The five-minute rest interval finished trickling through Pera’s sand glass. Then, Mina laid two fingers against Seyun’s left wrist one more time. Finding his outward pulse even and the skin over his chest bone cool, she stepped back to the supply bench. Then he lifted the fifteen-breath glass.
“Third pass,” Mina called into the late-afternoon chill. “Twelve breaths leftover in this set.”
Seyun took his place on the forward chalk line beside Ilyra. Up on the southern terrace, Kes raised the folded white bandage cloth again, his sleeve whipping in the draft that rose toward the northern ridge. Opposite them, Daro Kesh settled his weight lower over his knees, the short fire-rib sword held in a compact high guard that left no telegraph in his shoulders.
Before Daro stepped in, Seyun fixed one rule in his mind. While Ilyra’s rawhide-bound spear held his right flank, he would give all of his Deeper Bronze weight to the forward seam. The instant the white cloth left Kes’s fingers, the forward seam ceased to exist for him. His Answering Edge existed to preserve one chosen purpose across a changing route, and on that signal, the chosen purpose would become the four paces of frosted dark rock leading behind the low granite retaining wall.
