The desert twilight fell across the Saltglass basin in long, violet bands of shadow, cooling the scorched limestone rocks after the blistering afternoon heat.
On the high rock overlook thirty paces above the caravan camp, Kezra Venn stood with her ash sounding rod planted in the gravel. She looked out over the huge task that lay before them. To the east, the great road deep gap yawned like a deep pit in the purple twilight—sixty-four paces wide. It plunged thirty-two paces down to the dry, boulder-strewn canyon floor. To the west, the white terraces of the salt quarry stretched toward the distant dark shape of the Knife Ridge. There, the campfires of Joric’s outriders flickered like solitary stars.
Behind her, Yseld Arken, Paxa Sel, and Fellis Dain stood in silence. She waited for the map maker’s decision.
Kezra turned slowly, looking at each of them in turn: Fellis, with his sling and his unbending loyalty to the team’s craft. Paxa, with her stern medical pragmatism and her unbending demand for truth. And Yseld, who stood with her climbing staff in her hands, ready to accept whatever verdict was handed down.
“If this were an academic trial at the Stonewake Academy,” Kezra began, her voice quiet, clear, and carrying the calm power of a master builder, “the exam guards would examine Yseld’s service sheet, declare her a security debt, and dismiss her from the expedition. They would sit in their cushioned chairs and debate the moral culpability of a deserting land-mapper…
