Climbing back up the steep cobbled turnpike toward Stonewake Citadel as dusk settled over the peaks, Kezra Venn felt the cold mountain air burn in her throat like swallowed glass. The wind had shifted into the north, carrying fine grains of ice that stung her cheeks and rattled against the oiled fabric of her map case. Beside her walked Paxa Sel, her safety lamps swinging rhythmically against her woolen skirts. Fellis Dain, who carried the spare coils of hemp line over his uninjured right shoulder with the quiet, uncomplaining endurance of an upland apprentice. Yseld Arken brought up the rear, her hooked staff clicking against the frozen flat stone slabs at every third pace.
Kezra looked up at the towering dark shape of the castle keep. An hour earlier, as she had helped tie the reduced ration sacks in the seed store, she had realized how profoundly her understanding of leadership had changed over the one hundred and four days since she had awakened her class beneath Kilnstep’s drying shed. She had first set out on this journey. Then, she had secretly believed that leadership meant shielding everyone from hardship. Taking the entire burden of suffering upon her own shoulders, earning the tearful thanks of the rescued, and feeling a secret, noble agony whenever things went wrong.
