The Council decides that Kira will be taken to live in the Council Edifice and work as a weaver, a decision that infuriates Vandara. Kira carries the cloth both because it reminds her that she is an excellent weaver and because it sometimes seems to speak to her-now, for instance, the cloth tells her that she need not worry. As Kira listens to Jamison, she clutches a cloth that she carries with her wherever she goes.

Jamison argues that Kira should be allowed to stay, both because she is the granddaughter of a former chief guardian and because she is an accomplished weaver. The chief guardian of the Council appoints Jamison, one of the younger guardians, to defend Kira. At the trial, Vandara accuses Kira of being lazy and incapable of doing any work, and argues that she should be left to die in the Field of the Living. During the Gathering, the Singer sings a long Ruin Song, about the rise and fall of all the civilizations in history. Kira has been to the Edifice before for the Gathering, an annual ceremony that every villager must attend. The next day, a messenger summons Kira to the Council Edifice, where the Council of Elders holds a trial for Kira and Vandara. She can’t do much work, due to her lame leg, but she is an excellent weaver. Kira wonders how she can convince the Council to let her stay in the village. Vandara drops her rock, but tells Kira that she will bring her to court tomorrow. Kira saves her own life by reminding them that the penalty for taking a life without the Council’s approval is death.

Matt tells Kira that Vandara, a fearsome woman, wants to take the site of Kira’s cott and use it to build a pen for young children, known as “tykes.” When Kira returns to her cott, the women of the village, led by Vandara, confront her, carrying rocks and stones. When she returns from the Field, Kira meets her friend Matt, a young, rambunctious child who lives in the Fen, a nearby area where the people are poorer and dirtier. Kira’s father, Christopher, was supposed to serve on the Council of Guardians, the group that controls the village, but wild beasts killed him in a hunting accident before Kira was born. Kira has a lame leg when she was born, the villagers wanted to leave her in the Field to die, but Katrina insisted that she keep Kira, because she recognizes that her daughter is bright and good with her hands. Kira drags her dead mother to the Field and spends four days watching her spirit leave. Katrina dies in her cott, or cottage, where she lived with Kira.

Kira lives in a village where the sick and weak are dragged off to die in the Field of the Living after they die, someone is required to watch the spirit leave the dead body for the next four days. The novel begins with the death of Katrina, the mother of a girl named Kira.

Gathering blue book