The pre-dawn chill over the Saltglass margin was crisp enough to turn Kezra Venn’s breath into white plumes against the dim dark shape of the Spine range.
Beside the dry-stone livestock pen that marked the eastern outer edge of the abandoned quarry outpost, Fellis Dain knelt in the pale gravel, pinning the braided flax measuring line beneath an iron stake. His right shoulder was bound tight in fresh linen, his arm resting in a split-horn sling against his chest. But his left hand worked with the smooth, unrushed care of a seasoned rigger. Every loop of the cord was uncoiled with careful attention to tension. That kept the morning frost from causing the fibers to bind or shrink.
“Sixteen paces along the northern wall,” Fellis murmured, sighting down the length of the cord toward the dressed corner post. “The stonework is dry-stacked fieldstone, two arm-lengths thick at the foundation, narrowing to eighteen inches at the coping. No lime mortar, but the gravity seating is solid. It hasn’t shifted an inch since the quarry masters walked away twenty years ago.”
Kezra stood three paces back, her ash sounding rod resting lightly against the toe of her boot, her bonded notebook open in her left hand. Her fingers traced the clean rag-paper leaves of Page 008. There, the record of her progress was inked in crisp, dark strokes.
