Dusk was already pooling purple shadow between the twenty-four eight-sided pillars as Vaska Ren adjusted the outer bronze ring of the pressure lens to its widest field. Instead of a single hair-thin line, the nested quartz steps now projected a pale fan of refracted tension across the entire central hall, mimicking the way Heaven’s Measure swept an approach lane before releasing a blade. The rule of the drill was simple. Nara on the right chalk mark, Seyun in the center, and Daro on the left had eight breaths to cross the ten paces and let Daro tap the bronze gimbal rim with his bladeless sword handle—without Nara simply shattering the glass by spending her finite Crown reserve.
“If you overpower the lens with raw Crown pressure,” Vaska rasped from behind the stone stand, “the test tells us nothing. Against the actual sky-ring, spending broad Crown force in the open will only pull three pale blades onto your back scars at once. You must force the lens to split its classification across three incompatible intentions.”
“Hold your own lane,” Daro told Seyun and Nara from the western chalk triangle, his borrowed iron patrol sword still left on the low roof wall so he carried only his familiar bronze handle. “Don’t cover my flank, and don’t wait for my cue.”
