“Mother—” began Lehr, but Seraph shook her head at him. “Not now. Let’s take a walk.”

Jes was right; by the time they got to the meadow the sun had sunk behind the mountains. There was still plenty of light, but Seraph was glad of her warm cloak in the evening chill.

At her direction, her children sat in a rough semicircle and divided the fry bread, consuming it like voracious wolves, even Lehr. Sweets were not a common treat for any of them.

“I haven’t told you much about my family,” Seraph began abruptly.

“They were Travelers,” said Rinnie. “Everyone but your youngest brother, Ushireh, died of plague brought by a Traveler they took in for the night. And when Ushireh was killed, Papa rescued you when you were a little younger than Lehr and Jes. And you blew up the bakery and Papa said you were married to each other before you really were to save you again. And I know about the Wizard Ancestors, too. They called up the Stalker and then killed everyone who lived in the city to contain it. But it didn’t work as well as they’d hoped. So from that time until this the Travelers have had to fight the evil that leaks from the city.”

Seraph laughed. “Right. But there is more to tell you.” She looked at each of her children in turn. “Understand that this was my decision, not Tier’s. I didn’t want you to know about my folk. I wanted you to fit in with your father’s people, but… there are things that you need to know.”

She took a deep breath. “You know I am a mage.”

“But you don’t do any magic, Ma,” said Rinnie suddenly in tones of complaint. “Aunt Alinath says that there are no such things as mages, just people who are good at making others see magic in ordinary sleight of hand.”

Jes began to laugh. It wasn’t his usual full-throated, joyful laugh, but something low and unamused.

Rinnie looked up at him and shifted a little away from him.

“Jes, it’s not her fault,” Seraph chided gently before looking at Rinnie. “I’m afraid your aunt is wrong—and she knows better, too. She was there when I blew up the bakery—your father was there as well. And despite what you’ve heard, not all Travelers are mages, nor are all mages Travelers.”

“Remember the stories Papa told us sometimes, Rinnie,” said Lehr, “about the mages in the army?”

“Right,” agreed Seraph. “But I am a special kind of mage—a Raven.”

The cool power slid over Seraph’s skin like a lover’s caress as she lit a mage fire in the palm of her hand. When the magic stabilized she took Lehr’s hand and put the light in his palm where it flickered cheerfully.

“Let me tell the story from the beginning,” Seraph said. “There once was a great city of wizards who were arrogant in their power. In the blindness of pride, they called into being the Stalker, a great evil. To contain that evil they sacrificed the entire city, all of the non-wizard residents of the city, man, woman, and child—including their own wives, husbands, and children.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to hear the cadence of her father’s voice so that she didn’t leave anything out. “When the wizards sacrificed their city to bind the Stalker, the cost of the magic they wrought killed all but a few of the most powerful mages and most of the very weakest. The survivors had virtually nothing but the clothes on their back. At first, they thought that would be enough, but the world is not kind to a people who have no place. As the years passed and the people dwindled, the remnants of the wizards of Colossae discussed what could be done.”

She smiled a bit grimly. “Arrogant in their knowledge and power, even with their city sealed in death behind them, the wizards still meddled where they would. The Stalker was caged, but as time passed the bars of that cage would loosen. The wizards decided that their descendants, not having Colossae to nourish and educate them, would not be able to stand against the thing they had created, so it was decided to change their children and give them powers less dependent upon learning. They created the Orders.”

“I’m a mage,” she said. “There are other Traveler mages who are much like the Emperor’s mages who helped Tier fight against the Fahlar. But I bear the Raven’s Order. I don’t need complex spells, I don’t need to steal power as other mages do. I can do things that have not been written in a book and memorized. But the Raven is only one of six Orders bestowed upon Travelers.”

Jes had withdrawn from the family until his face was hidden from the light of magefire. Seraph rose to her knees and stretched until she could touch his arm lightly.

“Peace, Jes,” she said. “It’s not just you—and I’m sorry I let you think it was. Your gift is just more difficult to hide.”

Jes’s gift was so terrible that there had been nothing she could do to shield him as she had the other children.

When he settled reluctantly where he was, she sat back down and said, “I am Raven. But there are also Bard, Healer, Hunter, Weather Witch, and Guardian. But, like Mage, we call the Orders by the birds who are symbolic to each Order because it is less confusing. Ordinary wizards are also called mages, but Raven always means the Order of Mage. The other five Orders are thus: Bard is Owl; Healer is Lark; Hunter is Falcon; Weather Witch is Cormorant; and Guardian is Eagle.”

She watched them closely, but they seemed to be following her words so she continued. “My father told me that once the Orders were far more common. Among my clan, in my generation only three of us were Order-bound, Raven, Eagle, and Falcon. Other clans fared less well—and I knew of only one Lark still living when I left the clans, and she was very old.”

Seraph drew a breath and wondered how to say this next part. “Imagine my surprise, then, when all of you were born into Orders.”

Lehr passed the light across the basket of fry bread to Rinnie and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “But there’s nothing different about any of us,” he said. “Except Jes. And his oddities are surely nothing that would have served the purposes of the Travelers.”

“Nothing different about you? Isn’t there?” asked Seraph softly. “Have you ever come back from a hunt without game, Lehr? Have you ever been lost, my Falcon?”

He stared at her scarcely breathing. “Father taught me how to track, and to remember things so I wouldn’t get lost,” he said tightly.

“Did he?” she said. “That’s not what he told me.”

“What am I, Mother?” asked Rinnie eagerly, staring into the light she held. “Can I make a light like this?”

Seraph smiled. “No. You are Cormorant—Weather Witch. Not everyone knows when a storm is coming, Rinnie.”

“What about Jes and Papa… and Aunt Alinath?” asked Rinnie eagerly. “Lehr is Falcon, and that makes him a hunter, right? What do Falcons and Cormorants get to do if they can’t build fires?”

“Papa and Aunt Alinath aren’t Travelers,” said Lehr.

“We’re only half, and we have Orders,” Rinnie defended herself hotly.

Seraph held up her hand. “Hold a moment. Let’s see. Uhm. Yes. Lehr is right, the Orders belong only to Travelers. Or that’s what I always thought until I met your Papa. Tier is Owl—that means Bard. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, but the only explanation I have is this: the old Raven who was my teacher told me that the Orders cannot be bred for as we breed for certain traits in horses. They attach to someone suitable to their purposes at the moment of birth.” She smiled to herself. Her old teacher, Arvage, would have been outraged at the mere suggestion that an Order would attach itself to someone outside the Traveler clans.

She cleared her throat and continued, “In the Traveling clans, the Owl is responsible for keeping the history of the clans because one of their talents is for memory. But the Owl holds music, too—and music has always been a part of Tier.