In the narrow beam of the shuttered horn lantern, Steward Osen Tal looked older than his fifty-four years. The fur collar of his steward’s coat was matted with frozen sleet from the climb. The purple bags beneath his eyes spoke of a man who had spent two decades balancing secret account books only to watch the entire structure collapse into the snow. Yet as he faced Hall Mistress Soran across the charcoal fire bowl, he didn’t turn his mouth away from the light.
“The eleventh month of the eleventh year of the old registry,” Osen said, speaking slowly and distinctly so Soran could read his lips without strain. He turned three greased leaves of his sheepskin book to a page where the faded storehouse entries stood beside a transcription he had copied from Archivist Vel’s rescued Balance rosters. “Three days before the Court sent the emergency summons to White Heron Hall, an early winter gale struck the southern face of the Hollow Summit. At that time, Nara Soth had been held inside the Listening Crown lattice for less than four months.”
Across the hearth, Seyun felt the thin silver curve of Place III beneath his chest bone—Nara Soth’s mark—cool slightly against his skin as her name entered the room. He remembered the ancient, one-armed Crown woman standing chained to the black bronze pillar at the summit, her white hair hanging over restraint scars that had been reopened and healed for twenty years.
