The brass dressing scissors snapped shut on the table with a sound as crisp as dry twig-fire.
Paxa Sel didn’t lift her palm from the green band of Hushwood. She kept her fingers spread across the map, covering the five leagues of dense pine canopy that separated the upland foothills from the sheer alpine cliffs of the Spine. In the steady, yellow glow of the hanging lantern, the healer looked less like a travelling friend and more like an unbending border official examining a suspect bill of lading.
“My contract from the Saltglass station expired when my boots crossed your mother’s threshold two hours ago,” Paxa said, her voice cutting through the quiet shed. “Under the terms we signed on Day 47, I agreed to manage your ear trauma, keep your feet from rotting in the bitter salt marshes, and see you back to Kilnstep with an intact skull. That work is finished. You’re home. You have two ears—one that works like a hawk’s and one that doesn’t hear the bullfrogs—and your weight is only eight pounds down from what it was when you left the quarry gate.”
Kezra leaned against the edge of the pine table, her right ear catching every dry inflection. “I know what we agreed to, Paxa. Master Thane offered you three gold silver coins to take the western courier wagon back to the capital.”
