Kezra Venn shifted her position so the pale amber sunlight fell directly across the second sheet of Corvan’s settling. Beside her, Paxa Sel pulled her test ledger onto her knee, her wooden pencil poised to record dates and medical details with the dispassionate rigor of a surgeon examining an old wound.
“Read every word aloud, Kezra,” Paxa directed quietly. “Fellis needs to hear it, and I need to hear it. An expedition doesn’t bury evidence in the dark.”
Kezra nodded, her right ear catching the steady, rhythmic scrape of Fellis’s pencil on his tally board as she began to read:
‘On the morning after the exchange,’ Kezra read, her voice steady despite the tightness in her chest, ‘I walked out to the horse picket to speak with Guide Arken. She had been in the saddle since before dawn, scouting the eastern wagon track. She rode back into camp. Then, her mount’s flanks were lathered with white bitter salt foam and her canteen was empty. I asked her when the relief water tank wagons from the market wells would reach the crossroads. She told me the wagons were four hours behind on the military road, delayed by a broken axle on the baggage cart. That we must keep grading the chalk terrace for the company barracks.’
