With my Ill Gift, I thought, I drew, I experimented. His body took my quandaries and put them to great use. I pulled his voice from his teeth, his claws from his paws, which became so swollen and tender they couldn't bear a pen. One may think it debased, but in those days, I sold my body, my wavering youth, for the luxury of it all. I sold an inch at a time, a vengeance, a curse. It was to the other Kel, for the most part, those with a bone to pick. A rival they wanted gone, a Clan usurper, a lover’s lover. I did away with it for them, and they became loyal. Mostly from fear: when they haggled with me over the cost of venereal disease as if it were fresh fish, then what else could they hide? I got more secrets, more treachery from them than the Head of Gendarme could with a rack or pliers. And they came to me all willingly.

Ablation, scars, mental ruin — I have wrought it all. Fitting tricks and punishments. It is not isdta — these are secret atonements for secret crimes. Isdta is a myth — there is no such thing as a crime too secret, only those overlooked. It makes no difference, I am not an arbiter. Despite my image, my skill in the Ill Gift, these Kel come to me with stupid queries. It pains me to waste myself on them. So, I have moved on to greater things. I wouldn’t die for the sycz, won’t die for the Tver. I will flout them, these stupid aristocrats.

Kirha is the boy-Kel (or Lord) of the Karhela, one of the three Clans of Oni. The Karhela occupy a dilapidated fort to the west of the city gates, bordering the swamp, where the air is thick with disease and the nights are cacophonous with the cries of toads. From his outpost, Kirha holds throttle over the politics of the city. He is one of the rare few born with the Ill Gift, the talent to work with byohhczi (fouled czi), allowing him to raise the bodies of the dead and cast horrific curses. While the Ill Gift is stigmatized and highly punished, as Kel, Kirha is above reproach. In the last six years, he has built up a network of trust and blackmail amongst the more respected Kel to gain an important place in palace politics.

The Ill Gift, while feared and powerful, demands a terrible price. To exchange in the energy of death and pestilence slowly rots the user from the inside. Kirha has already lost the use of his arms, which hang limp beneath his robes. He seeks a way to heal his dying body before it worsens, and find a way out of his sycz, no matter how atrocious the cost.