Borin Vale set his chisels down on the ice-block at his assigned station. The carving stall was a sunken wooden shed pushed to the edge of the festival grounds, its bone tools and pale inlays marking it as separate from the masters' row. He had come to Windscour to prove a deaf carver belonged beside them. The framed words of the head judge still burned behind his eyes. Across the field, a tall canvas stage rose above the crowd. Judges climbed its steps and shouted rules into the wind. Borin watched mouths move and caught nothing. Hearing carvers nodded and adjusted their blocks. He did not. He tasted the air. Salt, faint. A storm was hours off, not minutes. He had time to fix this, but only if he found a relay before the next announcement. A small shape darted across the snow at his boots. A blue-rumped ermine, oversized paws kicking up frost, stopped and stared up at him. A folded slip of paper was tucked under its collar. Borin knelt and unfolded it. The handwriting was his brother's. Three short lines: the rule just called, the time limit, the penalty for late starts. Borin looked toward the broadcast stage. His brother stood at its base, arms crossed, not waving, not smiling. Watching. A worn gray pouch hung at his hip, stuffed with more folded slips. The ermine waited by Borin's boot for the next run. Borin tied the pouch's twin strap across his own chest and tapped the ermine once on the head. The relay was set. He picked up his chisel and made the first cut on time.