Full night had settled over the shepherd hospice, and only the iron fire bowl in the lee of the courtyard wall pushed back the mountain dark. Inside the sheds, the twelve freed testers and the wounded were already asleep. Out by the fire, only Seyun and Bel Sar remained on the low cedar logs, their cloaks drawn close against the frost. Meanwhile, the stone spring-ash healing wrap radiated a steady, soothing heat against Seyun’s left ribs.
Out by the courtyard fire bowl, the night air was so clear and cold that the smoke from the pine logs rose straight up like a grey pillar before bending northward toward the pale glow on the ridge. Inside the clinic shed behind them, a single animal fat candle still burned where Mina and Halin were finishing the evening pulse checks on Senn and Osen Tal. Everywhere else in the shepherd hospice, only the quiet breathing of sleeping porters and testers could be heard.
Bel Sar used his pine stick to roll a glowing knot of resin to the center of the iron grate, warming his thick, knuckle-scarred hands over the flame before he spoke of Senior Elder Tor Ves.
“You have to understand how quiet the mountain at Ash Reed has been since the morning you, Joren, and Master Daro walked down with those three fire ribs,” Bel said, his low voice blending with the crackle of the pine pitch. “For twenty years, the elders ran that sect on one simple rule: keep…
