The admission hung in the small room, heavier than the cold mountain air pressing against the timber walls. Outside, the wind off the high crags had settled into a steady, mournful whistle. He drove dry grit against the outside siding with the sound of scattered grain.
Davren leaned his ash stick against the edge of the mattress pallet, rested his forearms on his knees. Then he stared down at the earthen floor between his boots. The defensive stance he had kept in the yard was entirely gone now, stripped away by the check of his scars and the quiet accounting of his marks.
In the quiet between them, Kezra could smell the damp earth of the floor, the bitter odor of elder salve. The sharp, pine-scented smoke from the single animal fat wick. The shadows thrown against the rough limestone walls flickered and swayed. That made Davren’s profile look as gaunt and weathered as the carved boundary markers along the old military road.
“Do you remember the letter I sent from the High Notch?” Davren asked, his voice low, almost meditative in the dim candlelight. “The one where I wrote about finding three cut steps with no matching stair, and said the mountain passes were opening before me like a well-oiled latch?”
