The smell of sour sap and rotting needles hung thick over the displaced grove as the sun crested the high dark grey rock rim. It cast harsh, slanted light across the browning branches.
Forester Bram stood in the center of the muddy gravel square. He watched Kezra Venn wipe the foul black slime from her iron sounding rod. His broad chest rose and fell with heavy, desperate breaths. His scarred hands shook against the leather apron at his hips.
He stepped forward, stopping three paces from Kezra. His voice dropped into an earnest, pleading whisper that carried none of his earlier hostility.
“Mistress Venn,” Bram said, his eyes searching hers with raw, aching hope. “You’re a Reach Mapmaker. I saw the brass instruments in your pack. I saw the bonded book. I know you have the power to move sixty-four paces of earth. You see what’s happening to these trees. You see the black rot in the dirt and the sour sap weeping from their bark. Can you not survey this square again, speak your words, and put them back where they belong?”
Beside the handcart, Fellis Dain looked up from his coils of rope, his young face alight with sudden, eager enthusiasm.
