With the main silver-woven floor cable lying in two dead, blackened halves beside the western rim and Assistant Examiner Reth Mal curled on the flat stone slabs nursing his shattered right wrist, the Chamber of Permitted Shapes lost the clockwork heartbeat that had governed it for months. Yet inside the northern chalk circle, sixteen-year-old Halin was still far from safe.
The boy lay flat on the woven reed mat with his head pillowed against the cold stone lip of the uncoupled bronze collar. Earlier in the struggle, Mina had successfully drawn the superficial silver pins from his right forearm and his lower neck notch. Her thumb lever had disengaged the main collar catch when the floor cable parted. Two deep restraint needles, however, still remained seated in his flesh. A two-inch silver pin angled beneath his right collarbone notch and the heavy, flat-headed lock needle sunk deep into the inner crease of his left wrist.
“Nobody jostle the mat,” Mina said. Her voice dropped into the crisp, steady, unrushed pace of the valley sick room even though her sleeve was stained with Steward Osen’s blood from five minutes earlier. She knelt on the boy’s left side, her fingers resting lightly against the hollow of his throat. Meanwhile, her right hand held her narrow iron metal tongs poised above his collarbone. “The floor cable is gone. So the Court’s five-count rhythm is no longer dragging his chest loop back. That means his own heart-lung rhythm is trying to wake up all…
