After a brief midday rest during which Mina checked the cedar splint on his left foot and confirmed that the quieter hip-driven pivots had prevented any fresh swelling around the fifth metatarsal, Hall Mistress Soran called Seyun back to the center of the frosted courtyard. Above the high granite walls, the afternoon sky had turned the color of hammered pewter, promising more snow before nightfall.
“This morning you stopped advertising your parries with your shoulders,” Soran said, resting the butt of her plain iron spear on the flat stone slab between her boots. “As a result, my third thrust grazed your tunic instead of pinning your chest bone. Yet if I had thrown a fourth thrust right away after that graze, where would your staff have been?”
“Late,” Seyun answered honestly, his face turned toward her in the grey light. “Even with my shoulders down, by the time I finished turning the third thrust aside, my lungs were fully empty at the bottom of the exhale. I needed half a beat to draw a fresh breath into my chest muscle before my arms could reverse the staff again.”
“And why were your lungs empty at the end of the third thrust?” Soran asked, looking briefly toward Ilyra and Daro Kesh by the southern wall before returning her gaze to Seyun.
