A Mouthful of Dust

Cleric Chih of Singing Hills travels with a hoopoe companion, Almost Brilliant. Together they reach Baolin, a river town where a famine has only just ended. Chih's task is to gather the survivors' stories and carry them back to be kept.

The stories the townsfolk offer are odd ones: royal feasts, desserts made from dust, and the things hunger drives people to do. Each account raises more questions than it answers, and Chih keeps asking.

That persistence lands the pair inside the mansion of a sinister magistrate. Something in the shadows there grows hungrier with every hour, and the way out is not obvious.

This is the sixth novella in the Singing Hills Cycle, published by Tordotcom in October 2025. It mixes oral storytelling with paranormal horror and runs darker than the earlier entries. It stands alone, so earlier volumes are not required and the series can be read in any order.

Chih must work out what the powerful tried to bury before the hunger in the house catches up with them.