Iron Cartography

The Verath Empire expands by cartographic conquest. Its armies arrive first; its surveyors arrive three weeks later. Every territory the empire absorbs undergoes the same process: old maps are burned, new ones issued, every place-name replaced with an imperial equivalent.  The Oshen nation was absorbed six years ago. Its Map Houses were burned. Its cartographers were scattered, killed, or conscripted. Its towns and villages were renamed, overwriting the old names with the name of the conqueror. Dara is the last Cartographer of Oshen. Before the final Map House burned, her mentor Sorel pressed the master copy of the Oshen survey into her hands. She ran. Over fourteen months, working in secret, she tattooed the entire map onto her body in the Oshen cartographic script - a specialized notation system, extinct except in her. She has been carrying it ever since.