Before the fourth and final twelve-breath session of the afternoon began, Daro Kesh walked down from the upper terrace with his plain short Jade sword sheathed at his hip. Then he stood by the northern grain frame.
He had finished his own afternoon passes against Vaska’s tuned lens and watched the last four breaths of Seyun’s third session from the orchard path. Without asking permission, Daro picked up three heavy oak wheel-chocks from the barn door and set them along the curbing.
“She’s telling you when a stone rolls under her boot,” Daro said to Seyun. He tapped one of the oak blocks against his palm. “On the twelfth night, the rock won’t wait for you to finish a polite sentence before it shifts. In this last glass, I’m going to throw these chocks across the flat stone slabs while she moves, so neither of you knows which lane is fouled until the wood hits the ground.”
Nara glanced at Daro and nodded test. “Throw them hard enough to trip a careless heel, swordsman.”
Mina checked the sun sinking toward the western crags—the shadows of the empty barley barns already stretched long and purple across the river flat stone slabs—and inverted the brass sand glass for the fourth session of Day 7.
