At the western wall of the dark rock recess. There, the cold draft off the gorge curled around the granite lip, Hall Mistress Soran and Nara Soth looked down at the numeral 4 scratched beside the crossed-out 6 in Vaska Ren’s ash diagram. On the upper slope of the ridge, cutting two breaths off the lower guide-rod window was not a trivial shift. During a six-breath window, the upper sky-high blades would have been drawn downward for a full revolution to compensate for the lower short-circuit, giving the upper guard pair ample time to advance along the western granite spur. Inside a tighter four-breath window, the upper blades would snap back after only two-thirds of an arc. That left the western lip exposed to a sudden high-angle shear on the fourth beat.
In any sect hall governed by rank and vanity—or in the Aperture Court’s own check chambers—a specialist who reduced his promised hold-time by a third right before an assault would have been met with sneers, irritation, or a demand that he push past his limits through sheer willpower. Even among well-meaning fighters, fear often disguised itself as contempt for a teammate’s declared weakness.
Neither Nara Soth nor Hall Mistress Soran showed a trace of contempt. Having survived three hundred years as the Court’s captive anchor, Nara knew better than anyone alive how monstrously institutions behaved when they demanded infinite output from finite flesh. And having taught spear foundation for forty winters at White Heron Hall, Soran treated a…
