While Mina knelt on the flat stone slabs by the dry hearth to loosen the frost-stiffened linen around Seyun’s braced toe and apply a fresh warming pad of toasted reed pith, Hall Mistress Soran leaned her back against the dressed granite pillar where the lantern hung. The wind outside the roofless gable rose to a long, hollow whistle over the gorge. But inside the small circle of light the seven people listened in stillness.
“Four mornings ago, at the temporary annex the Court established in the old grain-tithe barn at the birch crossroads,” Soran began, watching Ilyra’s eyes to ensure her student followed every word, “Senior Custody Officer Vael arrived from Oran with two Jade recovery deputies and twenty armored spear guards. For six days after White Heron Hall was closed, they had kept me, Venn, and Tarn in the upper granary loft while the thirty-two junior students from the lower ward were quartered in the mule sheds below.”
“They told the river judges the students were merely being held as material witnesses until Steward Osen’s supply records could be audited,” Instructor Tarn put in quietly from beside the ash chests, her hand resting on a bundle of cedar splints. “Every morning they let the children exercise for an hour in the mud yard with unsharpened ash poles to keep the townsfolk from saying the Court had imprisoned new students.”
