Day 141 took the survey crew beneath the frost line, down into the damp, echoing maze of Stonewake Citadel’s western underground galleries.
Kezra Venn carried an oil lantern with a polished brass reflector shield, leading Yseld Arken and Paxa Sel through the narrow, arched doorway of the broken-grille nook in the lowest courtyard. Two months earlier, on Day 103, this hidden entry had been a place of trick. The forgotten cellar where Kezra had uncovered the five forged drilled shaft profile sheets that Host Cartographer Ulvan Dret had copied to hide the true depth of the mountain fault.
Now, the air in the gallery was cooler, cleaner, and moving with a faint, steady draught. The outside air-flow grille that Kezra and the basin miners had cleared on Day 104 remained clear. She drew fresh mountain air through the lower workings and scattered the foul coal smoke that had once choked the stone-cutters’ quarters.
Along the rock walls, lantern light gleamed on damp limestone ribs, old iron animal fat brackets, and ancient chisel grooves left by the miners who had hollowed out these galleries two ages ago. But what struck Kezra most forcibly was the sound. Not the scrape of mining picks or the clash of soldiers’ weapons, but the quiet, hurried clatter of family households preparing to move.
