A sharp, physical tug pulled inward behind the lower tip of Seyun’s breastbone, crisp enough to make his wind hitch against the willow splints on his left ribs. He dropped to one knee beside the stone base as the third inward return pathway folded its walls together and sealed shut. It had stood open since the night at the Hollow Summit.
Mina was beside him in half a stride. She pulled open the front lapel of his scorched practice coat and loosening the top tie of his undertunic. She pressed two fingers above and below his xyphoid joint padding to track the spirit vein contraction. Unlike the ninety-day turning to stone that followed a rival’s death, there was no cold turning to stone or rotting stiffening in the vein.
Instead, as the cool flare subsided, the metal silver curve of the Third Rival Mark faded from the skin. In its place lay a smooth, flat, pale scar—two inches long and the color of bleached river shell—marking where the third return circuit had closed.
Seyun stayed on one knee for three slow breaths. Meanwhile, Mina pressed a warm linen pad steeped in reed ash against his chest bone to ease the blood-vessel burst. Inside his chest, the silence was startling. For twenty-four hours, the approaching seven-dawn echo of Nara Soth’s qualitative Crown advance had filled his central spirit vein with the hum of an oncoming storm.
