This time, Radeon did not leave the work to chance. He put Gauge Point, Good Chip, and Spice Cure in charge.
He raised their standards and drilled them in how to discern quality from trash, how to see what shimmer meant and what dullness lied about.
He made them look through the sorted grain by hand and coin by eye until their fingers cramped.
Fay labored at a distance, chopping wood. Her ears stayed pricked toward the lesson even as she was driven to work.
For now, they kept her to menial tasks, axe in hand while her whip was taken for repair.
Fay's harvested wood lay in stacks beside him, still smelling of sap.
He tossed a chopped log up, then punched it, disintegrating it into fine pulp.
Most of the dark skin burst off in flakes, leaving white showing against the linen beneath his feet.
The wolves roamed close with their noses low, circling for a pass, jaws snapping up anything Radeon might have missed. They worked like living sieves.
