Nine days.
Lian delivered exactly what she promised. Mountain passes navigated in darkness, rest stops measured in hours not days, routes that cut corners off the map that no imperial road ever touched.
Wei Tao rode like he had been born on a horse, which he probably had. He said little and observed everything, and on the third day he fell naturally into the habit of riding slightly ahead and slightly left of the group — a scout position, instinctive, that he had clearly been doing his whole life without anyone teaching him.
Yara rode and worked simultaneously. Three days into the journey she had developed enough channel control to extend her white fire sensitivity outward like a low-level scan, reading the terrain's spiritual texture constantly. On the fifth day she said, "There is a s
