The Silt and the Swan
Fen Morrigan has spent her life dragging the drowned past out of the black water of the peat-quarries, until the night she hauls up a bronze bell that should have stayed buried. Its voice calls something old from the silt, something wearing the face of the Hooded Rider, and its first note sets Widow Grella's dogs howling and the Mute Peat-Gatherer's hands trembling in signs no one can read. When Sir Aldred Vane comes hunting the bell's rightful owner, Fen's brother Ewan must choose between the Brothers of the Sundered Order and the sister who raised him. Mabrynn, the seer who should have died years ago, speaks of a debt carved into the stone beneath the swamp, a debt that binds the Morrigans to the ghost of Hesper Vance and to Aelvyn, whose face appears in every vision and every fire. Brother Selwyn carries the only key that might silence the bell forever, but unlocking it means surrendering the order's last secret. As the Hooded Rider closes in and the drowned begin to rise, Fen must decide whether to drown the bell again, ring it for the dead who are listening, or break her family's silence once and for all, knowing that whatever she chooses, the swan will rise from the silt and the moor will never be quiet again.