The sun had shifted past its apex, casting long, cool shadows from the timber trestles across the damp floor of the excavated cellar pit. The scent of turned soil was different down here—coarser, cooler, smelling of mineral salt, crushed shale, and ancient water channels carved deep into the mountain’s roots.
Instead of continuing with the upper masonry layout, I sat on an overturned oak tub in the shadow of the eastern embankment, unrolling a set of thick sheepskin parchment maps. These were not municipal surveys or architectural drafts. They were geological soundings of the lower aquifer strata that my old surveying mentor had gifted me years before the northern campaigns.
Damon walked down the log ramp into the pit, his boots making a soft crunch against the gravel floor. He carried a
