The Roads We Swear

In the Sere Marches a sworn road runs exactly where the surveyor walks it. You are the surveyor, and the road the valley wants runs through your old home.

adventurous · warm · political · wondering · Mittel, etwa 30 Szenen

Du spielst

Teren, Teren, twenty-six, a surveyor of the Marches Office and the second surveyor in Osa Fer's warrant, whose walk makes the line; raised at the Ammet ferry landing in Sava Tern's house, and back for the first time since leaving

So beginnt es

The rain has been falling on the Sere Marches since before light, and on the treaty road it does not stay. It runs off both edges as if the road were tilted, though it is level, and an hour after dawn the road is dry and warm underfoot while the orchards on either side stand in water. A road does that here only when every household it crosses has sworn to it. Below the ridge there is a road nobody has sworn to in thirty years, and the ink to bind it again is coming down the hill in a case on Teren's back.