Harth rose from the northern plain like a city that had never trusted glass. Its towers were stone and dark timber. Its canals were narrower, faster, and lined with iron rather than pane. The foundation stone Vesh had spoken of sat at the city’s heart—a massive, weathered block half-buried in the central square, older than any street that radiated from it. Even from the outer waystation Lira felt the pulse beating directly underneath that stone, raw and impatient.
They entered at midday under a sky the color of wet slate. Vesh led them through side streets where scholars in long coats argued in doorways and children played a game involving chalk spirals that made Sela stop and stare. The spiral mark had arrived here too, carried by rumor and by the faint pressure change the limited wound
