Morning sunlight climbed over the slate roofs of Tanner’s Lane, throwing a bright rectangle of yellow light across the pine workbench where the limestone tablet and the thirty-page notebook lay side by side. Daro Kesh didn’t accept or refuse the notebook right away. He pulled a three-legged wooden stool over to the bench. He motioned with his chin toward the dry packing-crate by the wall so Seyun could sit if he wished, then sat down himself and began turning the stitched rag-paper leaves from the eighteenth page to the thirtieth.
Seyun remained standing near the window, his weight settled evenly on both heels and his thick white hand-bandages resting across his waist. Meanwhile, the currier’s apprentices below the floor began scraping hides in the yard.
For twenty minutes Daro read in complete silence.
The lower half of the stone had refused his outward breath the night before. Because of that, Daro had focused his midnight reading on the testing grooves and the self-mutilation warning at the corner. Now, reading Seyun’s clear, double-spaced ink transcription of the inner Balance sections, the forty-two-year-old swordmaster took in the complete stonework of the Answering Spirit vein. The three rival places beneath the left collarbone, right collarbone, and chest bone. The requirement of a mutual spoken vow between genuine enemies. The seven-dawn latency before an opponent’s advance echoed across the link. The hard realm ceiling that forbade the fighter from ever rising above his highest bound rival. And the turning to stone and reconciliation clauses…
