To save the living he must wake the dead.
Seanscéal means 'old story'. Like a parable, or a fable, but generally more long-winded. It's like... entertainment, but often with something meant to be learned hidden inside. Not only is it good fun, but sharing a seanscéal is also a way of getting around the not-waking-the-dead custom.
And that's exactly what Ciarán does, three times, skirting custom to explain:
How he won a posting to the Freeman Merchant Academy.
How he and his cat, the mong hu Wisp, first met.
How he learned the Iron Rule and the enduring cost of that lesson.
It's no small thing, breaking with custom. But when the price of ignorance is measured in lives?
Someone has to speak up.

Patrick O'Sullivan is a writer living and working in the United States and Ireland. Patrick's fantasy and science fiction works have won awards in the Writers of the Future Contest as well as the James Patrick Baen Memorial Writing Contest sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society.