The Crater Field

The Field is a stretch of the grey hills of the Line “pitted, as if someone had pelted them with rocks the size of houses”, about two leagues by one, half a day south-west of the tower. Some craters are small, the size of a well; others are enormous lakes of shadow rimmed with melted, glassy rock. At the bottom of some of them, something glows.

The old craters, from the first test, are few, wide and soft, covered in thin grass and lichen. The new ones, from the Breaking, are dozens and sharp: rims of rock that cooled like black-green glass, which in the first weeks still smoked at the end of the day. In the middle lies the largest, the old crater, guarded by Old Boulder.

On day 26, after the duel in the Celestial Circle, Teo and Nyra fall here in the late afternoon. Orin finds them at dawn.