60. Her Death Song

Misfa, a chief’s daughter among the giants beyond the Thralls, recounts being barren, sent to war-craft, and then lured by a strange light. She awoke chained and gagged in a stone room where smallfolk pricked her, transferring images from dead men’s skin onto hers. Bavotte, the Fat Man, used costly magic to shrink her and kept her small, hidden for years beneath a rich merchant’s house, manipulating her with incense and soporific flutes.

When the giants rose in a Taking-Up-of-Stones and the ground shook, Bavotte, the Rich Man, and yellow-robed scab-men moved Misfa and a caged white bird through tunnels toward the hills. Bandits fell to a killing book the scab-men carried. Near the cave, giants attacked; poison and magic felled them, but Bavotte overreached and died. His death ended the shrinking spell, Misfa grew, broke her bonds, and in fury slew the Rich Man and a surviving yellow-robe. The cage broke, the bird flew to a ledge and became a woman—Queen Mireya—who remained out of reach.

Too large to leave the cave and without water, Misfa prepared to die with honor, gripping the lethal book that tried to escape and poisons her even as she restrains it. She vowed to fight any who would take it.

Kinch and Norrigal interpret Misfa’s tale: the Guild had provoked war by sending raiders over the Thralls, then fled with Queen Mireya transformed into a bird. Kinch studies Misfa’s many tattoos under witchmoss and recognizes them as “sleepers”—true horses preserved in ink, a priceless living treasury. Norrigal, satisfied, simply says “Good,” then passes out from her injuries and exhaustion.