They were moving before full light, following a route Dave had committed to memory — less a path than a series of landmarks: a distinctive split boulder, a band of pale rock, a ridge line that could be followed to the northeast until it intersected with a second, steeper climb.

  The cold was significant and immediate. Dave moved with the particular confidence of someone operating on known ground — slightly shorter than Taric, with a compact, efficient stride that covered more ground than it looked like it should, his pack settled on his back with the ease of long familiarity. On the climb his sandy hair was tucked under a worn wool cap, and his hands moved constantly — checking holds, brushing surfaces, occasionally pausing to examine something at close range in the way of a person for whom every surface is potentially relevant.

  He named things as they climbed: the lichen that indicated moisture gradient, the rock type that held heat longest, the difference in wind patterns depending on where you stood relative to the ridge. The naming was methodical and unstudied — a habit of someone who paid attention and found the attention gratifying in itself.

  "You've done this route several times," Taric said, matching his pace to the terrain.

  "Four times. Silvar root doesn't regenerate quickly — you can't harvest the same area more than once every six weeks or so without damaging the crop. I rotate between three sites." Dave paused at a narrow traverse, assessing the footing. "My mother used silvar root in a compound for joint inflammation. The buyers in Drevhan use it for acceleration of minor regeneration — it's not dramatic, but consistent. Worth the trip."

  "How much does it bring?"

  "A full harvest — maybe three kilograms — runs about forty Drenn at fair market. More from the right buyer." He started across the traverse. "Split two ways, it covers three weeks of expenses if you're careful. It's not wealth. But it's independence."

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  Taric followed across the traverse, testing each foothold before committing. The rock was cold and damp. Below them, the treeline was already small.

  "You ever think about leaving Drevhan?" Taric asked. "Going to one of the larger cities?"

  "Cairen, maybe. It has a merchant culture — less Clergy oversight, more trading routes. The underground there is less underground and more just... the second layer of normal commerce." He hauled himself over a lip of rock. "But larger cities mean more Clergy presence in aggregate, even if it's less concentrated. And my buyer network is in Drevhan." He shrugged. "For now, Drevhan is where I know the angles."

  The middle section of the climb was the hardest — a long, steep face where the only route was a series of diagonal movements that Dave had mapped in detail and Taric simply followed by reading terrain. They didn't speak much. The effort required attention. The wind increased as they gained altitude, coming in gusts that pushed against them horizontally.

  Taric found that he was comfortable with this in a way that was hard to explain. The physical difficulty was familiar — not as a memory, exactly, but as something his body recognized and moved into without protest. He had strong hands and good balance and an instinct for route-finding that surfaced automatically. He didn't know where it came from. He filed it alongside the other things he didn't know about himself.

  By mid-morning they crested the main ridge and the wind dropped suddenly — a sheltered bowl just below the summit where the temperature was five degrees warmer. The bowl was remarkable. Vegetation clung to every crack in the rock, most of it varieties Taric didn't recognize, all of it adapted to cold and altitude in ways that made it look engineered.

  "There," Dave said. He was already moving toward a cluster of dark crevices in the northern face, his pack open. "Silvar root grows in the crevices — you can smell it if the wind is right. Sweet, slightly metallic. It'll be in clusters."

  Taric could already smell it — faint and strange. He followed and began working the opposite side of the crevice line, watching Dave's technique and adapting it: careful extraction, root system preserved, minimal disturbance to the surrounding growth.

  It was quiet work. Good work. The kind that required attention without requiring anxiety.

  They had been harvesting for perhaps twenty minutes when Taric heard it — a sound from higher on the ridge, above the bowl. Not wind. Not rock-fall. A sound that had intention behind it.

  He straightened and looked up.

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