For three heartbeats after Seyun spoke, the wooden tip of Nara Soth’s walking staff remained resting lightly against the silver-inlaid spirit vein lines of the hanging stone tablet. Above the eastern crags, the first pale band of dawn grayed the mist above the seal court. That turned the frost on the twenty-four eight-sided pillars from black to dull silver.
By the western pillar, Mina slowly lowered the bone acupuncture case she had been holding ready in her right hand. She walked across the flat stone slabs to where Seyun stood outside the ring. She didn’t need to unwrap his coat to know what had happened. She laid two fingers against his wrist pulse for five beats, felt the cool, unstrained seventy-beat rhythm of his Deeper Bronze channels and the intact posture of his fifth and sixth ribs. Then she let out a quiet breath.
“Six breaths total,” Mina reported as medical witness, looking toward Daro Kesh and Nara. “No subclavian inflammation, no pleural catch, and no splint shifted weight. He stopped before the dive.”
The wooden metal ring of Nara Soth’s walking staff came to rest against the silver-inlaid characters of the suspended tablet. Then, the first pale silver light of dawn broke over the eastern crags and gleamed along the twenty-four eight-sided pillars. By the western lantern, Mina exhaled slowly. She tucked her emergency bone-splint roll back into her canvas belt. Then she walked over to check Seyun’s outward pulse where he stood two paces outside the ring.
