The parchment felt thick and cold in Sella Rusk’s scarred fingers, stiffened by the heavy vermilion wax that had sealed its fold.
Standing under the high stone shadow of the gate arch, the former ranger broke the black ribbon with her thumbnail. Tessa Dene stepped close to her shoulder, her hand resting on the hilt of her salvage bread knife, while Prit hovered on the mounting block with his slate clutched against his ribs. Fifty paces down the gravel road, Captain Arda Dorn’s thirty soldiers remained locked behind their interlocked shields, the autumn wind tugging at their red wool tunics. Down the switchback slope, where the trail branched toward the timber slide, dozens of townsfolk from Mere stood watching in the pale, brittle sunlight.
Sella unfolded the folio, her grey eyes scanning the dense, iron-black lines of official script. As she read, her mouth flattened into a thin, grim line.
“Read it aloud, Sella,” Noll called from the masonry of the arch. “Let the stone hear what Lord Auditor Vane paid his scriveners to compose.”
Sella drew in a sharp breath. Her voice, hardened by twelve winters of shouting orders over mountain gales, carried clearly through the gate passage and out across the quiet hillside.
