Dusk on the twelfth night didn’t fall from the sky like ordinary winter darkness. It rose out of the mountain’s shadow. Meanwhile, the roof overhead tore open to a cold, unnatural noon.
Six hours ahead of the dawn that Vaska Ren’s original Court tables had predicted for the completion of the lunar cycle, the pale white rent above the northern ridge widened across the stars with a deep, grinding shudder that shook every loose slate on the hospice roof.
Standing on the broken watching low roof wall of the abandoned seal court with Nara Soth’s blood-stained ash staff resting against his left shoulder, Seyun felt the shaking travel up through the granite blocks into the soles of his boots. Beside him stood Hall Mistress Soran, voiceless Vaska Ren with his linen throat wrap gleamed white in the sky-glare, Daro Kesh, and Commander Keth Or.
Thirty-six hours of strict rest under Mina’s watch since yesterday morning’s breakthrough had refilled Seyun’s lower dantian and cooled the four-inch sword cut under the flat splint bandage on his right forearm. Beneath his left trouser leg, the five black silk stitches on his outer calf pulled with only a clean, familiar tightness. Just then, he shifted his weight. Inside his chest, the newly opened Early Jade pathways connecting his left and right collarbone marks sat clear as mountain spring water. Bounded by the pale reconciliation scar below his chest bone, good for three to five intense exchanges at a time before needing rest, and fully…
