The Scar had its position above the roofline, pale and irregular against the morning sky. Beorn stood at the office window, watched it, then shifted focus back to the problem he had been working. The ledger waited on the desk behind him, and his attention returned to mine drainage.
He had started before dawn, working through the requirements step by step. He knew the solution.
But when he tried to pull exact values, the numbers did not match. He could sense where they should be, like a missing segment in a complete system. That was a problem, but forcing it rewarded nothing except a growing ache behind his eyes.
He marked the limitation, stopped the attempt, and moved on. There was a foundry test schedule for the day. That was more valuable than straining for inaccessible figures.
He had been in Ashmark long enough that the exact day count had stopped mattering. More than a month for sure. The sequence of events was clear, even if the total was not.
