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One hour later… He carved out the map on tree bark. The map was little more than fraying bark stitched with spider-silk threads—old caravan routes inked in resin, dots for hunting ponds, jagged red scratches for wyrm nests long since abandoned. Yet it was all Kai had. He knelt on a shale outcrop a few kilometres away from the tunnels, silver hair fluttering as dawn's second light slipped between cobalt leaves.
He traced the narrow river tributaries feeding southward, then the curved line depicting the sea's scalloped shoreline. Kai exhaled.
On land, it would mean weaving through fen-marsh, rock canyons, and three minor beast territories and more. One month to forty days journey.
But if he could ferry them by sea? A straight line back to the Eastern Shore, then inland past his mountain's southern spur. It will be twenty days' journey, maybe less—assuming the water wasn't cursed like Luna said.
"I need to see it for myself."
