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declared Chosen and given to Boq’urak. Thia swallowed uneasily. Don’t think about it. Concentrate …
    As she rolled up the day’s work, she felt pride in the neat rows of precise letters, the beautifully illuminated capitals that marked the beginning of each page. Thank you, Master Varn, she thought, remembering the first day he’d noticed her. She’d been sitting on her stool at this very same desk, eagerly poring over a scroll, wondering about the meaning of the words and letters on the vellum. Unlike many of the other fledgling scriptorians, Thia understood the theory of written language, if not the symbols themselves. Each time she worked here, she listened intently to all the conversations going on around her, and she’d learned quite a bit that way. Until that day … Her lips curved in a smile as she remembered …
    She had been on this very stool, at this very same desk.
    She was all alone, and so dared to trace the letters with her finger, wondering what they meant. “What are you?” she’d whispered softly, under her breath. “What do you say?”
    As if in answer to her plea, a deep voice said, almost in her ear, “That is the letter om-ee.”
    Startled, she’d swung around in her seat to find Master Varn, vivid in his scarlet robe, standing beside her. The priest was a handsome man, with the typical coloring that betokened Northern blood—like Thia, he was tall and slenderly formed, with dark, dark eyes. Like all the priests and priestesses, his skull was shaven, but he was standing so close that the girl could see a faint pale fuzz on his pate, just like the fuzz that she had to remove from her own head. His hair must be the same color as her own, the color of ashes just before they blew away.
    “And that one there is the letter tyy,” he said quietly. He put out his hand, and his fingers closed around Thia’s, warm and strong. “Would you like to know all of them?”
    Thia had stared at him worshipfully. “Oh, yes, Master!
    What word is that?”
    “That word is ‘ocean,’ ” he said.
    “ ‘Ocean,’ ” she repeated, under her breath. “What is an ocean, Master?”
    “A body of water. Like a sea, but larger. They lie on the other side of Boq’urain.”
    “The other side, Master?”
    “The world is shaped like a ball, child.”
    The child priestess had stared up at the priest who would become her Mentor, her dark eyes wide with amazement.
    “How can that be? If I look out any window, the world is flat, save for the mountains surrounding us here in Verang. If I look out through the pass, to the sea, it is flat. If the world was shaped like a ball, the sea would pour off it!”
    He’d smiled at her, his big white teeth flashing in amusement. “Not only curious, but intelligent,” he said, and the approval in his voice made the girl flush with pleasure. “Would you like me to teach you to read, little one?”
    Thia could only nod, struck dumb with the enormity of his offer. Young as she was, she’d known it was forbidden for the novices to read, but she wanted to learn so badly that she’d convinced herself that she could do her job better, copy better, for the glory and worship of Boq’urak if she knew what she was copying. So they’d met, secretly, late at night, for months, then years, while Varn taught her … first to read, then about the world as he knew it. Her Mentor had traveled as a missionary priest in his youth, and he told her all about his journeys as he’d preached Boq’urak’s scripture and doctrine.
    Thia had learned to be circumspect, to never reveal that she and her Mentor had a relationship outside the ordinary one of Mentor and novice. She knew that revealing their mu-tual transgression would result in both of them being thrown out of the temple, or worse. And she’d treasured every minute they spent together. Her Master was the wisest, kind-est man in the world.
    Master Varn had made it possible for her to achieve her dearest wish—to learn, to