Crossing into Rurik's half of Meridine took longer than the distance should have required.
The checkpoint itself was simple.
Four guards.
A narrow opening in the barricade.
A stretch of road barely wide enough for two people to pass comfortably.
Yet every one of them was watched.
The guards studied the party as they approached, eyes following who stepped first, who lingered, who looked toward the other side, who looked back.
Mara noticed.
Of course she did.
She counted the guards.
Then counted them again on the return journey.
Nobody asked what she was doing.
It was simply another one of those habits that had survived every world they'd crossed.
Rurik's half looked almost identical at first.
The same low houses.
The same worn streets.
The same careful industry of people who had learned how to keep living even when life kept giving them reasons not to.
The differences emerged slowly.
Fewer elderly faces.
More weapons within reach.
