They found the stone markers before noon.
Three of them, set into the earth at irregular intervals along the eastern face of the ridge — not carved, not shaped, just placed deliberately, the kind of landmark that looked accidental to anyone not looking for it. Aria saw the first one from twenty feet away and felt the second before she saw it, a faint density in the root system beneath it like the stone had been sitting in that spot long enough to become part of the soil's memory.
She pulled her horse to a stop.
"There," she said.
Kael came alongside her and looked where she was pointing. Then he looked at Edran, who nodded once and moved ahead to check the approach. Seren drew up on Aria's other side and studied the terrain with the focused expression she wore when she was cataloguing
