This chapter's epigraph is from a poem by em>Mistress /em> a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistress" target="_blank">Mistress/a> . Mistress says that her desire for vengeance has been with her since she was a child. She was a soldier in the northern part of the continent, far from her village, and she and her brother, Orgon, were the two best soldiers in the world. They killed each other, drank together, and killed some more, but they didn't alleviate the pain they suffered. One day, they will all be "reduced to ashes," Mistress predicts. She and Orgon were married, but Mistress's wife was powerless to stop them from killing each other. She claimed to love them both, but she wasn't powerful enough to stop Orgon from killing Mistress. She also claimed to be in love with him, but her husband was too powerful to stop her from killing Orgon. They were demoted, stripped of their duties, and treated like "scum." Mistress thinks that the sword Mistress was holding when it was set afire was the one Mistress wanted to kill, but someone searched it for clues before setting it on fire, and Mistress doesn't know who set it afire. She says that she could never imagine her thirst for vengeance, Mistress tells her. She tells Mistress that her husband never spoke about it, even though the emperor spoke of it. She adds that it's time for them to honor the promises they made to each other . The climate change would have rendered the harvest impossible, and they would have had to leave the country. Mistad says that the time is right, and that Mistad's sword