The evening wind rose as the sun slipped below the jagged rim of the Second Basalt Dike, cooling the burning rock and bringing the sharp, pungent scent of mountain juniper from the distant ravines. The long shadows of the boulders crept across the white chalk-stone wash like reaching fingers. That turned the white desert into a landscape of deep purple and cold ash.
Under the canvas awning of the handcart, the small greasewood fire flickered against the dark stone wall, throwing tall, wavering shadows that danced across the dark rock face. In the center of the circle, Kezra Venn laid her Bonded Survey Notebook flat across the cart bed. She opened the book to the master circuit ledger, turned to the fourteenth leaf. Then she dipped her steel ruling pen into the carbon ink.
Paxa Sel sat on the water cask, her arms crossed over her apron, watching Kezra with a steady, cold and exact gaze. Yseld Arken sat opposite her, her climbing staff laid across her boots, her hands resting flat on her knees. Fellis Dain sat between them, his bone scraper resting across a bundle of notched juniper sticks.
“We don’t leave you at the well, Yseld,” Kezra said, her voice cutting through the hiss of the fire with total clarity. “An expedition can’t navigate by turning its back on the map, even when the map is stained with blood.”
