Dawn of the eleventh day—the fifth of seven dawns on Daro Kesh’s deeper Bronze echo—found the supply cart camped in a dry quarry hollow four miles below the lower shrine, with only twenty-four hours leftover before the monthly lamp-cleaning dusk. The grey light filtered through the dense black pine needles overhead. Then, the pulse beneath Seyun’s right collarbone had grown so broad and clear that every time he inhaled, he could feel the exact shoulder-and-hip shape of Daro Kesh’s Second Corner aligning his spine without a trace of stiffness.
A cold breakfast of toasted barley cake and melted snow. Then, they hitched the grey mule back to the shafts for the slow climb up the final three-mile switchback zone. Here the mountain road narrowed between sheer walls of columnar dark rock where hidden lookouts had been chiselled into the cliff overhangs. Posts built to spot any secret climber long before he reached the staging yard.
Before the cart rounded the first hairpin bend into the lookout zone, Seyun climbed into the hollowed berth along the wagon floorboards so Daro and Ilyra could lay the top layer of dried bitter-reed sacks loosely across the frame above him. That left a two-inch breathing gap behind the front bench where he could hear Osen Tal’s voice and look out through the weave of the burlap.
