Seyun nodded slowly to Daro Kesh, accepting the disarm with genuine thanks. Daro’s three-angle pressure test had given him the exact fine-tuning he needed before marching north toward Assistant Examiner Reth Mal and Heaven’s Measure. His new Early Bronze was real, durable, and capable of holding a chosen protective line against heavy Bronze force for one or two revisions. But it was a beginning within the realm rather than an instant leap to veteran mastery.
Across the flat stone slabs, the forty-two-year-old master of the Black-Roof School didn’t right away sheathe his hardwood practice sword. Daro stood in his dark travel coat with his split Bronze steel still strapped across his back. He looked down at his own scarred right thumb where the third angle change had taken real effort to hook past Seyun’s guard.
“Three changes inside a single breath,” Daro said. His deep voice carried cleanly across the granite enclosure as he rested the flat of the hardwood blade against his shoulder. “When I first opened the Black-Roof School north of Oran twelve winters ago, the prefecture tax clerks told me a self-taught swordsman without a high-sect pedigree had no business teaching Bronze shifts. Even my senior student Kes took three years of full-foot work under the black roof edges before he could force me to shift my wrist twice in one pass.”
