Three cushioned chairs stood close beside the snapping fireplace. Rowan sat in one—uneasily, on the edge, bending forward again and again to study one or another of the many charts that lay on a low table before her. In the second chair, Henra, the Prime of the Steerswomen, nestled comfortably: a small, elderly woman of graceful gestures and quiet self-assurance. Silver-brown hair fell in a loose braid down her breast, and she wore a heavy robe over her nightshift, looking much like a grandmother prepared to remain all night by the bedside of a feverish child—an appearance contradicted by the cool, steady gaze of her long green eyes. The third chair was empty. Bel sat on the stones of the hearth, cheerfully feeding the fire to a constant, unnecessarily high blaze. “Enjoy it while you can,” she said. In the Outskirts, open flame attracted dangerous creatures by night. The charts loosely stacked on the table had been drawn by dozens of hands, and their ages spanned centuries. Each map showed a sweep of mountains to the left, a pair of rivers bracketing the center, and a huge body of water below all, labeled INLAND SEA.
