Mina came up the stone steps from the lower hospice trail. Just then, Seyun handed his Account Book to Ilyra. Then he stepped onto the white chalk line ten paces south of the surveying stone stand. Carrying her canvas medical roll slung over one shoulder and a bundle of dried marsh-mint under her arm, Seyun’s sister took one look at the bronze-and-quartz lens aimed at his chest and stopped beside Hall Mistress Soran.
“If that device hits him with northern chamber force,” Mina said clearly, setting her herb bundle on the low roof wall, “I’m kicking the stone stand over myself. His fifth and sixth ribs are three days into callus formation. They have ash-wood splints on them, not iron plates.”
“The lens is throttled to test tension, Healer Mina,” Vaska answered. He turned his head so both she and Soran could see his mouth. “It carries enough tightly packed edge to singe cloth or raise a welt on bare skin if he stays inside its lock for a full breath, nothing more. The danger isn’t the glass. The danger is assuming a technique works here when it will fail under the sky-ring.”
Mina looked at Seyun. “Eight breaths maximum. If your left side catches, you stop before the eighth.”
