A single pine-resin torch wedged into an iron bracket on the western wall cast flickering orange light across the frost-rimed flat stone slabs of the seal court. Alone between the scored granite pillars, Seyun planted his boots in Ash Reed’s third base stance and began a slow set of Returning Step pivots combined with Deeper Bronze Answering Edge shifts.
For the first two steps—drawing breath up his left side past Ilyra’s mark and pushing it across his shoulders toward Daro’s mark on the right—the breath flow flowed cleanly. Then came the third beat, where for the past several weeks his spirit vein cycle had dropped down the center line to rebound off the high-contrast Crown anchor beneath his chest bone.
Instead of an open silver circuit, the dropping breath met the flat, sealed wall of the new scar. Automatically, before his conscious mind could intervene, his chest muscle hitched in mid-turn, searching for the missing third post. The stutter robbed his front knee of its timing, dipping the tip of his ash staff two inches toward the stone.
A dull, streaming ache spread across his breastbone from the aborted shift. Seyun halted, grounded the staff butt beside his boot. Then he took two plain, uncirculated breaths until the burst eased. Sitting by the low fire bowl near the gate where he was keeping the night kettle warm, sixteen-year-old Halin looked up from his pulse notebook and pointed out the exact moment the staff tip had dropped.
