Late afternoon shadows stretched across the common room of Splitflint Hostel like long, dark fingers pointed toward the east.
Kezra Venn sat on the corner bench near the quiet hearth, her elbows braced on the scrubbed pine boards and her face buried in her calloused palms. In the small nook three paces behind her, Fellis’s breathing was heavy and slow, muffled by the wool blankets and the smell of warm pine resin. Her inner coat was unbuttoned to allow the damp evening air to cool her throat. But against her ribs, the bonded survey notebook felt heavier than a lead weight.
Guilt was an insidious master. It didn’t strike with the clean shock of an arrow. It burrowed into the hollow behind her collarbones. It whispered that if she had been half a second faster on the rear trail, if she had noticed Senn’s pale hair lingering near the wagon at dawn, if she had never mapped the Kilnstep limeworks in the first place, Fellis would be sitting beside the fire whistling through his teeth while coiling clean hemp.
She pulled her working pad toward her, dipped a reed pen into the horn inkpot. Then she drew a quick sixteen-pace square.
