The girl was throwing stones at the river when she said it.
She wasn't skipping them — she hadn't learned that yet, and the stones she picked were too flat and too heavy for a seven-year-old's wrist to snap properly. She threw them overhand, the way her father threw feed to the chickens, and they hit the water with a sound like a fist striking a table and sank. Every time. She threw another one anyway.
Her grandfather sat on the bank beside her, whittling a prayer-stick from ashwood. The village of Fenhollow was two days' march north of the Morreth tunnels, close enough that the garrison supply wagons passed through every third week, far enough that the war underground felt like a rumor wrapped in a letter wrapped in someone else's problem. Forty-three families. One temple. One priest who had memorized the Forge Catechism before the printed copies arrived and now seemed slightly offended that the book did not need him anymore.
"Grandfather."
"Mm."
