Fragment IX — A Map Returned to Its Maker

Trade routes of the Empire of Samaryn

I did not expect to see it again.

The hide has darkened. The folds have cracked along the river line where it bends below Valen Car. A corner has been gnawed by damp or rats. The ink has bled faintly where my thumb once rested, pressing too hard as I traced the ascent toward Vaelor.

Two hundred years of the Codified Era approaches.

When I drew this, we had not yet learned to number our confidence so cleanly.

I remember the room.

Cold. River-facing. The light poor by afternoon.

Valen Cor was easy. A square of walls, disciplined angles, symmetry that comforted the eye. The river below it — too restless in truth — I thickened and steadied. A river on parchment must behave.

Reedglass troubled me.

It had no shape then. Only convergence. Barges grinding hull against hull in the thaw, caravans stalled axle-deep in autumn mud. I marked it with crossing lines instead of walls. That felt honest to me — a place defined by meeting, not masonry.