Bearclaw Valley the new rogues

Rather than be spotlit by the woman's attention Karst tried to focus on the area surrounding the storehouse. He wanted to retreat in to it, always, but he was anticipating the arrival of Ashlar in the coming hours and further tutelage about the valley's greenery. The plan was to meet where they had met — where Karst frequented and felt the safest — so he lingered at the hollow now.

After every step he took he would try to focus his attention on the weeds probing from the earth, a pile of errant sticks netted in the undergrowth, or the curve of a fiddlehead trying to propagate nearby to the entrance. He kept his eyes averted from Astara; he could feel her there, her presence burning like a patch of winter frost holding on through the spring thaw. It was an unsettling sensation he could not ignore hard enough.