In the quiet room above the currier’s yard, the smell of oak-bark tan-liquor and willow-bark burn salve hung sharp in the noon warmth. A day earlier, in the dressing nook of the Old Wrestling Lodge, Seyun had answered Ilyra’s question about the mark beneath his collar with a careful, measured half-truth. Telling himself that keeping the full vulnerability clauses to himself was only prudent accounting until the fight was over.
Mina’s quiet words on the rubbing-bench still rang in his ears: Don’t call a hidden debt prudence, Seyun.
He didn’t hesitate for half a breath.
“Yes,” Seyun said. He lifted his bandaged left elbow. He used the side of his forearm and the unburned knuckle of his little finger to push the top two horn toggles of his grey hemp shirt through their loops. He pulled the coarse cloth wide across both collarbones.
In the bright noon light slanting through the casement window, the two marks sat in plain view across the top of his chest. On the left, the slender, sharp silver curve of Place I that had opened at the abbey dawn against Ilyra’s spear. On the right, the fresh, slightly wider silver arc of Place II, the skin around its edges still flushed red from the heat of its opening a minute ago.
