On the morning of Day eighty-nine, the sun rose into a sky the color of cold steel. Frost lay thick across Coldwork Bench, turning the cleared limestone treads into gleaming ribbons of pale silver that caught the early light.
Kezra Venn walked the final proof circuit along the third and highest northern bedrock step, her knotted hemp outer edge cord trailing behind her like a land-mapper’s leash. Beside her, Fellis Dain carried the transit staff. Meanwhile, Brenn and Oakhart followed with the heavy iron rock-bars, ready to lever away any stray fragment of frost-spalled shale.
The mood among the crew was floating. Two days of exhausting, back-breaking labor had cleared twelve tons of talus from the second step and cut the western retaining wall. All one thousand and twenty-four paces of outer edge had been paced, plumbed, and logged. The underground check drifts at one hundred and twenty-eight paces had answered with flawless crushing deep ring.
They were less than an hour away from opening the bonded notebook and striking the corner anchors.
Then Kezra’s left boot toe caught on a blocked path.
She stumbled, dropping her balance point to avoid sliding down the fifteen-foot drop to the second step. Fellis caught her elbow with his good right hand, his heels digging into the frozen limestone.
