Above the jagged hole in the upper dome, the black mountain sky paled by a single shade toward iron-gray. Inside Seyun’s right collarbone, the second rival mark gave a slow, clear morning turn.
On the third bronze tread, Seyun paused with his hand over his chest as the internal calendar of the Returning Step clicked forward by one sunrise. Daro Kesh’s Deeper Bronze echo—sworn four mornings ago at the ford below the mountain—moved from its third day into its fourth day of seven.
Three dawns remained before the seventh-dawn return wave struck his spirit veins in full.
Up on the granite crescent, Daro Kesh felt the corresponding pre-dawn tug under his own ribs and glanced briefly down at Seyun on the stair, giving a single quiet nod of acknowledgment before turning his attention back to the iron ring.
“Why did Vaska Ren manage to put you on that stone bed, Lady Nara?” Daro Kesh asked, the question every martial artist in the room had been holding back since they saw the thirty-six black needles. “Even with four living bonds cut and four seasons of endurance drained from your channels after the courtyard bouts, you were still a fifth-realm Crown fighter. Six hundred Court spearmen and three mobile damping engines could burn an abbey keep. But they couldn’t have caught you on an open mountain ridge if you had chosen to leave the valley.”
