The high-altitude winter didn't break with the dawn; it simply hardened into a bright, blinding glare that made the limestone peaks of the high pass look like a wall of unpolished salt. Down in the lower staging courtyard of the mountain bypass, the air was so crisp it bit the back of the throat with every indrawn breath, carrying the sharp, chemical tang of fresh timber shavings and wet flint.
Elara stood on the upper gallery of the timber gatehouse, her hands tucked deep into the fleece-lined pockets of her charcoal-grey wool coat. She wasn't looking at the long line of cargo wagons currently clearing the southern customs slot, their iron-rimed wheels crunching rhythmically through the packed snow. Her focus was fixed entirely on the narrow line of the northern ridge, where the old queen's border markers had been discarded like kindling.
