Rowan knew his posting was nearly finished before anyone called him in.
His next patrol had gone to someone else. Two days earlier, he had been asked to walk a pair of wardens through the western circuit, showing them the places where the forest made liars of the records: the stream that changed course after heavy rain, the old boundary stones hidden beneath roots, the sheltered hollow where snow stayed long after the road was clear.
Yesterday, when asked whether he had made plans, Rowan had said he was considering them. It was true, though considering had yet to become choosing. For now he stood above Cresting Pass with damp feet and a report that would need writing, watching a cart work its way along the road below. One wheel struck a stone. The driver stopped, climbed down, and shifted it by hand.
Rowan waited until the cart moved again before continuing his descent.
Behind him, the forest closed over the track. He had spent enough time beneath those trees to know where to look when a ward weakened and which slopes would hold a loaded animal after rain. Much of that knowledge had never reached the station records. He would have to leave more of it behind than a few marks on a map.
At the bend, a boundary stone leaned beneath an exposed root. Rowan brushed the wet leaves from its face and took a pinch of cedar ash from the pouch at his waist.
He pressed the powder into the stone’s worn surface. Beneath his palm, the ward drew taut.
Rowan followed the strain down into the bank. Earth gave him the weight of the stone and the softened ground beneath it. He settled his attention there, then drew a finer thread through the working.
Silver light gathered between his fingers, pale as moonlight under the trees.
The root had grown across the ward’s old course. He eased the thread around it, giving the living wood room without loosening the boundary. For a moment the light held above the stone. Then it sank into the ash and vanished.
He lifted his hand. A dull ache remained in his wrist.
The stone still needed setting properly. He marked that down too.
The river sounded through the gorge to his left. Ahead, the station rose above a handful of hamlet roofs, modest stonework weathered into the hillside. Smoke hung over the houses. A child swept water from a doorstep with more force than effect, and someone had left Rowan’s usual cup upside down on the wall beside the gate to dry.
Rowan had liked serving here. That ought to have made the next decision easier.
There were stations where he could take responsibility for the whole place, and others where his experience would make him one of the few people called when the work became difficult. He had earned some say in where he went. He had considered several places and found work he could do and people he could work beside, but he had not asked to remain at any of them.
A place could be good to serve without being the place he wanted his life to gather around. Yet the cup by the gate troubled him more than the thought of leaving the forest. It suggested that a life might begin gathering before a man had decided to claim it.
Inside the yard, two wardens were sorting rope beside an open stores door. One looked up as he came through the gate.
“The other two came back ahead of you.”
“They walk faster when someone else knows the road.”
“It’s easy when they know you are backing them. Someone's waiting for you.”
Rowan glanced toward the room beyond the stores. With a nod and a wave, he moved into the rooms behind them. He unfastened his pack and set it on a bench. The weight came off his shoulders slowly. For a moment he stood with his hands resting on the straps, feeling where they had pressed.
Then he checked the tie of the ash pouch at his waist and went to find out what came next.