Beneath the snow-weighted boughs of the fallen firs, the world narrowed to the six inches of bruised ribs under Seyun’s right palm and the steady rhythm of Mina’s voice.
“Inhale half a measure—hold on the mark—don’t wait for the pillar,” Seyun spoke close to Senn’s ear, matching his tone to the quiet teaching rhythm he had used beside Halin’s stone bed inside the summit vault.
Through the split calluses of his palm, Seyun projected his refined Returning Step awareness as a pair of warm, parallel guide rails. The main line met the hardened ridge where the Aperture Court’s silver between-rib wire had sat between Senn’s fourth and fifth ribs for two winters. The backup line angled two finger-breadths laterally toward the minor collateral vessels near the armpit, offering a detour where the tissue remained softer.
For one full heartbeat, the technique worked. Senn fought down the choking reflex that screamed at him to gasp, halted his chest muscle on Mina’s count. Then he let the panicked expectation of the summit pillar’s command pass through empty.
In that brief stillness, a thin trickle of his own native Coal breath slipped past the edge of the fourth-rib scar along Seyun’s backup Flame guide and reached the lower pool of his belly.
