Chapter 15

Through the night, Din joins the bucket line as the Burav estate burns. By morning the house is a gutted shell; servants survive, but no gentry are found. Princeps Seriv reports one survivor: Jalin Burav, badly injured after leaping from a window. Din orders counts of the missing and interviews servants.

A kitchen maid describes a young Tala man skulking along the northern side before the rites, approaching the servants’ door but then retreating toward the gate moments before shouts of fire. Ana notes the house’s covoli-vine should have resisted burning, concluding a potent reagent arson. She also has Din recount forest lights that she suspects were intentional signaling.

Seriv brings a burned valet, Kiva Kozder, who recounts the memorial rites for Zansay on the second floor. Mid-ceremony, every Burav and nearby servant suddenly froze, dropped what they held, and stood staring in different directions, unresponsive. As smoke rose, Kozder heard them “screaming in their sleep.” Jalin arrived from the northern wing, pushed Kozder out to safety, and tried to save his family.

Questioned about unusual signs, Kozder mentions several Buravs and a maid suffering recent nightmares of being trapped. He alone had been away the previous month, returning just before the dreams began. No music or pipes were heard. The testimony, paired with the arson against fire-resistant vine, convinces Din that a conditioning web froze the household as the fire spread.

Din orders a rider to fetch Commander Tauri from Lacanthim to examine the site. He and Seriv agree the web’s involvement is now inarguable; the questions remaining are how the infection spread through the entire mansion and who orchestrated it.