A dull vibration thrummed through the dry salt flats, rattling the iron rivets on Kaelen Vance’s wagon.
After Kaelen insisted on an eighteen-hour roadside rest camp to let his tea leaves settle, twenty-four hours of lazy travel had carried the small caravan two miles past the ancient basalt boundary marker. The flat desert floor had turned from pale grey crust to jagged ridges of violet-tinted brine. The afternoon sun hung overhead like a white brass plate, baking the wood until the pine sap wept from the joints.
Inside his carriage, Kaelen lay on his side with his straw hat tilted over his eyes.
His teacup sat upon an overturned wooden footstool, half-filled with cold jasmine brew. Beside it, Claire Vance’s leather recipe book remained propped open to a diagram of stewed winter melons, concealing the ninth pamphlet of his romance serial.
If Lady Amanda spends one more section weeping over Lord Raven’s cold demeanor, I’m burning this book, Kaelen thought. The man has given her three poisoned daggers and locked her in an oubliette. That isn’t brooding affection. That’s attempted murder.
A soft, golden chime echoed within his sea of consciousness.
Kaelen glanced upward with his inner sight. Floating above his slumbering Nascent Soul, the grey jade face of the Fallow Slate flashed with crisp characters.
