On the third step of the spiral stair, Seyun looked down at the black stone tablet he had carried all the way from the shattered abbey cell in Season One, and then back up at Nara Soth.
“When I found Master Uren’s bones in the collapsed lower vault of Balance,” Seyun said, his voice echoing softly in the bronze shaft, “the final lines of his stone record said that when the Aperture Court’s check cohorts attacked the abbey twenty years ago, his return pathways were partly closed and his breath was shortened by a season’s measure. For a long time, I wondered why a fifth-seat elder would have faced an army with partly closed return channels.”
“Did you think a rival of his had died and left him in ninety-day turning to stone?” Nara Soth asked from the iron ring.
“No,” Seyun answered clearly, stating the spirit vein law aloud so there could be no confusion in the record. “A partner’s death causes full ninety-day turning to stone of the bound channel before it reopens permanently. Master Uren’s record specifically described partly closed return pathways and a one-season endurance reduction. The exact body signed name of a living bond broken by witnessed concession. There, the fighter refuses to bind a replacement rival to prop the channel open.”
