Agreeing on a boundary in chalk took five minutes. Teaching muscles and spirit veins to obey that boundary under live Jade sword pressure proved far harder. By mid-afternoon, Daro Kesh and his student Kes joined Seyun and Ilyra in the practice ring to test the pullback protocol. Mina sat on the western mounting block with her fifteen-breath sand glass. Meanwhile, Kes climbed three steps up the southern terrace holding a folded square of white bandage cloth in his raised right hand.
“The cloth is the hillside trail,” Daro said, rolling his wrist until the short fire-rib sword settled flat along his forearm. “I’ll press both of you as a single returning plane. Whenever Kes drops the cloth—whether on the first breath, the sixth. Or the eleventh—Ilyra breaks off toward the western steps without finishing her stroke. Seyun has to reach the low granite wall before my flat touches his jacket.”
Before Mina flipped the brass sand glass for the first live pullback pass, Daro Kesh walked down the two chalk lines Seyun had drawn on the dark rock. She tested the footing with the heel of his boot. “Four paces from the forward seam to the low granite wall,” Daro observed. He looked back at Seyun. “When Ilyra peels off on Kes’s flag, you have roughly one and a half heartbeats before my short blade fills the space her spear vacates. If you try to trade a parting blow with me in the center before you move your feet, you’ll…
