Chapter 29: Rook at the Summit, and What Remains

The wind on the summit rim had a quality I had not previously encountered in wind — a thorough, impartial kind of cold that did not gust so much as simply exist at every point simultaneously, as though the mountain had decided that temperature was a permanent condition rather than a weather event. I sat beside Bryndis with my back to the crater and my coat pulled approximately as far as it would go, and I ate the last portion of the cheese Mrs. Cobbe had wrapped for me in Millhaven, which had survived the entirety of the journey in a state of quiet, reliable dignity that I found I respected.

Bryndis said nothing for some time. She had her axe across her knees in the manner of a person who has not decided to put it away yet, which I had come to understand was her version of contemplation.

The others came back along the ledge in ones and twos. Perenthia first, with ink on her left hand and the expression of a woman who has just witnessed the singular event of her scholarly career and is already organising it into chapters. Caelen, carrying the empty case with the same careful attention he had carried it full, as though the ritual of custody did not terminate with the contents. Aldrath last, moving at a pace that was slower than his customary pace, which had itself been slower than his pace at Veldmere, and slower again than the pace I had noted in my first journal entry six weeks prior. He had the look of a man who has completed a very long piece of work and is not yet certain what follows it.