Dawn of the second day after the snow bridge brought a pale, frost-clear light through the chinks of the hospice shutters and advanced the countdown beneath Seyun’s left collarbone to its second notch. Five dawns remained until Ilyra’s Deeper Bronze echo arrived in full.
While Mother Renn stirred a pot of thin barley gruel at the hearth and Daro Kesh paced the outer courtyard checking the snowdrifts along the road, Seyun cleared the corner of Mina’s pine medicine table. He spread open the back pages of his Account Book to Master Uren’s copied spirit vein chart, lined up his three copper needles in a neat row beside the spirit-alcohol dish. Then he waited until Mina finished recording the morning ankle pulses of Maren, Tov, and Vey.
She stepped out from behind the linen partition wiping her cold fingers on a towel. Then, Seyun gestured to the blueprint with the quiet eagerness of a technician presenting a finished bridge design.
“The two-o’clock night pulse from the summit was weaker than the evening one,” Seyun began. He kept his voice low so the patients behind the curtain could rest. “Nara is rationing the bedrock signal because the strain is tearing her back scars, and Tov’s fourth rib still hitched twice before dawn.”
