Mira Thalvek

Mira Thalvek keeps the Horse-Masters' Ledger with dry hands and merciless memory. She knows which halls owe remounts, which bloodlines are failing, which grazing claims are lies, and which famous riders would be walking without quiet mares bred by unfamous hands. Her rooms smell of wax, oat dust, leather, lamp oil, and rain drying from cloaks. Chiefs flatter her badly. War leaders fear her better. Mira makes glory answer to fodder, and in doing so protects Keldrun from the kind of courage that eats every horse and calls the ruin noble.