Inside the vaulted map hall anteroom, the darkness was total. Kezra struck a single sulfur match, shielding the tiny blue flame with her cupped palm. Meanwhile, Fellis unlatched the heavy bronze check grate in the center of the flat stone slab floor.
Below the grate, a square shaft dropped into the blackness, lined with iron ladder rungs that plunged twenty-nine paces into the foundation vaults beneath the building. From the opening rose a cold, steady draught of air that smelled of wet pale limestone and century-old lime mortar.
Kezra knelt by the rim, her brass sounding rod already unclasped from its quiver, her knuckles white with urgency. “Ulvan’s cooldown is ticking away,” she said, her voice taut as a wire. “We have six hours of darkness left. If I start the grid traversals now, I can sound all twenty-five intersections across the three foundation arches before the sun touches the eastern crags.”
Paxa Sel didn’t hand her a lantern.
Instead, the thirty-six-year-old healer stepped between Kezra and the open shaft. She planted her boots firmly on the flat stone slabs, and laid a warm, heavy hand over Kezra’s right wrist.
“No,” Paxa said.
Kezra looked up, startled and frustrated. “Paxa, we have six hours! If Captain Vale brings her calm distance back at sunrise, or if Ulvan recovers early—”
