The seeds arrived in a clay jar no larger than a child's fist.
Lysander had heard about them from Arsini, who had heard about them from Maea, who had been approached by a woman from the eastern interior—one of the refugees who had arrived with Shebek's wave, months ago, carrying nothing but the clothes on her back and a small sealed jar she had refused to open. Her name was Nefret, and she had been a farmer in a village that no longer existed. The seeds, she said, were all she had left of her home.
"Wheat," Arsini said, setting the jar on Lysander's desk. "But not the wheat we grow here. She says it's from the eastern highlands, where the summers are hotter and the rains are scarcer. A variety that can survive drought. She's been keeping it since she fled, waiting for the right time to plant it."
"And she thinks now is the right time."
