Midnight had long since settled over the high basin of Alderfast. In the great hearth at the southern end of the common hall, the split-billet birch logs had burned down to a deep bed of glowing scarlet embers, throwing a warm, copper wash across the wide frame stand table and the timber rafters above. Outside, the night wind dropped out of the high cliffs, whispering down the garden terraces and rustling the dry reed straw roof of the drying sheds.
Kezra Venn sat on the low bench beside the stone hearth, her woolen stockings drawn close to the blasting heat. Across her knees lay her ordinary paper route book, bound in plain gray linen, its margins filled with pencil offsets, compass bearings, and water-level readings taken over seven days of waiting out her class lock. The seven-day global cooldown from her second Quarter exchange had finally expired at dusk. Her bonded survey notebook rested in its waxed calfskin envelope inside her coat, cool, silent, and steady, its internal channels open and ready once more.
Across the hearth bench, her younger brother Davren stretched his left leg out toward the hearthstones. The boiled-leather and iron-hinged brace around his crushed knee creaked faintly as he shifted his weight. His carved ash walking stick—bearing the split triangle with the shortened upper stroke that marked an uncertain, unchecked path—leaned against the stonework within arm’s reach.
