Two mornings after returning from Ash Reed, Seyun walked out past Oran’s north timber gate along the packed clay wagon track that climbed the low ridge toward Daro Kesh’s compound. The morning air carried the crisp smell of river frost and woodsmoke from the brick kilns along the bank. Ten minutes up the road from the wheelwright’s house where Seyun had rented his room, the dark slate roof edges of the school appeared above a windbreak of bare alder trees.
When Seyun, Ilyra, Mina, and Archivist Vel had first taken shelter here after climbing out of the Ravine of Unfinished Forms in the spring, the compound had looked like a place waiting to collapse into the weeds. Back then, the Aperture Court had revoked Daro’s teaching charter for refusing to replace his multi-route breathing method with their standardized primer. Three winter storms had stripped a dozen courses of black slate from the main hall’s roof, rainwater had rotted the porch floorboards above the water tank, and only Kes and two other stubborn pupils had slipped in through the back fence after dark to oil the wooden swords.
Half a mile away, Seyun could already hear that the compound was no longer quiet.
