Inside the high, vaulted map chamber of Stonewake Keep, the late afternoon sun slanted through the narrow southern embrasures, throwing long rectangles of amber light across the massive oak planning table. Marshal Solvan Krail stood at the head of the table, his arms folded across his dark velvet military tunic, his cold grey eyes studying the four travelers who had just emerged from the depths of his castle. Beside him, Cartographer Ulvan Dret leaned heavily upon his ash stick, his ruined left knee wrapped in boiled leather. His weathered face was tight with nervous excitement.
Kezra Venn didn’t open her bonded magical notebook. That leather folio remained clasped at her waist, its contents shielded from royal eyes. Instead, she unrolled a wide, four-foot sheet of heavy linen drafting paper across the table. She anchored the corners with Krail’s polished bronze cannon weights.
The drawing was an unsparing, hand-inked stone-built cross-section of Stonewake Citadel. It was drawn to a scale of one inch to thirty-two paces. It extended from the courtyard castle walls at zero paces down to the foundational datum benchmark at five hundred and twelve paces depth.
Krail leaned over the table, his eyes narrowing as he traced the drawing. For two years, the Marshal had looked at castle maps drawn by his staff clerks—diagrams that depicted Stonewake as a collection of curtain walls, castle walls, and barracks resting upon a flat, abstract stone base of “solid mountain rock.”
