The charcoal in Master Ulvan Dret’s fire bowl glowed dull crimson against the morning frost, a thin wisp of sweet birch smoke rising straight into the windless air. The old royal map maker had not moved his boots from the gravel. He remained leaning upon his ebony cane, his watery hazel eyes fixed upon the closed leather cover of Kezra Venn’s bonded notebook as if trying to decipher the invisible thoughts locked beneath the calfskin.
“You speak of thirty-three circuits as if they were milestones on a pilgrim’s road, Mistress Venn,” Ulvan said, his voice quiet, devoid of its earlier academic mockery. “In the capital, in the great war colleges of the Empire, a map maker’s worth is measured by the number of live addresses he commands. A mapper who holds eight active nodes across three provinces can name his price to any archduke. He’s given an estate, an armed escort, and a seat on the privy council. Yet twice in two days, you have stood on living bedrock, called down the royal pulse. Then willfully thrown the node into the ash.”
He shook his head, the marten fur on his collar rustling against his jaw. “Why? Is it rural pride? A stubborn refusal to share power with the Cairn Host?”
