Date: TC1853.11.13
Location: Seven Peaks — Council Chamber / Sect Leader's Residence / Main Gate
Naida was back before noon.
She didn't shadow-step into the council chamber. She walked through the front door, which meant she wanted to be seen arriving, which meant whatever she'd found was bad enough that theater mattered.
"Thornwall," she said. "Population twenty-eight hundred. Stone walls, timber-reinforced, well in the central square. Codex shrine at the eastern gate — small, maintained by the community. River runs south. Forested hills to the east." She set a formation crystal on the table between them. "Three hundred and twelve kilometers east-northeast. Your description was exact."
Raven looked at the crystal. It was standard — a recording medium the size of a child's fist, the kind that town constables used for official reports and merchants used for contract documentation. This one had been activated recently. The formation light inside still pulsed.
