The small blue flame of the copper spirit-lamp hissed softly in the tight circle of four companions.
Outside the wind-tent, the high sub-snowline gale threw pellets of frozen rime against the canvas with the sound of scattered grain. Kezra Venn sat with her knees drawn up, her fingers tracing the deeply etched copper-plate engravings of Nym Correl’s Needlehouse journal spread out before her.
“Think of what we found in the hollow mountain on Day 88,” Kezra said. Her voice dropped to a sober, steady, unrushed pace that filled the small tent with the cold chill of memory. “We walked through the third gallery of the Needlehouse. We saw the collapsed arches, the dry stone cairns. The rusted iron bedframes where forty stone-masons died in the dark.”
Yseld nodded grimly, her hooked staff resting between her boots. “Archivist Nym Correl thought he was saving them from the siege. He had Quarter rank, he had three live parcels in his ledger. He had a royal charter that gave him power to move the archives. When the mercenary companies breached the lower gate, he carried out a Quarter exchange—moving the central library tower thirty leagues into the high crags.”
“And what did he forget?” Paxa asked, her eyes fixed on Kezra.
