The crossroads stood empty in the blue hour before dawn, three rutted tracks branching out from a leaning waystone whose carvings had long since worn smooth under the hands of pilgrims. The Wayfarer paused there, adjusting the strap of a pack that had grown easier on the shoulders with each passing season, and let the silence hold for a long moment. Far behind, in a city of spires that had once meant everything, a name was being carved off a family tree by a clerk who would never know the face attached to it. The Wayfarer had been told this would happen. The Wayfarer had nodded and signed the parchment and walked out the gate without looking back. A wind came down from the north, carrying the smell of pine and woodsmoke and something older, the particular green scent of country that had never belonged to anyone. The boots took the left fork. There was no reason for the choice. There never had been. That was the point...