The morning sun had warmed the white limestone bench outside the quarry shelter by the time the first storm of emotion subsided.
Maud Venn sat on the bench, her back straight, her hands resting flat on her knees. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen with tears. But her jaw had set into the familiar, granite-hard line that everyone in Kilnstep recognized as the prelude to an unbending accounting.
Davren sat two feet to her left on the bench, his left leg stretched out stiffly, his hands resting on his knees.
Between them on the dressed stone lay the bone-handled scouting knife in its oiled leather sheath.
Maud looked down at the knife for a long moment. Then she picked it up, turned it over in her hands. Then she pressed the heavy leather sheath firmly into Davren’s right palm.
“Take it,” Maud said. Her voice was no longer broken by weeping. It was clear, ringing, and as hard and clean as a fired heavy clay crock.
Davren looked at the weapon in his hand. He felt the familiar cross-hatched bone grip against his fingers. “Mother—”
“Take it,” Maud repeated, closing his fingers around the sheath with her own calloused hand. “You swore you would come back and take it from my hand. You have done it. You’re alive. You’re sitting on this bench, your heart is beating, and your hands are warm. For that, I have thanked every power in heaven and earth on my bare knees every night since…
