Sect Year 2 · third month · day 8 · the Western Wastes, the milestone road above Sallow Basin
The last standing milestone above the rim had a crack running down its face, and Lin woke with his cheek pressed against it. The plates were grey under the stone. Far down the road a mule complained about something, then stopped complaining, and the wind took the quiet and carried it off across the flats.
He breathed in slowly and let the breath go. Nothing caught under his ribs. Since the edge of the Wastes he had listened for the cough without deciding to, the way a man keeps one hand on his purse in a crowd. He didn’t decide to stop now. He only found, lying in the first light with his face on cold stone, that he had stopped. It was a small thing to notice. It was also the first thing since the grass ended that had not hurt.
The carter took the cart back down the road in the dark. They heard its wheels for a long time after the lamp had gone, a slow knocking that grew smaller until it could have been the blood in Lin’s own ears. He didn’t say goodbye, and Lin had not expected him to. He left a skin of water at the foot of the stone and a sack of dried meat beside it. Su counted both before the wheels were out of hearing.
