Location: Kaelport — First Company's billet; the Lower School road
Date: 9 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Temperday, before first light
Realm: Lower Realm
Meifen had her palm flat on the stove iron when the relay slate came in.
It was her hour, the one before anybody else in the billet was awake to want anything, and she spent it the same way every morning. The night fire had gone down to a red bed under the ash. She'd raked it, fed it two splits off the stack and shut the door on them, and now she was waiting for the iron to tell her whether they'd caught. You didn't open a stove to find that out. Her father had taught her that before he taught her the tongs. Lay your hand on the plate and wait, and the heat comes up into the palm in its own time, and if it doesn't, you've smothered it and you start again.
The plate was cool. Then it wasn't. Warmth came up slowly into the old hammer-scale burns along the heel of her hand and sat there, steady, and she took the hand away.
