The shape of Daro’s sudden downward depth change was merciless.
By stepping inside the bind and dropping his wrist six inches below the center of the ash staff, Daro’s short Jade sword opened a razor-sharp lower plane that threatened two targets at once along the same slanted. Directly in front of the handle, the upper edge of the short blade was rising toward the underside of Seyun’s extended right forearm on the front grip of the staff. Three paces behind Seyun’s right hip, the projected line of that same dark Jade plane was slicing straight across the inner flat stone slab of the eastern pillar lane. The exact stone where Mina’s front foot was about to land with her basket of twenty baked-clay herb jars.
Inside Seyun’s chest, as he began the rapid shift from the high outer bind of Exchange 1 to this sudden close-range low threat at the start of Exchange 2, the closed third pathway beneath his scarred chest bone gave its certain half-beat clockwork catch.
His lungs pulled tight for a split second. And in that split second—just as Daro had promised before the bout began—the blade forced Seyun to choose between his own skin and his sister’s autonomy.
