Sect Year 3 · eleventh month · night of day 11 · the thirty-third life: Ammel Gorge, her ninth year
“Let the bridge fall.”
Ysha was nine years old, and the sun had been on the gate post since the first bell. Her father’s tally stone sat on top of the post in a hollow of worn wood, a flat grey stone with notches cut along its upper edge. The notches had been rubbed smooth by more coins than anyone in the valley could count.
Ysha was not allowed to touch it. She was allowed to watch it, and to lift the gate bar when the cup beside it was full. That was the most important work a child could do on the Span, and her father had told her so every morning since the spring.
Her father was not at the gate today. He had gone up the north path to look at a horse with a bad hoof. Her uncle Garrec stood in his place beside the post with the switch loose in one hand. He was the deputy, and the switch was his. He had cut it from the willow at the lower ford that morning, and it hadn’t dried yet, so it would still bend.
