The junior student who stumbled through the closing wicket was sixteen or seventeen. One of the outer-yard new students who had stayed late by the herb-shed fire bowl three nights ago to copy Elder Hesh’s hidden test fragments onto scrap paper before Senior Elder Tor Ves ordered the old teacher confined to his quarters. His breath came in white puffs in the biting dawn air. His knuckles were red from running down the frosted steps without gloves.
“Senior Brother Seyun!” the boy called out, halting two paces past the boundary ditch while glancing nervously back at the gatehouse slits where Tor Ves’s guards watched. He held out the heavy bundle in both hands. “Instructor Hesh lowered this from his rear shutter on a twine cord before the morning watch changed. He made me promise to catch you before you reached the birch switchbacks.”
Seyun paused on the frozen ruts of the trail, shifting the weight of the ash chest on his back so his braced left foot stayed level. He took the folded garment from the boy’s hands. Even before he shook it open, his fingers recognized the coarse, densely woven mountain wool and the faint, permanent scent of dried artemisia leaf and woodsmoke that clung to the fabric.
