The White Heron Guest Pavilion stood on a sheltered eastern spur of the ridge. He was separated from the wind-blasted middle spear courts by a high screen wall of dressed limestone and a small courtyard planted with dwarf mountain pines. Here no canvas refugee shelters crowded the flags, and no cracked drainage troughs leaked clay into the snow. Senior Steward Osen Tal waited for them in person beneath the carved cedar roof edges of the porch, wearing the formal silver-trimmed surcoat of the Hall’s office clerk hall. Not a speck of road mud or forge soot marked his hem. He looked as composed and mild as if the face-off in Oran had been a minor disagreement over grain weights.
“Disciple Ilyra. Master Seyun,” Osen said, bowing with scrupulous courtesy before signaling two silent attendants to slide open the lattice doors of a narrow corner guest room. “The clerk hall regrets the austerity of our eastern wing this month. With the country seal claims drawing down our charcoal stores, I’ve had you placed in the corner chamber above the lower water tank post. There, the rising pipe-warmth keeps the floorboards dry.”
Seyun stepped across the threshold. Then he took the measure of the room in a single slow sweep. The cedar floorboards were indeed dry and spotless, furnished with a low lacquer table, a freshly stuffed straw sleeping mat, and a small iron fire bowl. More importantly, the single shuttered window opened directly over a sheer thirty-foot drop into the water…
