The river embankment was a narrow shelf of sodden cedar logs pinned against the limestone bluff by iron drift-bolts.
Beneath the timber deck, the Black River surged in a black, oily clouded eye. It tore past the granite abutments of the weir water gates sixty paces downstream. The sulfur fog had settled into the gorge like curdled milk, thick, yellowish-gray, and smelling of burnt stone animal fat. He blotted out the green copper beacons of the Great Timber Footbridge until they were merely faint, sickly smudges in the permanent night.
The draft coming off the water was biting, sharp with river frost that coated the cedar logs in a slick glaze of crystal-clear ice.
Len stood with his boots braced across two transverse ties, his sounding pole planted firmly between his heels. He had pulled his wool muffler up over his chin. He tucked the ends into his canvas vest to trap what little body heat remained in his chest. Beneath the wool, the violet radiance of his approaching milestone continued its steady, rhythmic thrum. An internal fire that warmed his chest bone. Meanwhile, the rest of his flesh froze in the river wind.
Beside him stood Ivara Quill.
She had unlatched the rear wicket of Nessa Tern’s wooden wall, leading him out onto this narrow upkeep ledge away from the ears of the boy and the former court guard. She stood with her back to the timber stone retaining wall, her empty left sleeve pinned flat to her wool…
