Location: The Suhe ford — the alder above the notch; the bare slope below the sheep wall
Date: 12 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Restday, first light
Realm: Lower Realm
The frost tasted of wet stone and iron by first light, and Meifen had been breathing it all night.
It was in her teeth. It was in the back of her throat where the cold had sat since the fires went up under the wall, and every breath she drew through the alder brought more of it, mineral and thin, the taste of a quench tank in winter when the water's gone hard on top. She hadn't slept, and hadn't expected to. Twice in the dark she'd put her tongue to the back of her hand to wet it and found the skin rough with rime.
The east went gray behind the fold. Then pale. The wall came up out of the dark a stone at a time.
The camp lay open to her now.
