Two hours before midnight on the seventy-third day, the expedition crossed the high subalpine watershed divide, three miles north of the mineworkers’ shelter bench.
The trail here was a wide, gentle saddle of wind-packed snow and frost-shattered limestone gravel, perched between two towering peaks of the Spine. To the south, the vast darkness of Hushwood lay drowned in night. It was broken only by the distant, pinprick fires of the Cairn Host cavalry encampments along the river road. To the north, the terrain sloped downward into a stark, lunar landscape of pale stone gorges and jagged fiery chimneys—the high, frozen threshold of the Needlehouse.
They called a ten-minute halt in the shelter of a limestone windbreak to tighten pack cinches and drink cold spring water from their canteens.
Kezra Venn leaned against the pack saddle of the dun mule, checking her body and ledger state.
Her hands, resting on the worn handle knob of the pack-saddle, were fully steady. There was no tremor in her fingers, no feverish flush in her cheeks, and no metal dryness on her tongue. Her stomach was calm. Through her sound right ear, the high, whistling mountain wind sounded crisp, sharp, and clean.
She had aborted the warning count prior to final commitment. Because of that, the class had pulled out zero physical toll. Her global cooldown remained fully Ready, her four active live-site slots were intact. The twenty-third completed circuit she had approved at midday remained permanently recorded in her advancement ledger toward Quarter…
