The campfire on the lower cart-road bench burned with a clear, steady flame, fed by dry cedar roots that Fellis had gathered from the crevices of the dark rock scarp.
Night had settled over the southern edge of the Blackglass formation. But it wasn’t the freezing, wind-whipped darkness of the high passes. Here, four thousand feet below the Knife Ridge, the blasting heat stored in the vast bitter salt basin of Saltglass rose like an invisible tide. That kept the air tepid and thick with the stone smell of dried soda, sulfur, and very thirsty clay.
Kezra Venn sat beside the brass storm lantern, her knees drawn up, her bonded survey notebook resting open across her thighs.
Beside her, Fellis Dain was sharpening his pocket knife on a fine-grained river pebble. Meanwhile, Paxa Sel checked the seals on their leftover water gourds. Yseld Arken stood twenty paces out on the edge of the stone support prop, her dark shape framed against the vast, star-dusted bowl of the southern sky. She watched the dark plain below for dust trails or signal fires.
“Show me the advancement page, Kezra,” Fellis said. He set down his knife and sliding closer to the lantern light. “You said on the Knife Ridge that Plot scale was only the second tier. What does the book demand before you can open sixty-four paces?”
