The sharp report of the closing notebook hung in the cold underground air like the crack of dry timber under a falling weight. In the lantern light, Marshal Solvan Krail’s eyes shifted from Garn’s wrists to Kezra Venn’s face. He didn’t bark an order, nor did his hand drop to his weapon. He simply stood with his gloved hands clasped loosely behind his back. He waited with the terrifying, measured patience of a senior commander who expects civilian artisans to remember their station before he is forced to remind them.
Kezra slipped her right thumb into the leather closure strap of her notebook. She held the thick rag paper firmly against her ribs. She looked directly into Krail’s pale grey eyes, fully ignoring the four armored spear guards whose iron-tipped spearheads were leveled three feet from her chest. Her breath rose in a faint white plume between them. She mixed with the cold sulfur smell of the coal torches.
“If Captain Vale closes those irons,” Kezra said, her voice ringing clear, flat, and steady against the rock vaulting, “my survey of Stonewake Citadel ends at this timber set. My book stays closed, my rods go into their cases. You may seek another mapper to move your mountain.”
