The timber platform before the check barn was dead silent. A crowd of nearly eight hundred marsh folk, wagon drivers, wagon drivers, and former guard post sentries stood packed together in the cold drizzle, their eyes fixed on the heavy lead chest resting upon the oak table.
Tomas Reed stood behind the table. His oilskin coat was slick with rain, his hands steady despite the throbbing ache in his scarred left wrist. Beside him stood Old Marta, her trembling hands resting upon the bone rim of her staff, and Hester Quill. She held her open register and a bone paper-knife.
“For twenty-five years,” Tomas spoke, his voice cutting through the damp wind with quiet power, “the people of this delta were told that Chief Healer Alia Sen died of the Red Rot while attempting to cure it. You were told that her final dispatch was lost in the swamp. That her dying words commanded the realm to build these walls and keep you imprisoned behind iron turnstiles forever.”
He reached down, taking the bone knife. Then he slipped the blade beneath the hardened black pitch seal that bound the hasps of the lead chest. The pitch cracked with a brittle, crystal-clear snap. Tomas lifted the heavy lead lid.
