The Lunaris Ledger

From the first page of the ledger of Lunaris Reach, in the hand of Odette's grandmother.

We came with nothing. Rosalind's people had seed and no land. Haldor had a hammer and no iron. I had a ledger and no one to write in it.

So we wrote it down. Who planted, who smithed, who fished, and what each owed the other. Not because we did not trust each other, but so that we would never need to.

In the first year the maize fed us. In the second it fed us and paid for Haldor's iron. In the third we built the bank, so that what a family earned would still be theirs at the end of winter.

A settlement is not made of walls. It is made of promises kept.