Fellis sat upon the raised limestone stone base of the roofless survey hut. His wooden lap-tray was balanced across his knees. With his uninjured right hand, he dipped his iron metal pen into his small hornwell of walnut dark oak-ink, recording the retirement of Circuit 24 into his personal travel ledger with neat, even strokes.
Beside him, Paxa was packing her collection trowel and glass sample phials into her satchel. Meanwhile, Yseld leaned against her ash-wood staff. She watched the pale square of mountain sky overhead.
Fellis paused his writing, his metal pen hovering half an inch above the thick parchment. He looked at Kezra, his brow furrowing with a thought that had clearly been brewing in his mind for hours.
“Kezra,” the boy began slowly, his voice quiet against the stone walls of the court. “The class requirements... Does it ever feel unfair to you?”
Kezra knelt beside him, uncoiling a length of clean deerskin twine to bundle her sighting pins. “Unfair in what way, Fellis?”
“Look at what you have done since we left Saltglass,” Fellis said. He gestured with his metal pen toward the western cliffs. “You diagnosed the deadfall trap in the dark when the logging route was mined. You saved the forester Bram under crossbow fire while holding your own position steady. You carried our party across the high pass with a broken hand in the company. You solved the shape of the displaced raised stone road when every drover in the mountains believed the…
