I. The Ledger of Unread Seasons
In the lower scriptorium, oil lamps burned with shea butter and dried mint. Moremi waited until the third watch before unrolling the Ledger of Unread Seasons—a chart no apprentice had requested in twenty years.
Held over the warm amber flake, faded iron-gall ink darkened into contour lines. The eastern root did not end at the cliff wall; it tunnelled beneath the old aqueduct toward the sunken sluice gates of Іlú-Omi.
If the water was still held behind the basalt dam, her people did not need to abandon the valley at the solstice. But opening the gate meant waking whatever the founders had locked behind it.