Cira Vey walked past the massive steel support posts of the border canopy, the heavy soles of her iron-hobbed boots striking the gravel with firm, deliberate steps that echoed beneath the corrugated roof.
For seven years, her mental map of the world had ended at this exact line of iron rivets.
To the people of Highfield, the Black Basin of Rookvale had not been a province of the kingdom. It had been an open grave that swallowed men, draft teams, and postal consignments whole. Old carriers at the guild staging inns spoke of it over hot cider with lowered voices. He tapped their knuckles against the table: Don’t take the south turn past the timber bridge. If you see the dark come down at noon, dump the cart and cut the traces. The clocks don’t turn in Rookvale, and if you sleep past midnight, the thing that wakes up wearing your boots won’t be your mother’s son.
She had heard those stories since she was twelve. She had watched her father, Deren Vey, stand in the doorway of their Highfield kitchen on an overcast October morning seven years ago, checking the strap on his brass courier bell, telling her that the Survey Office was paying double tariffs for urgent high-pressure dispatches. He had told her he would be home before the first hard frost to buy new winter tires for the freight wagon and pay off the mortgage to Master Vance.
