In which Sinit safeguards the clan’s treasures.
I’m always pleased to have another opportunity to spend time with Sinit, who’s one of my favourite characters in the series.
It’s also (speaking now as the presumptuous author of a suggested chronological reading order) something of a relief after the last few stories to have one that says up-front exactly where it fits chronologically.
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In which Aelliana proposes a solution.
Once again it’s Aelliana who gets to make the decisive move instead of Daav swooping in and rescuing her. (I may be labouring this point a bit. But seriously, how many novels are there where that happens?)
I am particularly interested by the part of Aelliana’s proposal which has her paying the blood-price for Ran Eld’s death when Sinit becomes Delm. There are several things going on here. For one, it gives Mizel an inducement to accept Sinit as nadelm, where her mother’s actions have cast doubt on the hope that she might accept as much simply because it’s the sensible course. It also serves a practical purpose in ensuring that when Sinit becomes delm there will be an amount of money she can rely on, no matter how the clan’s fortunes may have suffered in the mean time. There’s also some shifty work going on with the melant’i of the situation. I still don’t think that Aelliana truly owes Mizel anything for Ran Eld’s death, but by accepting the blood-price as her debt she’s making sure Mizel can’t try to stick it to anybody else (such as Daav); and by specifying that the payment will be made to Birin Caylon’s successor, the result will be that Birin Caylon gets the promise of an apology but never the apology itself.
In which Aelliana and Daav communicate.
Now, this is more like it. I’m glad this isn’t one of those stories where the characters drag on in misery for chapters on end over something that could be cleared up easily if they just talked about it.
It occurs to me that Daav’s error is in some ways similar to Aelliana’s error of a few days earlier. Aelliana shut out her comrades for fear of them getting hurt, without giving them a chance to decide for themselves what level of risk they were prepared to accept for her sake, when as it happened they would have been prepared to accept the risk and to point out that the risk was less than fear made it seem; that also describes what Daav tried to do to Aelliana. Fortunately, this time it got sorted out before anyone got seriously hurt.
And in the midst of all that drama, a passing mention of a plan of the delm’s that will become important later. No, two passing mentions of projects of Daav’s that will become important later; this chapter is also the first in which the name of Kiladi is mentioned.