Ysra counted the voices. She had counted them every hour since the Hall, in the same order and with the same care, because she had decided on the night of the vote that a Watch who lost track of her own company would be a Watch who had already given up. Harrow, Tallow, Ysra herself, Korrin, Gaunt, Pell, Tamsin, Sella, Brannoc. Nine names, nine seats, nine voices. She had counted them on the first morning past the gate, and at noon, and at the foot of the Caul, and on the switchback, and at every milestone of the road. The count had been nine all the way up the slope. Tonight, at the top of the crest, she counted them again, and the number was still nine, and she was beginning to believe that it would stay nine because she had said so.
Then the fog moved, and the reach went out from under them like a sheet pulled off a table.
She felt it through her boots first. The stones of the crest seemed to lose a little of their weight, and then to gain it back in a different place, as if the road had shifted by the width of a hand. She felt it in her wrists next. The Watch’s grip on the sling-strap loosened without her leave, and she had to close her fingers again to keep the sprig from swinging. Then she felt it in her chest, under the breastbone, where the Watch had always…
