The boy’s wrist was as thin as a dry willow switch, the skin above the wrist blood vessel semi-clear and cold with sweat despite the fire bowl warmth of the vault. The boy flinched back against the buckwheat blade collar. Then, the fine silver wire passing between his fourth and fifth ribs pulled taut against its stitched linen grommet. A tiny, sharp click echoed inside the socket at the base of the black bronze pillar.
“Don’t speak to him!” Kellen, the older ward attendant by the eastern cupboard, took half a step forward before Ilyra’s spear shaft slanted across his chest to halt him. Even stopped, the man kept his voice to a wild, practiced hiss, as if loud consonants alone might crack the ceiling. “Miss—healer, whoever you’re—don’t ask him to speak and don’t make him look at you! When Candidate One’s heart rate climbs above the pillar’s count, the back-pressure from the common ring bruises his lung lining!”
Across the circle, three other heads turned slightly on their bolsters at the small disturbance in the rhythm. None of them lifted their shoulders. Twenty weeks or twenty months of lying pinned to the bronze rhythm had taught their bodies that sudden movement cost blood. Yet their eyes moved in the dim lamp-glow. They tracked Mina’s wool skirt and Daro’s dark coat with a mute, animal wariness.
