Ilyra crossed the twelve feet of packed river gravel in two silent. She drove strides, her left hand guiding the forward third of the ash spear shaft. Meanwhile, her right elbow stayed locked tight against her ribs to protect her healing shoulder muscle. Three paces from Daro’s front boot, her Branching White Wake flared into visible form. A frost-pale curtain of Bronze focus that divided cleanly at the iron metal ring into two distinct, same-time threats. The main point driving high toward the hollow of Daro’s left collarbone, and a backup, downward-curling wake sweeping low toward his lead knee.
Had Daro Kesh been facing Ilyra alone in an open courtyard, his ten-year-old method had a proven, tough answer. Daro stepped half an inch inside the low sweep. He projected his Dark Unwavering Plane along a steep forty-five-degree slanted. A single, dense slab of slate-colored force engineered to slice directly through the fork of Ilyra’s two branches and sever her backup wake from her shaft before the high point could reach his neck.
His heavy Bronze broadsword met the lower branch of Ilyra’s spear with a deep, bell-like clang that sent a ring of crushed gravel skittering across the yard. The high spear point was half a beat from sliding down his dark slanted plane. And at that exact quarter-breath, nineteen-year-old Kes launched himself out of the right-hand turnip row.
