Joren stopped at the broken granite threshold of the seal court. He set his canvas bundle down on the step to catch his breath. Two months ago in Ash Reed’s winter check yard, Joren had stood in stitched inner-court robes. Meanwhile, Elder Hesh tried to bully Seyun into certifying a fraudulent Bronze breakthrough powered by a borrowed Aperture Court fire spirit. Now Joren wore raw, unwhitened hempen trousers patched at the knee, his wrists thin from weeks of spirit vein purging. His training stripped all the way back to honest early Coal. Yet he looked up at Seyun and Daro Kesh. Then, the brittle, defensive arrogance that had once hidden his fear was fully gone.
“Elder Hesh’s former base students sent these up from the lower drying sheds,” Joren said, untying the canvas bundle to reveal six braided strings of dried winter-gentian root and two bricks of clean spring salt for Mina’s hospice. “Senior Elder Tor Ves still has Hesh confined to the eastern wing. He has forbidden any student to wear Ash Reed colors on the northern ridge, so I came up the back goat track.”
“Mina will use every ounce of that gentian tonight,” Seyun said. He stepped down to help lift the salt bricks. “A villager from Miller’s Ford lost his hand when the first pale blade hit the hillside shrine this morning.”
