A leather scout harness clinked softly as Sera strapped two iron daggers and a water flask to her waist.
She tightened the buckles with quick, practiced jerks, testing the balance of her linen boots against the cedar floorboards. Beside her, Deacon Vane pulled a dark hooded cowl over his grease-stained merchant robes, checking a collapsible brass night-spyglass.
Kaelen leaned his head back against the smooth rim of the sunken cedar tub in the bathhouse.
Warm water, gently infused with dried wild chamomile and crushed spirit mint, lapped against his collarbones. The subterranean spirit-spring conduit hummed beneath the tiles, feeding a slow, steady stream of purified warmth through the copper pipes.
Every drop of spring water washed away residual dust and fatigue. Beneath his ribs, his dantian remained placid and still, bathed in the comforting inertia of the True Fallow State.
“The northern mountain pass is fifteen miles of loose scree and wild briars,” Kaelen said through the rising steam. “Do not engage any sentries. If a bandit dog barks, let it bark.”
“I am scouting defense layouts, Master Vance, not picking fights,” Sera said, resting her palm on the star-iron tip of Storm-Pike. “My contract charges double for unscheduled skirmishes.”
