By the third afternoon, the mountain rain had softened to a steady drizzle that tapped against the cedar shingles of the hospice porch. Allowed out of the main ward for an hour of fresh air, Seyun sat on the near porch bench with his wool cloak draped over his slung left shoulder. Twenty paces down the porch, under the unrushed watch of Instructor Yul of Pine Ford, sat Chief Examiner Vaska Ren and former White Heron steward Osen Tal at a frame stand table piled with damp ledgers and wax slates.
Neither man wore iron fetters, and neither was locked in the turnip cellar with Reth Mal. The crisis reached its worst pitch—when Reth tried to convert Halin in the northern chamber. Then, when the Measure drove its anchor needle into Reth at the lower shrine, and when the four-breath window had to be pried open at the hub. Both Vaska and Osen had made concrete, costly choices to stop the slaughter. Osen had stepped between Reth’s guard and Mina, taking a deep blade cut across his right flank. Vaska had held the summit pillar himself so Nara Soth could walk free, shattered his own leftover voice breaking the lower shrine socket, and lost two fingers wedging the northern guide-rod seam.
