The Twilight Line

The Line is the waist of Lumen: a strip running north to south, four to six days wide, of low hills of grey stone. It has no wall and no marker. Coming from Auren, “the forest simply ended” and the stone begins, at Ashford; to the west the hills sink, the grass darkens and the first saltmarshes and black heather appear. It has no cities, only villages of twenty or thirty houses of stone and turf around a well, and isolated Pilgrim houses.

Before the Breaking the eclipse sat a little toward the east and the Line received a light that was neither the honey-brown of Auren nor the worn purple of Nocturna: an even grey-lilac, without long shadows, which the Pilgrims simply called “the light”. It is the place where the Tide stands closest to zero.

After the Full Night the Line was cut in three strips: black to the east, white to the west, and green around the tower.