The ending of the third bond cost Seyun more than the future promise of a Crown echo. He walked twenty paces across the frost-whitened flat stone slabs from the central pillars to retrieve his ash staff from the western rack. He felt a dull, dragging tightness across the center of his chest with every fourth step. When he lifted the staff. Then he ran a single, routine Deeper Bronze breath flow from his dantian through his shoulders to test his balance, sweat broke out right away across his forehead.
By the time the breath returned from his wrists toward his collarbones, his chest muscle hitched against the sealed door beneath his chest bone. He had to lower the butt of his ash staff to the stone after twelve breaths. A set he had held effortlessly for twenty breaths the evening before.
Mina walked over from the stone base, took him firmly by the elbow. Then she sat him down on the low dark rock bench inside the side nook. Unrolling her test chart, she checked his outward pulse at both wrists at the same time, then pressed two fingers beneath his jaw to time the neck-artery return.
After two full minutes of quiet counting, Mina stated the two body facts that governed his post-reconciliation body. First, not a single martial capability Seyun had already earned had vanished or regressed. His Returning Step, his Dual-Route Flame, his Early Bronze Answering Edge, and the Deeper Bronze adaptability he had proved two days…
