Dusk settled over the Saltglass basin in shades of bruised purple and cold amber.
On the western rim of the newly approved dark rock sorting yard, Kezra Venn and Yseld Arken stood thirty paces clear of the caravan wagons. Behind them, the camp was settling into its evening rhythm. The smell of fried salt-pork and very thirsty meal drifted from the wagon drivers’ fires, the clink of iron spoons against tin bowls mingled with the soft snorting of the picket mules. Paxa Sel sat by the tailboard of her medicine wagon. It rolled clean linen bandages by the light of an animal fat lantern.
Kezra leaned her back against a dressed block of fiery dark rock, her arms crossed over her waxed coat. She watched the first white stars pierce the violet sky above the Spine mountains.
“At the Splitflint hostel,” Kezra began, her voice quiet, steady, and free of dramatic anger, “you looked at the freight stamp on the Host flour barrels and knew the company number before your lantern was even lit.”
Yseld didn’t move. Her scarred hands rested on the cross-wire wrapping of her hooked climbing staff. Her weight was balanced evenly over both boots.
“At the toll booth,” Kezra continued, “when Captain Vale’s messenger handed me that written contract offering paid service and maps, you looked as if you were waiting for a trapdoor to open beneath your feet. And when I turned it down, you let out a breath like a prisoner hearing a reprieve.”
