Mina kept her two fingers resting on his left outward pulse for three steady, even beats against the hiss of the oil lamp.
“Being frightened means your eyes are still working, Seyun,” she said, her voice quiet, fierce, and fully free of tremor in the small limewashed room. “If you walked in here tonight telling me that three exchanges of Early Jade made you unbeatable against a sky-rift, I’d have locked you in the corner room with Reth Mal until morning.”
She didn’t let go of his wrist. She leaned half an inch closer across the corner of the pine instrument table so her dark eyes held his at level height. She gave him the only martial command she had ever claimed the right to issue across all the years of his life:
“Now listen to me,” Mina said. “When you go up that granite seam with Vaska Ren tonight, you’ll not climb that mountain looking for a grand final stroke that pays off eleven years of Ash Reed insults in one dramatic flash. And if the first approach to the sockets stalls—or if the four-breath interval closes before your staff reaches the inner ring—you’ll not plant your boots in front of a pale blade and get yourself cut in half just so nobody can say Seyun backed down.”
