This being the recollection of Irrha of the House of Slayers, apprentice to the Baron Kiiraskes.

[This is so exciting! I will translate as best I can. –Eido, Scribe of the House of Light]

It was a beautiful day at the end of the wet season, and the waters had risen high in the canals such that the Palace of Judgment sat on a limned mirror.

My pilot rowed us steadily between the raised walkways. The banners of the great Houses flanked us on either side of the channel. Nearest to the landing, the banners of Kings and Judgment cast long shadows down upon us. It was through them that our unity was possible, and we were not to forget it.

I had spent five days traveling to reach Riis-Ath-Lodrii [1], and just as long before that receiving instruction in the formalities and proper courtesies to be observed in the presence of the Scribes of Judgment. But I was greeted at the landing not by a formal assemblage, but by a lone thin figure dressed in the layered finery of Judgment's officers.

He reached down to help me up out of the watercraft before I had time to bow, sparing only a moment to dust Ether accretion from my cloak.

"Velask, Apprentice Irrha," he said, in a tone that conveyed I had already erred in some way. "Please hurry."

I was led to a side entrance into the Halls of Judgment, where my escort expertly navigated a maze of corridors that led into a small, unremarkable reception room. We stepped into the hushed silence of stifled argument.

There were two figures waiting for us in the room. The first was dressed in the mantle of the city Peacekeepers and the ornamented headdress of the House of Stone [2].

Members of the House of Stone were the foundation upon which the city's defenses were built, and I thought then—as I still do—that the virtues of that House showed in none more nobly than its Kell, Chelchis. She stood twice as tall as I, her limbs as thick as the support beams above us. I could have believed any number of stories about her.

The second figure was clad in a void-black cloak and a pytha-hide [3] crest. The absence of a House symbol marked her as a Baron of the Order of Slayers.

The Slayer Barons had tamed Riis back when it grew wild and disordered in the first century of the Great Machine's Ether Flood. First Riis, and then the moons beyond our sky, which were often hostile to us. Within the hatchling-schools, the minders showed us shadow-stories of cunning hunters, adepts of the Great Machine, working in tandem to bring down the biggest monsters of their age.

I did not think so highly of Baron Kiiraskes when I saw her—leaner than Chelchis, but twice as scarred—until she raised her head and I saw the gleam of her eyes beneath her cap. There was a feverish cunning in her scrutiny.

"You brought me a hatchling," she complained.

I felt a hot, familiar resentment—and desperation. It was more important than anything that she not turn me away.

"I have been two solar cycles studying," I pleaded.

"I think Chelchis here has carried clutches for longer than that," said the Baron.

Chelchis' irritated tolling [4] would have withered me in my shell, were it directed at me. All the same, I felt a sick humiliation for having been slighted in front of her.

Nearby, the Judgment official bobbed his head in disapproval.

"You have been assigned what you require," he said. "When was the last time that you needed to be summoned out here, that our Peacekeepers could not handle matters? Apprentice Irrha will suffice."

Kiiraskes gave little indication she heard the official's words.
"What is your House?" she asked me.

This moment was inevitable.

"I do not have one." It occurred to me at last that I might have been brought here as an insult.

Kiiraskes regarded me steadily. "We can't all be Kings."

The official rubbed his hands together in agitation. "It will be quick work, Baron. Travel to the farm of Haaksis and dispatch the animal that troubles him. If you require reinforcements, send for the support of a House."

Kiiraskes grunted and turned away. I began to bow and felt her claws latch onto my arm like a star-steel cuff, pulling me from the room.

"Be careful, Slayer Baron." The small chimes on Chelchis' headdress rang softly as she turned her head.

I did not see the gesture Kiiraskes made in response, but I heard Chelchis' amused hiss.

[1: "Veins of Riis," or the Channels Through the Body of Riis. One city of many!]
[2: The famed House of Stone!]
[3: A vicious predator native to Riis. Variks says that these were delicious.]
[4: To click a warning at an Eliksni that they can feel in their shell. I bet Humans can feel the vibration in their sternums!]
[I was going to translate everything very literally, but Variks told me I was "ripping the soul from every word." Please forgive me some poetic license! –Eido, Scribe of House Light]