Two hours before dawn on Day 44, the silence inside the canvas shelter was broken by the soft, rhythmic clicking of a horn lantern shutter.
Kezra Venn opened her eyes instantly.
Her mind was clear, sharp, and utterly free of the wild fog that had clouded her thoughts at dusk. Her muscles felt rested. The trembling in her fingers was fully gone. And beneath her breastbone, the fourteen completed circuits hummed with a calm, steady deep ring like deep water running under ice.
Fellis Dain sat on an upturned wooden cable spool beside her bedroll. He held a shuttered horn lantern in his lap. His wounded shoulder was strapped tight in fresh linen, his ash staff resting against his knee. Across his lap lay a clean sheet of heavy thick parchment covered in Kezra’s own neat, angular handwriting.
“How long did I sleep?” Kezra whispered, sitting up and pushing back the wool blankets.
“Five solid hours,” Fellis answered with a quiet smile. “Paxa sat outside your tent flap with a heavy club the whole time, ready to knock down anyone who coughed too loud. Yseld returned from the switchbacks twenty minutes ago. Vale’s camp stayed pinned on the ridge all night, watching our decoy fires.”
