Lori stared. "Where did you get that?" she demanded, voice starting to tremble.

"We found it buried in the snow," Rian said, voice low and glancing over his shoulder as if he expected someone there to be trying to listen. "It was near the marker you put down. Had to dig up the snow to find it, since I figured anything interesting would have gotten covered up since then. Dragged the sled, pointed the air jets towards the marker, had everyone stand in front of the sled to keep it from moving and pulled up the flaps."

"Bring it in here," Lori hissed, stepping back to give him room to come in. "Put it on the table."

Rian did as ordered, shuffling in and hurrying to the table. The sound of the towel striking the stone surface made her wince as she shut the door, sealed it, then sealed the rest of the passageway in for good measure. The urge to chastise him fell away with the towel, however, as the fabric pooled around the object it had been carrying.

"At first I thought it was an unclaimed dungeon core," Rian said, sounding a bit breathless. "Obviously it's not, because you've made it perfectly clear enough times that's not how dungeons work, and this was inside our demesne, so if it was a core, it couldn't exist. That left the obvious answer, which is also insane. Completely, utterly insane."

Lori found herself nodding in agreement, staring at the object on her table. Entire surface perfectly smooth, with a sheen to it like clean glass, it was about the size of the beast skulls Lori had turned into shovels, about forty-one yustri. It was a familiar cloudy white, as if it should be transparent if not for impurities suspended upon it. "Yes. The obvious answer is completely, utterly insane."

"Just to be clear, we're both coming to the same completely, utterly insane answer, right?" Rian said. "Because I can't think of anything else it could be except glass, making it a stupidly expensive prank by persons unknown who actually took the time to make a ball of solid glass this big!"

"It's not glass," Lori confirmed, still staring. "It's a bead. A large wisp bead."

For a moment, they both stared at it. Beads, as a rule, were small, lest they not fit in one's bead pouch. The smallest, regardless of what type, was about ten chiyustri in diameter, with the next one five chiyustri bigger, all the way to the largest denominations at twenty-five chiyustri. If one needed to carry more money than that, one just resorted to a monetary certificate.

"Are we… rich?" Rian asked tentatively, clearly trying to put this find into a context he could understand.

"No," Lori said, her mouth seeming to speak on its own as she tried to claim and bind the very concept of the thing in front of her. "The intrinsic material value of a bead comes from how much magic it provides, either to a wizard or a bound tool. It has financial value because of a collective agreement to let it stand as a placeholder for the value of other goods and services. Unless it can be used to power a bound tool, provide a Whisperer with magic, or someone agrees to exchange goods and services to possess it, it's literally worthless."

"You can say the same about literally anything," Rian argued, distractedly. "Beast teeth, shiny rocks, bits of glass."

"Yes." she agreed. "However, those things you mentioned are raw resources with immediate use. Beast teeth and bits of glass are simply a cutting implement usable for making more complex tools to produce more refined resources. Shiny rocks like copper are easier to work than dull rock, with desirable material properties. They have worth independently of the structures of civilization. Beads require those structures to be valuable."

"So… we're not rich."

"No, we are not rich. As it currently is, it's useless to me. We have no bound tools to consume it, and even if I were so inclined for some reason, I wouldn't be able to fit it in my mouth."

"So it's essentially worthless."

"Yes. Utterly worthless."

They both nodded, as if coming to an agreement, letting out a mutual sigh.

"Where in the glittering rainbowed shadow of colored Skykeep did you find this?-!" Lori all but cried.

"I told you, it was buried under the snow where you said!" Rian replied in the same tone and volume. "Just there! We thought it was a rock or a piece of ice at first!"

"How could you find it?-! Beads don't just fall out of the sky!"

"Like I'd know that! No one's ever given me a straight answer on how beads are made except 'the Dungeon Binder makes them'! What did you do!-?"

"Me?-!"

"You're the Dungeon Binder! Dungeon Binders make beads, right?-! So it must have been something you did!"

"If I knew how to make beads, I would have already!"

"Then… then maybe it's not a bead!" Rian suggested. "Maybe… maybe it's something else that's not made of glass that just looks like a ridiculously large bead, but isn't."

"Like what?"

"I have no idea! Maybe it's just something that happens naturally in winter around here, and when spring comes we'll find big balls of stuff that look like beads but aren't! Is there any way to test if it is a bead?"

"W-well, if it were a bead, if we touched it to metal that was also touching a binding, the binding would become imbued."

"What, that simple?"

"Of course. Why do you think beads are never put into metal containers?"

"Huh… I thought that was so they don't get scratched and have their denominations rubbed off…"

"Well, it isn't, it's so that no magic seeps from the beads," Lori said, feeling herself calming slightly as she corrected Rian's ignorance. Having his question answered also seemed to settle him down. Lori forced herself to look at this objectively. It was a question to be answered, a problem to be solved.

"Well, can we test it, then?" Rian suggested. "Maybe it's not a bead and we're getting excited over nothing."

"Yes," she agreed, turning away. "Yes, we should test it properly."

She reached into a storage niche near her table, where she put some of her more recently collected materials. On a pile of beast teeth and claws was a small coil of her drawn gold wire, next to a larger and still secured coil of the same that the smiths had made for her using the rest of their gold that hadn't been used to line the pots. If she needed any more wire, they'd need to make it from copper or one of their other metals.

Walking back to the large allegedly-a-bead, she claimed some of the lightwisps streaming down from the bindings she used to illuminate her room, binding them but not imbuing. Taking one end of her coil of wire, she stuck it through the air where she knew that her binding was. "All right," she said, mostly to keep Rian from bothering her with obvious questions. "If this is really a bead, then contact with this wire will cause magic to seep out and be drawn to the binding at the other end." She set the binding to make it glow, but still held it together with her will rather than imbue it.

"And if it isn't a bead, presumably nothing happens," Rian said.

She nodded. "Yes. Nothing happens. The binding of lightwisps will not start producing light when I touch the other end of this wire to the supposed bead." She slapped down the coiled other end of the wire onto the large sphere.

The binding of lightwisps immediately started producing light when she touch the other end of the wire to the supposed bead, shining on them with a pure white radiance.

For a moment, the two of them stared at it. But only a moment, as it was a bright light. Lori dropped her coil of wire as if burned, and it hit the stone floor with an anti-climactic lack of distinctive noise as the binding stopped shining.

"Um…" Rian said hesitantly as he blinked and rubbed at his eyes. "So… it lit up. That… that means it's a bead, right? Really a bead."

"Yes…" Lori said quietly.

They both stared at the confirmed bead.

"We have a bead," Rian said, sounding strangely numb. "We have a bead bigger than a human head."

"Mine," Lori said reflexively.

For some reason, Rian rolled his eyes. "Yes, your Bindership," he said. "Well, we found it near your marker, so this could be the result of whatever it was that you did two weeks ago."

"That… would appear to be the case, yes," Lori said, still staring at the large sphere. Two weeks ago. When she'd had something unexpected unexpectedly happen… "We need to test this," Lori said decisively. "We need to see if it can be replicated. Or at least, confirm that the suspected cause is in fact the cause."

Rian began to nod. "Yeah, I… I suppose you're right."

A thought occurred to Lori. "Who else knows about this?" she demanded.

Rian winced. "Um, well, there's you and me, of course. There's Riz, who was with me. And there's her friend Navia, who was also there. I asked them not to tell anyone and guard the stairs up so no one can listen in."

"You did?" Lori said, feeling hopeful.

"I did," Rian said. "So either only they know or everyone knows by now."

Lori stared at him. "Well, no matter. We need to go to the edge and test this. Come on, and tell the two to come along as well." She grabbed her staff and headed for the door.

"If we're going outside the demesne, you'll need your winter robe," Rian reminded her.

Lori spun around. "I know that," she said, grabbing her winter robe from where it was folded among her other clothes.

"Of course, your Bindership."

––––––––––––––––––

Riding the sled had been annoyingly cramped. Rian had insisted that she hold on to Riz from behind. Lori had been disinclined, simply sitting back with her legs crossed and leaning on the headboard at the back. Riz's friend stood on the runners and held on to the headboard's handles, a large bundle on her back and a hook handing from her belt.

After the second time Lori had almost fallen off because of an unexpected change in elevation—the snow was not as flat as it seemed—she'd reluctantly laid hands on the woman in front of her, glaring at the dark pink hair so close to her face. The spears, bow, quiver, and her staff that had been laid and lashed securely to the bed of the sled underneath them were uncomfortable bumps on her posterior.

They followed the path of the river, whose surface had frozen over and been covered by more than a pace of snow. It reminded Lori of going down one of the wide main roads of Taniar, except it was completely bereft of people, wagons, steam drivers, and riding beasts…

Actually, that meant it was absolutely nothing like going down the wide roads of Taniar.

They moved quickly, especially after Lori found their pace too slow and greatly increased the output of the air jets. The trees on either side of the river whipped past them at speed, many of them leafless, although there were occasional stretches of tall pointy trees that still seemed to have their foliage.

When they neared the edge of the demesne, Riz let go of Rian with one hand and pointedly poked at Rian's back with two fingers. "Slow down, we're almost there," she said. The sounds of the air jets had long been muffled by a binding Lori had placed on them, since she was not going to endure that din when it was occurring within arms-length of her.

"Got it!" Rian acknowledged. He did something, and the muffled sounds of the air jet grew noticeably louder as Lori suddenly felt a strong, almost physical wind blowing up on her side. She glanced sideways and saw that the air jet flaps had dropped, all the air now directed upwards. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but it eventually became apparent that the sled was slowing down.

"Stop the sled!" Lori ordered as they approached where she could feel her awareness of the wisps ending. "We're here!"

"Navia, drop the anchor!" Rian called.

"Yes, Lord Rian!" the woman standing behind Lori said. A few moments later, the sled shuddered and began to slow greatly. Thankfully, they didn't actually go over the edge of the demesne, coming to a stop a few steps away from it.

"Careful," Rian warned her as Lori let go of Riz and shuffled back so she'd have enough space to get off the sled. "The snow's pretty deep here. We'll need the snow pads if we're going to be walking on it."

Lori frowned at him. "Snow pads?" she said as she swung one leg out over the side of the sled. It started to skink down into the snow and kept sinking. Lori pulled it back out.

"Yes, the snow pads," Rian said patiently. "I take it you don't have snow where you used to live?"

"We had snow," Lori said, "It was just never this deep."

"Then please believe me, you're going to need the snow pads."

After a struggle putting on the snow pads—large hoops covered in leather with thongs to secure them to your feet—Lori awkwardly walked out to the edge of the demesne, already forming the binding of firewisps and airwisps to keep her warm when she went beyond the borders. Her staff dragged over the snow next to her, since it was too deep for the butt to make contact with solid ground as she carried a wooden bowl taken from the kitchens in her other hand. There was a burning coal in the coalcharm, and the quartz embedded in the staff vibrated slightly from the lightningwisps bound and stored within them.

Ahead of her on either side walked Riz and her friend, both holding spears ready in case of beasts. The two scanned the trees watchfully. Behind them, just in front of Lori, Rian followed after them holding the bow and looking like he actually knew how to use it.

Crossing the threshold was a terrible surprise, as it was far, far colder than it had been before when she'd gone down to River's Fork, even through the binding meant to keep her warm. She increased the output until she was comfortable, as she stood outside of her demesne. The snow shimmered in the noonday sun, almost like…

"Stop," Lori called as she frowned and crouched awkwardly on the snow pads to get a better look at the snow. No, it hadn't been her imagination. The snow outside her demesne had the multicolored tinge of Iridescence, like a fine powder that had been mixed in with the snow.

Well, at least she wouldn't have to look for any…

She carefully scooped up some of the colorful snow into bowl as the other three maintained their positions. Rian's head was twitching like he wanted to watch what she was doing, only to stop himself and go back to watching out for beasts for a few moments before being tempted to look again. Carefully, Lori walked back until she was once more mostly inside her demesne, careful to keep the bowl from crossing the unseen border. Standing inside her demesne, Lori began to claim, bind and imbue wisps…