Banking off the western granite cliff where Nara Soth’s Crown pulse had broken its scissor-lock, the deflected pale blade arrowed straight across the thirty-pace dark rock basin into the eastern returning trough. There, Commander Keth Or and Daro Kesh were already contending with the eastern spoke’s surge as the central hub shifted its load away from the damaged first socket.
Commander Keth Or was no novice to high-pressure blades. He had reached Early Jade in the Aperture Court’s Retrieval Division and had spent twelve years leading strike teams across the northern passes. But six nights ago, when Keth had broken his own recovery seal to pull young Halin’s tally rod out of the lower shrine’s live fire bowl, the backlash had taken the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand down to the knuckle joints. With only his thumb, index, and middle finger left inside the leather grip-strap of his heavy thirty-two-inch recovery sword, Keth’s right wrist had a specific, unavoidable dead spot whenever a downward shear struck the outside third of his crossguard and twisted clockwise.
Heaven’s Measure knew that dead spot to the fraction of an inch. During the twelve nights in the seal court below, while Keth Or had practiced re-strapping his handle and blocking Daro’s practice cuts with a three-fingered grip, the overhead test lens had measured the exact torque threshold at which the leather strap slipped across his scarred outer palm.
