Noon didn’t warm the dark rock shelf below the Hollow Summit. It only bleached the frost until the loose scree shone like salted bone. High above the northern ridge, the pale ring of Heaven’s Measure turned in slow, soundless increments against the cloudless sky, visible even through the midday glare. Every time its upper arc completed a quarter-turn, the mountain air tightened against the ears like the draft inside a closing kiln. Seyun kept his left forearm pressed across the ash-wood slats bound under Elder Hesh’s coarse wool practice coat. The fifth and sixth ribs Commander Keth Or had fractured in the northern chamber three days ago didn’t grind so long. He stepped flat on the balls of his feet. Even so, his healing right toe still stiffened whenever the slope pitched downward.
Ahead of him on the switchback, Chief Examiner Vaska Ren walked without his badge of office, a folded linen kerchief held to the old burn scar at his throat whenever the dry wind stirred the pine needles. Six paces behind Vaska, Hall Mistress Soran carried her hand-wrapped plain iron spear at a low trail angle. Not pointed at the Judge’s back. But never grounded so far away that he could mistake his guide’s duty for restored command. Down in the sheltered limestone caves of the lower hospice a quarter-mile below the terrace, Mina, Pera. Mother Renn were already settling the last of the twelve disconnected testers onto dry cedar pallets.
