Midnight brought no quiet to the upper passage, only the low, fretful creak of unpainted timber settling into wet lime.
Noll Vey kept his awareness pooled along the flagstones between the new dormitory door and the kitchen arch. In the dark, the fort breathed with the uneven, ragged cadence of forty people who had forgotten how to rest. Every quarter-hour, someone would turn over on a straw pallet with a dry groan, or cough up a knot of grey mine phlegm into a rag, or kick their boots against the wall in the throes of a dream where the timber sets were giving way.
Near the lintel of the western dormitory, a shadow moved back and forth with relentless, mechanical precision.
It was young Bram. His boots were off, but he still wore his torn wool tunic, his bandaged hands held stiffly against his stomach like broken wings. Six paces to the iron hinge. Turn. Six paces back to the threshold. Turn. Each time his heel brushed the doorframe, he ducked his head, his wide, bloodshot eyes darting toward the dark ceiling as if listening for the high, singing hum of the chorus bell.
Fen stood three paces away, leaning his shoulder against the ashlar wall. The young healer had spent eighteen uninterrupted hours washing wounds, lancing blisters, and boiling strips of clean linen. His apron was stiff with dried elderberry juice and zinc ointment, his knuckles cracked with lye, and the dark circles beneath his eyes looked like purple…
