The Collector's Tithe

She remembers every word ever spoken to her village. That is why they took her sisters name first.

Katrina Hart is thirty-seven, the oath-keeper of Ashcombe, and the only person alive who carries the Concord word for word: the ancient bargain that holds the border between the mortal villages and the fae courts. Every twenty-four years her village owes the courts one life. This spring, the life is hers.

The Collector who comes for her is Talan Vey, who has taken tithes for seventy-two years and never once looked back. On the road she saves his life in a flooded river and catches him in a bargain of her own, a life owed at a price she has not named. At court she does the work tithes do, and she is dangerously good at it. She kills a corrupt toll in open sitting just by remembering exactly what was said.

But the Chancellor who rules the Concord holds Katrinas grandmother hostage in all but name, and keeps her little sisters true name in reserve, one spoken command away from obedience. And the Concord Katrina carries from her grandmothers hearth is longer than the one the courts Readers recite.

At the Hearing that ends her season, the Chancellor will speak the Concord entire. What happens when the woman who remembers stands up to answer?