Cold mountain air smelling of wet pine needles, woodsmoke, and coming snow met them. They walked out of the vaulted hall into the lower shrine’s open courtyard.
After thirty-six hours inside the bitter pine-resin-heavy, metal hum of the tester chamber, the late-afternoon sky above the granite ridge looked startlingly wide and pale. High overhead, heavy gray winter clouds were gathering along the northern peaks, promising a hard snowfall before midnight. Along the stone roof edges of the courtyard walls, the relit monthly registration lamps burned behind six-sided horn panes. It cast long, quiet shadows across the raked gray granite gravel underfoot.
Chief Examiner Vaska Ren walked calmly to the center of the yard and stood waiting with his hands folded at his belt, giving Seyun a minute at the courtyard steps to adjust his eyes to the dusk light and stretch his stiff knees.
On the stone steps behind Seyun, Mina checked the linen knots across both of his palms one last time. Meanwhile, Daro Kesh and Ilyra stood close on either side. Back inside the threshold of the hall, Pera sat on a wooden crate wrapped in two gray wool blankets, with Osen Tal and the attendant Marn standing near the doorpost so they could relay each exchange back to Halin and the eleven beds inside.
