Dusk laid a thin grey skin over the old scale yard and made every broken line of it look flatter and more honest than it had any right to.
The roof over the weighing platform had lost half its shingles years ago. One side wall still stood shoulder-high and held the wind badly. The scale beam itself leaned over the packed ground like an old threat nobody had bothered to remove. Ruts from winter wagons had frozen hard in the earth, and the last light of the day sat in them like dirty water. It was an ugly place, practical in the way abandoned road sites often were, which made it suitable for the kind of meeting Ronan Vale would trust only if he had already begun believing the world around him was collapsing in useful ways.
Sable sat her horse just beyond the broken wall and listened to the yard breathe.
