Quill underlined the two words, and she turned back to the class.
"When an Awakened dies, his World doesn’t die with him," she said. "If he had a liege, his World goes to the liege, who can empty it as he likes. But if he had no liege, it becomes an Orphan World. Its Heartstone goes dark, and one year later, the stone breaks, and the whole World breaks with it."
She let them think about that for a moment.
"House Gravemoor controls most of the Orphan Worlds. It’s one of the 10 Imperial Houses, and some of its members have species that can find the coordinates of a World very easily. So when an Awakened dies, Gravemoor usually reaches his World before anyone else. During that last year, it sells passage to anyone who can pay. People go there for three reasons. They go for the beasts, because killing them feeds their Subjects. They go for what those beasts leave behind, because it sells well. And they go for whatever the dead owner left in his base."
Brann Holloway raised his hand.
"Is it dangerous, Instructor?"
"The Arbiter has no power on an Orphan World, Holloway. Manifestations are allowed everywhere, and so is killing. Every year, some first-years go in and don’t come back." Her burned face was hard. "The beasts kill a few of them. Other students kill the rest, because it’s easier to rob a tired hunter than to hunt."
The room was very quiet.
Mav wasn’t thinking about the danger. He was thinking about one thing that she had said, and his heart was beating fast.
The others were thinking about loot. He had heard something else. An Orphan World was full of beasts that belonged to nobody, and some of them were far stronger than anything left in his sea. They were exactly what Seven needed. They were also exactly what his four free seaweeds were waiting for.
He thought of Pell, too. Pell had died with a liege. So his World, his nine jackals and his diggers all belonged to Dorian now.
Then another thought came, and it was much darker.
Mav’s father had been an Awakened. He had been executed as a traitor eight years ago, so nobody had been left to hold his World. It must have become an Orphan World, and it must have broken seven years ago, with everything that his father had built on it.
Mav had never thought about that before, and it hurt.
He raised his hand, and several heads turned.
"What happens to the World of a man who was executed, Instructor?"
Nobody in the room moved. They all knew whose son he was.
Quill looked at him. Something passed behind her eyes, and it was the same thing that he had seen twice before.
"The same thing, Silkborn," she said. "It goes to his liege, if he had one. If he didn’t, it dies after a year."
She held his eyes for a moment too long. Then she turned back to the board, and she began to write the prices.
-----
Tamsin didn’t waste any time. As soon as the class ended, she pulled Mav and Ronald across the Nexus to see the Orphan Gate.
On the way out, they had to pass three men who were waiting at the gate of Wildroot. Mav knew one of them. It was Bram Hollis, the recruiter of House Brightwater, with his rings on three fingers and his wide smile.
"Mister Silkborn!" Hollis called. "House Brightwater has thought again. We can offer you a sworn place, with 12,000 Essence a year and..."
"You offered me a servant contract on the day I arrived," Mav said, without stopping. "My answer hasn’t changed."
Ronald laughed all the way down the Row.
The Orphan Gate stood at the north edge of the Nexus. It was a ring of nine black arches around a square of gray stone. Men and women in gray-green coats guarded it, and each of them had a white heron sewn on the chest. A board as wide as a house stood in the middle of the square, and letters moved on it in dozens of lines.
[Stone desert. Rank C. Potential B. Nine months left. 5,000 Essence a day.]
[Forest. Rank E. Potential D. Two weeks left. 200 Essence a day.]
[Marsh. Rank D. Potential C. Five months left. 750 Essence a day.]
"The price is for one person and one day," Tamsin said. She had already been here twice, and her slate was full. "The arch takes you to a landing place, and it stays open there until sunset. If you miss it, you wait for the next day’s party, and you pay again. The rank is the one that the World had when its owner died. The higher it is, the stronger the beasts are, and the higher the price is. A World that is about to break is cheap, because nobody wants to be inside it on the last day."
"And which one do you want?" Mav asked. He could see that she had already chosen.
She pointed at the third line.
"I want the marsh. Its owner died when his World was rank D, so its beasts are between rank E and rank D. They’re stronger than ours, but not so strong that we can’t hunt them. And it’s cheap for its rank." She took a breath. "It’s cheap because everybody hates it. There’s almost no dry ground, so you walk in mud to your knees. Gravemoor’s own hunters took the owner’s treasure months ago. And most of that World is under water."
She looked at Mav when she said the last sentence. Ronald looked at him too, and he began to grin.
Mav felt a smile spread across his own face.
"Most of it is under water," he repeated.
"I also bought this." She held out a sheet of paper. "Gravemoor sells a list of the known beasts of each World for 100 Essence. I thought that you would want it."
Mav read it standing in the square.
[Bog leech. Rank F+. Found in still water.]
[Marsh wolf. Rank E. Hunts in packs of three.]
[Spear heron. Rank E+. Stands in shallow water.]
[Mire jaw. Rank D-. Lies on mud banks. Do not approach.]
His eyes stopped on the last line.
"Rank D-," Ronald said, reading over his shoulder. "That’s above all of us, Mav. That’s above anything that we own."
"Yes," Mav said. "It is."
He was already wondering how thick its skin was at the back of the neck.
There was still the price. Passage for three people cost 2,250 Essence a day. Tamsin had almost nothing, and Ronald had even less. Mav had more than 20,000 Essence in his Heartstone, but every Essence that he took out of it pushed rank D a little further away.
He thought about it, and it didn’t take him long. Seven was starving for strong prey at home. And he would never find two people who were better suited for this. Ronald’s boars could hold any ground that was dry, and Tamsin’s moths could blind almost anything.
"I’ll pay for the three of us," he said.
"No," Ronald said at once, and his ears turned red. "I’m not taking your money."
"It isn’t a gift. I get the first choice of every beast that we take alive, and we share what we sell from the others. If I’m right about this place, you’ll both pay me back in a week."
Ronald thought about it. Then he nodded and held out his big hand, and Mav shook it.
"When do we go?" Tamsin asked. She was trying not to smile, and she was failing.
"We go tomorrow, at dawn."
Mav looked at the board one last time before they left.
It was a marsh of rank D, and it had five months left.