For eighteen elapsed days after Riven Gate, Mara walked toward her own room.
The road covered two hundred and sixty kilometers through the canyon stages she had taken east months earlier. This time the loads carried no invitation to a place whose current work she could only imagine. They carried her worn clothes, private papers, small tools, and the hammer whose familiar weight had made two different journeys at two different speeds.
Temra and Levik knew the route.
The seven pack animals drank at checked places and ate fodder arranged through the accepted shelters. Food was bought and carried in stages. One hard-weather morning became a shorter afternoon leg, kept within the plan rather than repaid by walking animals into darkness.
Nine people moved west.
Brin was no longer among them.
His absence had a shape at meals. Someone would begin a remark for him, remember the desk at the Gate, and finish it to the people who remained.
The loss did not make his choice wrong.
