"I shall endeavor not to be foolish, then."
Grukash laughed and turned away before she could read anything else in his expression. The door closed behind him with a solid thunk, and Verity was alone.
She stood in the center of the room, taking stock.
She was here. She was actually here, in the place she had spent six months maneuvering toward, pulling every favor she had accumulated in nine years at the Archive, writing proposal after proposal. Master Aldric Vane had vouched for her, had put his own reputation behind her proposal.
Finally, the Senior Council had agreed that yes, the historical value of accessing Mountain Clan records justified the risk and expense of sending someone, and yes, Verity Dunmore's expertise in early border period correspondence made her the logical candidate, and yes, they supposed she could go, though they would like it noted for the record that they thought she was probably going to die.
But she had not died. She had crossed the border and climbed the mountain and walked through the gates of Northwatch, and now she was standing in a dead orc's study with dust motes floating in the thin light from the window and three months stretching ahead of her.
Three months to do her official work.
Three months to find what she had actually come for.
Three months to prove herself worthy of the position that waited for her return—Keeper of the Royal Stacks, the title she had been working toward for nearly a decade.
Verity crossed to the desk and picked up Varresh's spectacles. The cracked lens caught the light, fracturing it into small rainbows across her palm. She set them down carefully, exactly where they had been.
Then she sat in the oversized chair and pulled her journal from her pocket.
Arrived Northwatch. Quarters in former archivist's residence. Previous archivist: Varresh, deceased two years. Archives below, carved into mountain. Climate concerns likely. Warchief audience this evening.
She paused, quill hovering.
Grukash says the warchief is not patient. Does not explain himself. Does not repeat himself. Does not suffer foolishness.
I am frequently foolish. This may present difficulties.
She closed the journal and tucked it away, then sat in the too-large chair, looking at the stack of Varresh's journals. Two years of dust. Two years of a life's work sitting untouched because there had been no one to continue it.
She understood that kind of absence. The way a person could leave a shape in the world that no one else quite fit.
Stop, she told herself.
But she was sitting in a dead woman's chair, holding a dead woman's spectacles, surrounded by a dead woman's work, and telling herself not to think about absence. The irony was not lost on her. It was, in fact, somewhat on the nose.
You are here to work, she told herself, trying again.
She was not here to think about shapes left behind.
Chapter 2
The food arrived before the summons did.
A young orc appeared at her door with a wooden tray balanced on one massive palm. He was perhaps fourteen, with the gangly proportions of someone whose body was growing faster than his coordination could accommodate.
"Food," he said, as though this required clarification.
"Thank you." Verity rose from the desk. "I'm Verity."
"I know." He set the tray on the edge of the desk. "I'm Torgun."
"Hello, Torgun. Do you work in the kitchens?"
"No." He looked vaguely offended. "I'm training. To be a warrior. But everyone does rotation duties. Today I carry food. Tomorrow I muck the stables." His nose wrinkled. "I prefer the food."
"A sensible preference. The food smells considerably better than stables, as a general rule."
