Chapter 211

Spring found Kaia in the lowlands, where the earth clung to her boots and ambition rose faster than the timber frames of half-built homes.

The settlement was young.

You could see it in the straightness of the beams, in the raw edges of the fields carved from wet ground, in the way plans were spoken as if saying them aloud made them inevitable.

They were building quickly—irrigation channels stretching like veins through dark soil, tool rotations scheduled with impressive ...