Two of Reth Mal’s rear guards raised iron throwing-darts toward Mina’s back at Bed Three. Then, Chief Examiner Vaska Ren—still kneeling at the southeastern copper needle beside Bed Six—flicked his left wrist once without lifting his right palm from the stone base.
A narrow, two-inch pulse of late Jade Sky-slit intention caught both iron darts in mid-air above Bed Four. Then he dropped them dead onto the flat stone slabs.
“I told you, Reth,” Vaska rasped over the hum of the outer walls, “no blade or dart crosses the bed ring while I’m in this chamber.”
With her back covered by Vaska’s flick, Ilyra’s spear, and Daro’s split sword, Mina worked through Nara Soth’s thirty-breath window with the fierce, rock-steady care of a battlefield surgeon who knows that every breath she wastes costs a life. Every reckless cut costs another. Even during a temporary wall detour no two chests in the southern side had been wired at the exact same angle. Because of that, each of the four shallow extractions demanded a distinct cold and exact touch.
Breath Six. At Bed Three, as Mina’s rosin-wrapped metal tongs gripped the brass locking collar between Senn’s fifth and sixth ribs, the young timber-lock father’s breath hitched with sudden fear that his lungs would seize the way Pera’s nearly had at the first notch.
