No sudden surge of righteous strength arrived to reward Seyun for refusing the hub’s counterfeit echo. Instead, as the backup breath flow through Place I and Place II went dark behind his clamped collarbone gates, a wave of heavy, leaden fatigue slammed into his shoulders and knees. That forced him to catch his weight on the iron metal ring of his ash staff. With his third return pathway below the chest bone already sealed into a pale scar since his honest reconciliation with Nara Soth six nights earlier, shutting down the two upper rivalry loops left his Early Jade running on a single, narrow central spirit vein trunk. The breath in his lungs felt suddenly thin and expensive, like winter air drawn through a reed at the top of a pass.
Every wound that the hub’s soothing imitation had masked a breath ago returned at once with doubled sharpness. The stitched shard-cut across his left calf pulled hot and tight against the linen bandage. The short-sword gash along his right forearm throbbed beneath his wrist strap. The mended fracture line in his fifth rib bit sharply into his side as his chest heaved against the cold air. Beside the eastern wall, Daro Kesh saw Seyun’s knee hit the stone and shifted his left shoulder half an inch to keep the lower trough covered. Meanwhile, Ilyra kept her short spearhead angled toward the open slope without crowding Seyun’s breathing space. They gave him the respect of not rushing in to lift…
