Thirty miles north of the market, the red cliffs fell away into the first drowned forest. Pei Jing followed its dry fringe for another thirty miles before he reached the last ridge at the boundary marked Black Marsh. Black water filled the space between the leafless mangroves, its surface dull under a film of green scum. He could see sixty miles toward the northern hills before the fog took the rest.
The wind smelled of peat, rotten plants, and marsh gas. He drew a slow breath. The air would have made a mortal cough within ten breaths. He felt only a cool prickle in his throat. The breathing work he had first used in the Mist Peak ice let him close off the marsh air for stretches. He could still feel the vapor when he took a breath.
“Grade Two,” he murmured. Three days was his rough limit, and only if he could sleep in clean air above the fog.
He spread his map on the ridge and weighted the corners. He’d drawn it from Gui’s diary, a royal scout’s unfinished survey, and what he could see from the heights himself.
The outer belt ran twelve miles through mangroves, with shallow silt and sudden drop-offs. Leeches came up around anyone who stood still too long. Centipedes as long as his arm lived beneath the roots. People scavenged there, too, and some took more interest in lonely travelers than in herbs.
