Inside the northern chamber, cold morning light slanted down through the fractured roof vault, lighting up the exact shape of the Twelfth Night’s final four breaths. Across the center of the stone floor ran the deep slanted fissure where Hall Mistress Soran and Nara Soth had turned the collapsing wave into empty bedrock rather than let it seek a living chest. Scattered around the depression lay the curved, yard-long crescents of the pale blade ring. It was dull slate-gray and coated in limestone grit where they had fallen inward. Just then, the return failed.
At the very heart of the sunken ring sat the lower returning hub.
Ilyra walked to the lip of the central pit and pointed down for Masters Bren and Yul. There, exactly where Vaska Ren’s plain iron wedge had pried open the side guide-rod seam and where Ilyra herself had pinned the lower blade with her short spearhead before withdrawing, the thick bronze-and-iron collar of the inner hub lay cloven cleanly in two. The cut didn’t run straight across the metal like a brute axe blow. It curved halfway around the hard outer rim and then turned sharply inward through the hidden test joint. The clear physical signed name of Seyun’s Jade Answering Edge revising its route on the second breath of contact.
