Three hundred years before the Sky-slit Court standardized the valley check charters, White Heron Hall had been founded by mountain spearmen who guarded the high limestone passes against seasonal spirit migrations and winter raiders. Their oldest pedagogical test—the Trial of the Narrow Span—had been written into stone to prove that a single well-rooted spear could deny a four-pace gorge crossing to a superior force without resorting to poisoned arrows or collapsed bridges.
In the hall’s training courts, students usually practiced the trial from the defender’s side, learning how to anchor their heels and turn their shaft into an impassable gate. By invoking the statute from the challenger’s side with two sick litters behind her, Ilyra had turned the hall’s proudest lesson into a binding legal trap.
Under the charter rules, the defender won by holding the center stone until the challenger yielded or dropped their weapon. The challenger won if they could bring their declared burden across the western boundary markers without killing the defender or stepping off the span.
At the center of the snow bridge, Arel Fen stood motionless for five breaths as the wind whipped white powder across his boots. Then he raised his left arm. Then he made a crisp, two-fingered downward cut toward the western bank.
