Ysra kept the north wall-stair at night, because the north stair had fourteen steps and she had counted them every night since the broken gate.
It was a narrow stone flight that went up the inside of the wall in a tight spiral, with a loophole at every turn where a watchman could put his eye to the marsh side and see the lights of Lowgate winking across the dark fields. The steps were worn in the middle from three hundred years of feet, and each one had a small chip out of its outer corner where the first Hold’s masons had dropped a block and not bothered to take it up again. Ysra knew every chip. She had sat on each of the fourteen steps at one time or another, waiting for the bell.
Tonight the count was fourteen.
She stood on the topmost step with her back to the wall and her count-book under one arm, and she looked out through the loophole toward the marsh, where the spring mist lay low and grey over the fields and the Lowgate lamps came and went in it like sparks in ash. The night was cold. Her breath showed in front of her face. She had been on the stair since the second bell, because the north stair was the Watch’s to count on every night of the year, and nobody had ever needed to ask her to do it. She did not complain. She counted the mist.
