The lower practice yard behind the hospice grain shed was empty as dusk settled thick and blue across the valley. No Jade masters stood on its low earthen bank. No rival marks hummed with the closeness of a sworn challenger. Two cracked clay water jars stood ten paces apart on the hard-packed dirt to mark the corners of a foundation lane, and on a flat stone by the shed door sat the fifteen-breath brass sand glass Mina had lent him for the evening.
Seyun set his lantern beside the sand glass, stripped off his heavy outer cloak despite the biting chill, and stood between the two clay jars with his practice staff across his palms.
He didn’t close his eyes and picture Nara Soth standing opposite him, nor did he imagine Daro’s short blade or Ilyra’s spear. For weeks, every time he had practiced his shifts, he had relied on the three-sided pull of three active marks to yank his stance into posture at the end of a step. Now that the bottom point of that triangle was sealed beneath his breastbone for a full season, pretending the third cord was still tied to his ribs was just bad carpentry.
