Mourne was the empire's second city, and it was not built to be loved. That was the only reason it had survived.

Solmaren was built on the wound, the way you build on a thing that has bled for a thousand years: close, proud, with the wound hidden under a floor of white stone. Mourne was built on the plain, and the plain looked out both ways. What looked out was the second rank Liora Voss had named Ashe the day of the Harvest: a city where an archivist of the capital would be, at best, a clerk of the records, and a general of the capital would be a rumor, and a rumor in the second rank was not a thing the city burned. It let the rumor live. That kindness was why the city had survived every war the plain had seen.

They came in on the seventh day, and the city did not notice them. Not being noticed was, for Corvin, a kind of death: walking into a city that did not know the door. That not-knowing was the one thing the door had not been since the burning.

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The records of Mourne were, in the old way, a water-tower: the city's memory, built from the same material as the empire's light and kept the same way — fed, drained, and never once in a thousand years asked what it dreamed.

Ashe read the water-tower's ledgers the way she had read the Vault's. Reading was the one thing she could do, and the one thing the second rank did not charge for. Charging for the ledgers was, in the capital, a privilege of the Office; in the plain it was the trade of the rumor.

The rumor had, in the plain, a name: the Pyre's riders.

Yrren had been right about them. They were not on the road for the grain. They were on the road for the two of them, and the two of them in the plain were, together, the one thing the riders were not: the rumor of the song. The rumor was worth the trade, and the trade had brought them, three days before, through the gate of Mourne on a cart of ash-wood. The wood was not the song, and the song was not the wood, and the two of them were under the wood, the lightest thing the riders had not put their hands on in seven days.

The riders had a camp in the plain: a circle of grey tents, outside the wall, on the road to the Ashlands. The circle was not a wall. It was a cup, and the cup was open. That was how the riders did not burn, how they held: with the hand not closed. The not-closing was what, in the plain, was the difference between the empire and the ash.

Corvin walked to the circle on the eighth day. He did not tell Ashe. He did not tell Yrren. He walked. The walking was the door, and the door had been, for seven days, the right side of the road. The right side was not a thing you walked alone. The alone was the one thing the door had not been since Cressen.

He came back at night, and the night was not quiet. The not-quiet was the voice of the circle, the voice of the riders' commander, who had in the seven days been, to the three of them, a rumor in the plain. The rumor had a face, and the face was the one Corvin had stood in, twenty years ago, at Cressen. The standing had been the order. The order had been the burning. The burning had been the village. The village had been the two hundred and thirty — the one thing the empire had not managed to keep in a thousand years: the song.

"It is not your face that they have put on the rumor," Corvin said, to Ashe, when he came back. The saying was the door, open, the way it had not been since the burning. "It is the face of the commander at the circle, and the commander is not the one who gave the order. I gave the order. I am not the rumor. The not-rumor is heavier than the rumor, and the heavier thing is the one I carry."

Ashe looked at him. The looking did not need the saying.

"The child's name," she said. "On your shield. I have seen it. I have seen it since Redmills. I have not asked, because the asking was the door, and the door was not open. Not asking was the one thing I had not, in seven days, managed to do."

The name was Sessa. Three letters. The one Yrren had carried, for two hundred and thirty people, for eleven years, as the one thing the shield did not say: the one the general had not burned.

"She was nine," Corvin said. "The singers were all of them between two and thirty, and Sessa was the oldest of the children. The children were the last taken out of the village, because the taking was by age, and the age was the empire's arithmetic. The arithmetic did not include the oldest of the children, because she was not, to the arithmetic, a singer. She was a person. The empire does not burn a person. It burns the song. And the song, at Cressen, was in the child. The child was not the song. The child was the one who was, before the song, the warmth."

He did not say more. The more was the door, and the door was open now. It was not a thing he had, in twenty years, been able to close. And the closing was not, he had learned, on the road to the ash, a thing the empire's riders in the plain, on the eighth night, were going to do for him.

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In the burning the child is the oldest of the children, and the oldest is not a thing the arithmetic counts. The not-counting is lighter than the counting, and the lighter thing gets further. The further is the road to the ash, and the ash keeps the song. The keeping is the one thing the empire has not, in a thousand years, managed to do.

— Dream-Ledger, entry of the eighth night, written by Ashe Wren, the index of the name Sessa