Kneeling on the frost-cold pale limestone flat stone slabs with her thumb pressed against the corner notch of the southeast anchor, Kezra Venn felt the familiar, tingling warmth wake up in the spine of her bonded survey notebook. The sixteen-pace square of the Bare Sorting Yard (Circuit 31) sprang to life in her mind’s eye with razor-sharp earth-measuring care. Eight paces deep into dense, unfractured limestone, bounded on four sides by true-north lines that she had walked and sounded on Day 96. Fifty paces to the east, its approved partner, the Seed Store (Circuit 29), waited as a callable destination.
An immediate Plot exchange was mechanically within her grasp. If she spoke the names of what would leave and what would arrive, the bare pale limestone shelf under her boots would vanish, trading places with the heavy timber-and-granite seed house. The four Cairn Host scouts pinned in the barberry bushes would find themselves staring at a blank, four-foot drop of raw quarry floor. Meanwhile, the precious winter grain bins would be shifted safely behind the stone breastwork where Adra’s archers held the line.
Yet her lips parted to form the opening rhythm. Then, the facing pages of the bonded notebook flared with a dull, pulsing crimson wash.
