The first cycle of the tuned pressure lens went off with textbook care.
As the three pale planes of refracted force swept outward from the concave quartz disk with a low, grinding hum, Ilyra stepped half a pace ahead on the right flank. Her rawhide-bound White Heron spear flashed in a crisp slanted arc, her Early Jade Responsive Protected Space catching the first plane and branching its force upward and to the west so the eastern chalk lane—representing the village escape trail—remained fully clear behind her.
During those first four breaths of Pass One, the coordination they had drilled over the past seventy-two hours felt like a well-oiled waterwheel turning in a millrace. The first pale plane of refracted force snapped out from the spinning quartz disk. Then, Ilyra didn’t have to look back to know where the eastern escape chalk line ran. Her boots knew the measurement by heart, leaving a four-foot hall on the east fully untouched.
On the left, as Daro Kesh’s fire-rib short sword divided the lower plane across two shallow tracks, the center seam opened like a parted curtain.
Gliding through that curtain on his Returning Step as Kes dropped the white practice cloth on the terrace at the end of Beat Three, Seyun felt the tail end of Daro’s split plane carry his ash staff forward to tap the lower bronze tripod leg with economical care.
