Frost still furred the eight-sided granite pillars of the seal court when Mina knelt beside Seyun on the eastern flat stone slabs before sunrise. Five full days had passed since Commander Keth Or’s spatial squeezing stroke fractured Seyun’s fifth and sixth ribs in the northern chamber. And seven dawns had turned since Daro Kesh shattered his Bronze longsword in that same room to reach Early Jade. With the collar of Seyun’s shirt folded back to his waist in the biting mountain air, Mina pressed her warm thumbs along the callus ridge forming over the two left ribs while listening to him draw three deep breaths.
“The stringy bridge across both fracture lines has set,” Mina said, re-pinning a lighter two-slat linen support band around his lower chest instead of the rigid four-slat splint he had worn since the summit. “You can rotate your torso thirty degrees without the bone ends grating. That means controlled staff exchanges in the court are allowed today. It doesn’t mean you have Jade spirit veins. It doesn’t mean you can take a direct body blow.”
“I know,” Seyun said. He pulled his shirt and scorched grey wool coat back over his shoulders. Across the court, Daro Kesh stood beside student Kes and Ilyra, his new twenty-two-inch plain short sword hanging at his belt and a plain wooden practice sword in his hand. On the southern low roof wall, Nara Soth leaned on her walking staff watching in silence.
