Halfway up the steep dark rock switchbacks leading to the sky-slit’s lower shrine, Chief Examiner Vaska Ren heard the crisp, clear tap of an iron spear metal ring on frost-crusted stone. He turned on the narrow ledge as the first grey light of the eighth dawn broke over the eastern crags. He saw Hall Mistress Soran climbing six paces behind him, her plain, hand-wrapped iron spear balanced across her shoulder.
Twenty winters ago on this exact mountain ridge—during the desperate northern seal expedition where the young Aperture Court and the chartered houses first met the rift of Heaven’s Measure—an uncontrolled pressure blast had burst the ears in Soran’s head. In the next breath of that same blast, Vaska Ren had thrown his own body and Jade mantle across her fallen form. He took the searing stone back-draft across his neck and throat cords.
Because he knew her damaged ears couldn’t catch his rasping, scar-thinned voice over the mountain wind, Vaska stepped sideways on the ledge so the rising dawn light fell squarely across his mouth. That let her read his lips.
Soran stopped beside him and asked plainly why he had walked past the seal court back gate without sounding his whistle or waking Daro Kesh and Seyun. Four armed men—two of them Jade officers—were climbing toward an active sky-slit channel.
