Just like what he had been told, Cael wrote his report.
However, nobody else in the room could read what Cael was writing, and so the only way anyone could be sure of its contents was to hear Cael say them aloud.
Line by line, he read the report to the council in the common tongue, and line by line the council had to take his word that the letters on the page matched the words he spoke.
Kael found that he was watching the page with the helpless attention of a man staring at a locked door.
It was a small, precise lesson in what the village had been missing since the day the wall first went up, and he saw that Lira had noticed it too, because she met his eyes across the table and gave him the faintest nod.
"The village has built a stronger crossbow," Cael read, his voice steady, "and it is made of horn, sinew, and—"
He stopped there, with the charcoal hovering just above the page.
