Late winter light slanted through the warped cedar slats of Ash Reed Sect’s outer herb shed. It laid pale bars across the earthen floor where Seyun had once sorted dried stalks for eleven unrewarded years. The smell of crushed bitter-root and roasted willow bark hung in the cold air, unchanged since the morning Elder Hesh pressed three copper needles into his palm at the outer gate. Then he sent him down the mountain road in disgrace. Today, Seyun sat on an overturned mortar crate with his braced left toe braced on a folded sack, his Early Bronze channels quiet beneath his ribs. Across the narrow plank table, Joren sat with both forearms resting on a coarse linen cloth. Meanwhile, Mina held two fingers against the scarred wrist blood vessel of his right wrist.
Neither young man looked away. Even so, the history between their faces remained raw enough to make the silence in the shed feel crowded. Three months ago, Joren had been the sect’s favored rising star, the student whose winter check Seyun refused to certify. Just then, the borrowed fire spirit flared inside the bronze vessel. Now the gold-trimmed cuffs of Joren’s inner-hall robe were gone, replaced by plain raw, unwhitened wool stained with cooling salve. The skin over his wrist channels carried a dull, animal fat-colored sheen where the Aperture Court rider’s deep ring device had nearly torn the leftover spirit imprint back open.
