Before allowing Daro Kesh to raise his hardwood sword for a second proof pass, Mina stepped off the eastern cedar bench and walked straight into the center of the yard with her fingers extended. Her older brother had just crossed the realm threshold that had eluded him for eleven winters. Then, the apprentice pulse-reader of Oran refused to let martial celebration come before cold and exact proof.
“Hold the intention where it’s for three breaths, then release it while I have my thumb on your outward notch,” Mina instructed. She took Seyun’s right wrist in her left hand while kneeling briefly to press two fingers against the calfskin guard and cedar splint on his left fourth toe. “Let me see whether condensing the Bronze arc pulled blood away from your periphery or shifted the fracture line.”
Seyun held the Answering Edge along the ash staff for three calm breaths, then intentionally released the external projection. He drew the burnished-bronze line smoothly back through his palms and down into the three return nodes of his chest. Unlike his Flame breakthroughs the return of the Bronze focus felt like sliding a well-fitted iron bolt home into an oiled bracket. It had left his palms raw or his chest racing for an hour afterward. His inward-closing channels now possessed a stable load-bearing form to hold their counter-pressure. Because of that, the breath didn’t slosh or rebound against his ribs when it came home.
