work with us in some way. He feared the growing towns around us would threaten his power. He demanded the four learth Houses—”

“Wait, who are they? There’s the Dorrans and the Dream Mages—”

“No,” Gwenivere interrupted from the other end of the table. “We don’t use learth magic like you Dorrans do.” She smiled thinly. “Our magic, anam, is sourced from within rather than from the external elements. It is something deeper than blood, it is in our very souls. Anyone in Kelnarium might have the skill, regardless of their bloodline.”

“As Gwenivere alluded,” Lord Dorran added, “the four learth Houses represent the elements. Dorran House represents fire, Maellwyn House represents water, House Domain represented earth and House Ushanan represented air. The last two were destroyed in the war.” Lord Dorran turned to his brother, who placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You mentioned a war when I first met you,” Claire said. She twisted around in her chair to point at one of the five paintings on the rose-coloured wall behind them. “I noticed that painting last night. Is it a scene from the war?” The scene depicted a battle, the artist capturing the expressions of agony on people and horse’s faces alike.

“Yes,” Lord Dorran answered. “Your grandmother painted it.”

Claire stared at the painting. The style was so different to her own or Suranne’s. If she looked hard enough, perhaps she’d be able to perceive the personality behind it.

“Now this is important, so listen carefully,” Lord Dorran said. As Claire swivelled back around, he continued, “Selk demanded that the four Houses sign the Corpus Treaty—”

“It was meant to be for all magical brethren in Kelnarium,” Gwenivere said, pushing meat fretfully to one side of her plate. “Not just the Houses.”

“Yes, it all stemmed from a bid to regulate the size of magical communities by restricting how many people we could take in, whom we could marry and when we could use our magic without penalty. Maellwyn House, the Dream Mages, the Enchantment Weavers and our people signed the pestilential thing. We thought we’d be able to renegotiate once a new Council Leader was elected.” He sighed. “House Ushanan and House Domain refused to sign. Selk rode to their territory in northwestern Kelnarium with an army loaned to him by the priests to force them to sign the treaty. For better or worse, we made the decision to sit tight, hoping good sense would win the day.”

“Wait,” Claire realised. “This is the war that led to the creation of the Rift, right? I swear you said that, too.”

Her grandfather couldn’t meet her eyes and his cheeks grew pale. “Yes, and Dorran House was responsible.”

Claire let her fork loaded with potato and gravy hang in the air. “What?”

“I’d only been lord for a few years when the split between the Houses over Selk’s treaty happened. Not all Dorrans agreed with my decision to sign it.”

Aed frowned into his steaming vegetable pile. “Kelt was too hot-blooded and hasty. And he was spoilt to boot.”

“Hush,” Lord Dorran said gently. He glanced at Meghan and with a start, Claire remembered Kelt had been Meghan’s husband, Kiera’s father. Was he the man who Gwenivere had compared her to earlier?

Meghan’s eyes bored into the glossy wood of the table like it would rescue her from the bad memories she was reliving.

Lord Dorran looked at her pityingly. “He was the eldest but didn’t have the magical or leadership skills required to lead Dorran House. I was appointed leader, and he resented it sometimes.” He shook his head. “When my brother disagreed with me over Selk, I thought if I left him alone, he’d calm down. I figured he’d talk to Meghan and they’d ride away for a few days, as he’d done over other arguments.”

“Only I was away visiting my sister,” Meghan said, so softly Claire had to lean in to hear. “She lives in Dashun Village, on the coast to the south, two-day’s ride from here. She’d just had her second child.”

“Kelt never told me. I was a fool.” Dorran’s voice broke. “I left him alone with his rage.”

Aed took over. “He rode away. Most of our best soldiers vanished with him. By the time we realised how many had gone, we were too far behind to catch up and talk sense into them. We rode out anyway and picked up Lord and Lady Maellwyn on the way. Turned out some of their people had thirsted for battle too. When we got to Ushanan Manor, the fighting was well underway. Selk and his men, the priests and their assassins on one side, Kelt and his rag-tag gang on the other.”

“More than underway,” Dorran said in a tone that made Claire certain he and his brother had engaged in this call and response before. “Kelt had combined magic with the other two Houses, creating firestorms and earthquakes, rockfalls and windstorms all at once. Selk and his men were killed but there was too much magical energy and it had to go somewhere. Kelt lost control.”

“He was responsible for the Rift?” Claire couldn’t believe someone she was related to could be to blame for such a terrible thing. Now she understood why, if she did indeed look like Kelt, Gwenivere mistrusted her.

“It’s my greatest shame,” her grandfather replied, fiddling with his goblet. “I tried to untangle him and the others he’d dragged into his working, but even with the Saura and her salamanders helping me, I couldn’t save him. The manors of House Ushanan and House Domain were destroyed, their lands now the Riftlands in the northwest.”

“You are not the only person who shares blame for what happened,” Gwenivere broke in.

“Not this again,” he laughed, but there was a hint of exasperation beneath it, as if they’d had this conversation a thousand times before. “Isn’t living in Kelnariat penance enough for you?”

Claire looked between the two of them. What were they on about? How could Gwenivere be responsible for anything? Before she could ask, the conversation flowed on, Aed taking one glance at the tearful Meghan and skilfully praising her baking prowess as dessert was brought out.

Claire ate almond tart, some kind of cheese pie and a pudding studded with raisins and let the conversation wash over her. Around the hall, alcoves flickered with candlelight, casting shadow pictures and, if Claire tilted her head, she could observe the cut of the dark wooden beams criss-crossed over the diners, making high elegant archways. She finally came to admire the enormous painting of a glowing white-hot salamander against a backdrop of crimson flame and let her mind wander. How warm and full and content she felt right now. She thought of her mother back home making dishes to feed the hungry and wondered how much waste there would be from this meal. She hoped Dorran sent it to those who needed it. Thinking of hunger and poverty made Claire remember the camp she had ridden through on her arrival. Those people had looked so pinched and starved.

She waited for a break in the conversation, then cleared her throat. “Who were those people in the camp I saw with Rael? Between the Riftlands and your farmland and villages? I felt sorry for them.”

Meghan’s breath came out in a hot rush at Claire’s ear. Aed shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It took Claire a moment to notice the whole table had gone silent, all eyes on Lord Dorran.

“Are they survivors of those who rode off with Kelt?” She looked at the others eagerly, then paused, noticing the sudden tension around the table. What would her father or Marcus say in such circumstances? “I can tell this is a sensitive subject. It makes sense why you’re angry with them if they were part of Kelt’s army.”

Her grandfather frowned. “Everyone who rode with my brother from our House was killed. There were no survivors.”

“Then who are they?” Claire insisted. She didn’t want to upset her newly found relatives and friends, but she had to know.

“In the immediate weeks after the Rift’s creation, people thought the priests and Selk were justified,” Lord Dorran explained. “It was magic that had made it, after all. Things were volatile, but luckily people were afraid of more violence. They elected a moderate to lead the council. Praine told us to lie low and we’ve done what she asked ever since.”

Claire bit back frustration. Why was her grandfather hedging? He hadn’t answered her question at all. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow. What does the past have to do with the people in the camps?”

Gwenivere sent a look to Lord Dorran, as if seeking permission to reveal the truth. He shrugged, so she elaborated. “Years before Selk, the priests paid commoners a lot of money to form a team of hired assassins to do their dirty work for them, often against magical Houses and those who supported us. When the priests gained influence in Selk’s Council, we were afraid things would get bad, but we never realised how bad until it was too late. Selk wouldn’t have had a big enough army to attack House Ushanan and Domain without the priests’ assassins, simply because the people of Kelnarium had a lot of respect for us, despite the angry diatribes of the few. Praine rounded up the priests in Kelnariat who’d pushed Selk into war and their entire network of paid assassins. They were just as responsible as any of the Houses were. Praine banished them to permanent exile in the Riftlands.” She picked at the edge of a tart. “It’s why the priests have far less power these days compared to back then.”

“And it’s why those exiles eke out the existence they deserve. No one sells to them or gives them shelter. No one speaks to them,” Lord Dorran said with a bitter vehemence that made Claire sad.

Meghan clasped Claire’s hand. “I know it’s hard to understand, but we lost so many in that terrible battle. My husband and my daughter, Sheree.” She nodded to Kiera and Rael who sat further down the table. “Rael lost both his brothers. Those people in the camps are responsible. They started it all.”

Claire knew that some of the people she’d seen at the camps were too young to have been involved in the war. She had to say something. “But to punish even their descendants?”

“We lost two magical Houses that day and ever since magic has been unstable,” Lord Dorran said. “Any kind of major working is a hazard. Not to mention that we users of magic have been splintered ever since. Lady Maellwyn died in the Rift’s creation, caught up in Kelt’s madness before she could pull back. It took all my energy to prevent a second war.”

“Meanwhile,” explained Gwenivere, “we Dream Mages were invited to join Praine’s councillors, a tradition that has continued on with Eidan. As far as Praine was concerned, we’d had nothing to do with the war and she wanted to show she stood with us, so to Kelnariat we went. As to the Enchantment Weavers—”

“The Enchantment Weavers? They’ve been mentioned before. Who are they?”

Dorran answered before the Dream Mage could. “They live in the far east of Kelnarium. While the four Houses used the magic of the elements, and Gwenivere,” he nodded her direction, “has visions, they weave birth, life and death according to patterns only they can interpret. For as long as anyone can remember, they’ve lived in the remote Arras Ranges and after the Rift they withdrew from everyone altogether. I doubt anyone has seen them for years.”

Claire tried to keep hold of the thread that mattered, the camp. “OK, I get that things were tense, and emotions ran high -” she paused at the table’s closed expressions. “Are still running high - but making children pay for the mistakes of their parents is wrong. How many years have they lived this way?”

“Thirty,” Aed said sternly. “And they’ll stay living as they are until doomsday.”

Claire was startled. She hadn’t expected such forcefulness from her kind great-uncle.

She jutted her chin. “Mum wouldn’t like it.”

“Really? Suranne knew about it and accepted the situation,” Lord Dorran said.

Claire thought of her mother donating to charity every week, making food, the sponsor child they’d supported through Oxfam. “She’s had time to regret that,” she said. Tears caught in her throat as she rose from her bench. “I’m going to bed.”