Seeing Ilyra driven back across the eastern chalk, Daro Kesh stepped laterally across the center ring to take the lens’s weight off her flank. His plain short sword—forged from the three spirit-hardened fire ribs with no fuller and no ornament—settled into a low, compact guard two handbreadths in front of his belt buckle.
Stepping across the center flat stone slabs to cover Ilyra’s recovery, Daro Kesh felt the cold draft from the spinning quartz lens tug at the hem of his black wool tunic. In his right hand, the short Jade-compatible sword forged from Ash Reed’s three fire ribs felt compact and alive. Unlike his old long Bronze blade this shorter steel had been shaped specifically for the lesson he had learned in the northern chamber when Kes’s side-angle interruption saved their lives. never pretend there is only one true road. It had relied on reach and a single unbending dark plane.
“It read her lane because she left the same hall open twice in the same spot,” Daro called back to Ilyra as he squared his shoulders toward the tripod. “Watch how the gimbal rings act when I hold both the high west door and the low center door open at once.”
