The hearth fire in the lower hall burned without timber or charcoal, its clear blue flame dancing across the dressed granite of the chimney breast.
Inside the masonry, Noll Vey held his core-awareness at the junction where the fort’s main load-bearing arches met the bedrock. Through the granite veins of the hill, he felt two parties approaching the hall at the same moment from opposite depths of the earth.
From the north, climbing the slick clay stairs of the abandoned drainage cut, came Tessa Dene and her father Edren. Their boots carried the smell of old cedar mold and the sulfurous damp of the lower silver drift where they had just mapped the third collar anchor and set Renn’s watch over the braided oath-silver cable.
From the south, ascending the dry, unmortared stone steps beneath the clapperless bell niche, came the scrape of Sergeant Berr’s boots, the quick patter of Prit’s claws, and the weary, dragging tread of Cale’s damp shoes.
Sella Rusk stood beside the central timber pillar of the hall, arms folded over the iron chest-plate of her ranger coat. She had come in from the river pickets an hour after dusk, bringing the cold valley mist on her cloak.
