Seyun stepped into the center ring alone for a fifteen-breath test. Meanwhile, Ilyra and Daro moved to the chalk margin. Seyun looked at the concave quartz disk and its three linked bronze gimbal rings. He reasoned through what seemed, at first glance, like the obvious counter to an analytical machine.
The lens had caught Ilyra because her protective wake reliably left the eastern lane open. It had caught Daro because his rear heel shifted depth on every third beat. If the rig defeated them by reading the recurring structure of their intentions and timing, what would happen if a fighter entered the field and threw away structure altogether?
“Give me full hub rhythm on the glass,” Seyun called to Soran and Keth.
Seyun stepped into the center ring alone to test his idea of unmotivated. Then, patternless movement, Chief Examiner Vaska Ren knelt by the tripod brake lever with a skeptical crease between his brows. Vaska tapped his slate board once and wrote a single short question for Soran to see: HOW DOES HE ROOT?
Soran didn’t stop the test. An experienced teacher who had raised three ages of White Heron spear fighters. Then, she knew that some errors had to be felt in the hip bone before a student would truly let go of them. “Let him run the glass,” Soran said, wrapping her hand around the bronze handle.
